New research from the University of Melbourne and Monash University shows high overnight temperatures lead to poorer decision-making with climate change exacerbating the effects.
The study titled ‘Temperature’s Toll on Decision-Making' was published in The Economic Journal by the Royal Economic Society.
Key findings include:
- Night-time heat significantly increases the likelihood of bad decisions and impatience.
- The negative effects on decision-making are primarily driven by night-time temperatures and not daytime temperatures.
- Evidence suggests that decreased sleep quality due to higher overnight temperatures affects cognition the following day, particularly math skills, which are critical for decision-making.
- The effects were largest for economically disadvantaged households and in areas with low rates of air-conditioning. This suggests that poorer households, who are less able to mitigate their exposure to extreme outdoor temperatures, are also the most negatively affected by heat in terms of the quality of their decision-making.
The researchers made the findings by comparing data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, which contains measures of cognition, sleep deprivation and emotional affect, and weather data from NASA.
The authors were Dr Michelle Escobar Carias (Department of Economics, University of Melbourne), Professor David Johnston (Centre for Health Economics, Monash University), Dr Rachel Knott (Centre for Health Economics, Monash University), and Dr Rohan Sweeney (Centre for Health Economics, Monash University).
Quotes attributable to Dr Michelle Escobar Carias, postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer at the University of Melbourne's Department of Economics:
“Climate change is an issue that affects us all and has already substantially increased average night-time temperatures in particular, as well as the frequency of extreme temperature events.”
“We investigated whether decision-making could be temporarily affected by short-term spikes in outdoor temperature in Indonesia, a tropical country where heat is ever-present. The data from Indonesia raised another interesting question about human’s ability to adapt to heat in settings like tropical countries where heat is quickly approaching the known limits of human survival.”
“While we use data from Indonesia, our findings are relevant to Australia because we are also experiencing more episodes of extreme heat as well as higher nighttime temperatures, and many Australians cannot afford the luxury of air-conditioning during our cost-of-living crisis.”
Media contact: FBE-media@unimelb.edu.au +61 3 8344 9634