How much does the weather affect our mood and behavior?

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

-John Ruskin

Source

Of course he thinks that but I think it is a bit more complex than that? Let's find out!

Story Time...

Once me and @sjennon were in the train and I was especially chatty. It was a sunny day and the warm sunlight was touching my face through the window just enough to drive me to ecstasy. Of course I did not notice this change of behavior, but @sjennon pointed it out and I realized my mood gets significantly better as the weather gets better.

Source

While this seems like a small thing, there have been thousands of studies showing different and more drastic impact of weather on the behavior of people. Did you know that there is a literally a condition called SAD (Seasonal affective disorder ). While this is rare but people who have this affliction experience significant drop in their mood and their well being and this is not just for the people who have this affliction. Even for the people who do not have this might experience an unexplained moodiness. Source

Can it lead to an increase in violence?

You bet! Source: "Analyzing data from 60 earlier studies, Solomon Hsiang from the University of California, Berkeley, found that warmer temperatures and extremes in rainfall can substantially increase the risk of many types of conflict. For every standard deviation of change, levels of interpersonal violence, such as domestic violence or rape, rise by some 4 percent, while the frequency of intergroup conflict, from riots to civil wars, rise by 14 percent. Global temperatures are expected to rise by at least two standard deviations by 2050, with even bigger increases in the tropics."

Kinda makes sense as to why will the third world war ever happen ;-) Sorry, not funny. Or you know, why the crime rate in India is so higher than Europe. I mean it is definitely not the main reason, but it probably does account for 2% of the reason.

Does change in weather parameters like sunlight, temperature, humidity etc affect everyone?

There was a study published in the journal Emotion where they took several candidates, some already had a positive mood and some had a negative mood going on. They were subjected to six main types of weather parameters namely (temperature, wind power, sunlight, precipitation, air pressure, and photoperiod. One significant finding was that the change in these parameters did not quite affect the people who were already in a positive mood. On the other hand each one of these parameters had a significant and different impact on the people who had a negative mood already.

Maybe it is okay to conclude that weather is more likely to mess with you or impact you any significant way if you are already in a negative mood. Sometimes we do not even realize that we are not in the best of spirits till something awesome like sunshine comes along.

Of course many studies might say that matured people do not let weather affect their behavioral aspects or mood in any way but hey, beaches can put a smile on any face in the world. Unless you are a total weirdo. Or you know, if you are locked up in Guantanamo Bay. Cause, well, prison you know.

Something to think about?

---

^{Written by @things, 2018. All rights reserved.}

---