I read an older Psyblog about how weather affects people's moods. I found this article to be interesting because previous to reading this article I thought that the weather did affect people's attitudes. To put it plainly; I was wrong.
The article states that through a number of studies that were performed the weather has a very small impact on people's moods. The studies focused on both good weather and bad weather and found that people on average were just as likely to be upset on a good weathered day than on a dreary one. In fact, the study showed that weather has such a minute impact on our attitudes that it really cannot be considered a factor. With that being said, the weather does have an effect on negativity. If a person is already being negative and the weather is dreary or nasty outside than they are more likely going to think more negatively. (The article did cite however that the majority of us have very indoor lives; so this may have had an effect on the study itself.) Overall, weather does not have a significant impact on a person's mood.
The article also briefly discussed Seasonal Affective Disorder also known as SAD. This disorder causes certain individuals to get depressed during the seasons. The seasons can vary from person to person. Typically when you think of this disorder it is associated that winter= sad and summer = happiness (this is not the case for everyone). This disorder is not caused by the weather but by the seasons and therefore does not fall into the data previously stated above. The vast majority of people do not suffer from this condition.
I liked this article. While I find the results of the studies to be accurate; I wish the participants would have spent more time outdoors to see if the weather (or the time spent outside) truly had a factor on a person's mood. I also liked the point in the article stating that bad weather has the ability to increase a person negative thinking (this happens to me during the winter).
Please, let me know what your opinions are on whether weather affects people's moods or is it just a coincidence.
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I'm not so sure i agree with this study. I know that when I get up in the morning and am in a neutral mood leaning towards the happy side and look outside the sky affects how I think the day will be. If it is a dark cloudy day it seems to make my day more negative. When it is sunny out it makes me want to go outside and play in the sun.
ReplyDeleteI also disagree with the study. The mood sems to effect me. Like Cassandra said if its sunny my day is better. If it is cloudy or rainy it is not a fun day for me. So i beleive that weather does effect us.
ReplyDeleteI'm not entirely sure what I think about this study... I read this article a while ago and I kind of thought that it made some good points. I do agree that if the weather is cloudy or icky, I tend to be a little agitated. However, I like rain, so when its raining I tend to be in a good mood while others tend to not. But I will also say that I'm not a very happy person on all sunny days either. I can recall a few sunny days when I was in a bad mood....
ReplyDeleteWhen I am in a good mood and it is crapy out I'm pretty sure that I get into a worst mood then I was in. I can see how if you are already mad or negative that the weather being crapy would make it worse and sometimes ya if you have good weather then sometimes you can get grumpy also but it is more likly for me to get grumpy if it is bad weather. So I would have to agree with Cassandra on this one, I don't think I fully agree with this study either.
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