Journal Article
Don’t sweat it: Ambient temperature does not affect social behavior and perception
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Behavioral Economics
Literature suggests that human perception and behavior vary with physical temperature. We conducted an experiment to study how different ambient temperatures impact social behavior and perception: subjects undertook a series of tasks measuring various aspects of social behavior and perception under three temperature conditions (cold vs. optimal vs. warm). Despite well-established findings on the effects of temperature, our data suggest that ambient temperature has no relevant influence on social behavior and perception. We corroborate our finding of a null effect using equivalence testing and provide a discussion considering recent failed replication attempts in this field of research and related studies on heat and violence.
