responses of high FNE people from flight to fight. That is, hot tem- peratures may lessen high FNE people's characteristic passivity as aggressive action tendencies become activated. Thus, we predicted that a heat prime would cause rejected people high in FNE to display signs of aggressive cognition and to behave aggressively. This prediction is in line with our overarching hypothesis that the effect of heat on hostility would be potentiated by the presence of agonistic social motives.
Instead of responding agonistically to rejection, people low in FNE generally respond by displaying socially optimistic and affiliative motives (Mallott et al., 2009; Maner et al., 2007). Our conceptual framework implies that heat evokes hostility mainly when one is experiencing agonistic social motivations. Thus, heat would not be expected to elicit hostility for individuals low in FNE, for whom rejection evokes a desire for social connection rather than resentment and a desire to withdraw or lash out. In sum, experiences of rejection are highly motivating, and the specific social motivations that result from rejection depend in part on people's levels of FNE. Whereas people high in FNE tend to display agonistic social motivations following rejection, people low in FNE do not. As a result, we expected to observe especially strong hostile responses to heat among high FNE individuals after rejection.