Limited Social Interaction during Urban Extreme Weather Exacerbate Emotion-related Behaviors Dysfunction

Extreme weather events not only threaten cardiovascular and respiratory health, but also are closely related to mental and behavioural disorders including anxiety, depression, and dementia. However, the increasingly frequent urban extreme weather events further exacerbate mental health by disrupting residents’ outdoor social interaction (social capital), and this non-directly associated threat multiplier risk still remains a gap. Previous studies have predominantly examined physical vulnerabilities such as infrastructure quality, urban heat islands, and disaster preparedness, while largely overlooking the psychosocial consequences of limited social interaction during weather extremes, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. Using data from a multi-city social perception survey (n = 8,148) and a behavioral experiment (n = 1,879), we employ gradient boosting decision tree and supplementary control experiment to provide empirical evidence that limited social interaction during extreme weather is significantly associated with heightened emotion-related behavioral dysfuncton(R² = 0.79, p < 0.001). Further subgroup analysis reveals that individuals with lower socioeconomic status demonstrate greater emotional susceptibility and reduced coping capacity under disrupted social engagement, indicating inequality-driven psychological vulnerability. The findings highlight the urgent need to integrate psychosocial dimensions into climate resilience planning and provide a scalable framework for embedding equity-focused considerations into future urban climate mitigation policies and design.