Research
Destructive Behavior, Judgment, and Economic Decision-making under Thermal Stress
Almås, I., Auffhammer, M., Bold, T., Bolliger, I., Dembo, A., Hsiang, S. M., … & Pickmans, R. (2025). Destructive Behaviour, Judgement, and Economic Decision-making under Thermal Stress. The Economic Journal, ueae116. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueae116
Accumulating evidence indicates that environmental temperature substantially affects economic outcomes and violence, but the reasons for this linkage are only partially understood. We study whether temperature directly influences behaviour by evaluating the effect of thermal stress on multiple dimensions of economic decision-making, judgement and destructive behaviour with 2,000 participants in Kenya and the United States who were randomly assigned to different temperatures in a laboratory. The main finding is that most major dimensions of economic decision-making are unaffected by temperature. We also find that heat significantly increases willingness to voluntarily destroy other participants’ assets in the Kenyan sample.