When the outside temperatures rise, people tend to lose their cool.
When the outside temperatures rise, people tend to lose their cool. That connection is well known, but a Washington State University-led study found that emotional responses to heat are highly individualized and only one factor moderated it — age.
Overall, researchers found that the actual temperature at which the majority of people felt uncomfortable during a hot summer depended on the individual. When they did feel discomfort, it often negatively affected their mood. The exception: older adults on average became more uncomfortable in high heat more quickly, but it did not affect their mood as much as it did younger adults.
“Older adults in general have worse thermoregulation, so this makes them more vulnerable to heat — so that was not surprising — but what was really interesting is that on average, older adults showed low levels of negative emotional states, even though they experienced more discomfort in the heat,” said Kim Meidenbauer, a WSU psychology researcher and lead author on the study published in the journal BMC Psychology.
Read more at Washington State University
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