Why the Weather Doesn't Affect Our Mood Very Much

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As we move toward winter and colder temperatures in the northern hemisphere, many people are happy to beat the heat and enjoy a cool and cozy winter wonderland. And then there’s another group wistfully looking back on the sunshine and warm weather that we’ve now left behind.

It’s not news that people differ in their seasonal preferences, mention that they “run hot” or “run cold,” or have strong opinions on what their ideal temperature is. What might be more surprising is that the subjective experience of the weather is what affects us emotionally, with the objective conditions playing a very small role.

A recent study my colleagues and I published in BMC Psychology linked the objective, highly localized weather conditions to individuals’ perceptions of their environments (“How hot or cold is it?”), how comfortable the temperature was, and how they felt in the moment. Study participants completed a number of these surveys on a smartphone in outdoor environments during the summertime, and they had GPS and time information, so the objective weather conditions could be linked to the time and place they completed the survey.

We expected that there may be a reasonably strong relationship between actual weather conditions and whether or not people reported it being hot or cold, comfortable or uncomfortable. And we were quite wrong!

If we looked at the relationship across all of the people in the study, our results showed a pretty weak relationship between the actual weather and perceptions of temperature or comfort. Even on days when it was over 90 degrees F, some people were perfectly comfortable, and on days when it was 73 degrees F and sunny, some people were uncomfortable and found it too cold!

More importantly, we did see a relationship between temperature discomfort and negative emotions—if people reported feeling uncomfortably hot, they felt more tired, distressed, and generally unhappy. However, we only see this relationship if people said that the heat made them uncomfortable—which means on a 95-degree day, plenty of people said it was very hot but they weren’t uncomfortable, and therefore, the scorching heat didn’t seem to harm them.

On some level, it’s not surprising that discomfort should lead to more negative emotions. Discomfort is by definition not an enjoyable experience. What is more important and more surprising to note is that these individual differences in comfort and perceived temperature are much larger and more important than the actual weather conditions themselves.

This opens up interesting questions about why people differ so much in their perceptions and comfort. There’s a lot of evidence that physiology plays a role—depending on body composition, age, physical fitness, hormones, etc., you may thermoregulate better or run hotter/colder. But that is only one piece of the puzzle. It seems like personality traits might play a role. Preliminary results from my lab and other research have identified that trait neuroticism may amplify the relationship between temperature discomfort and negative emotions. Ultimately, this is one area where we still know very little, but is an exciting opportunity for additional scientific exploration.

This also means that if you disagree with your roommates or coworkers about the thermostat setting this winter, you can take solace in knowing that there’s no “correct” temperature; it’s all subjective anyway!

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