An Iowan basically my entire life, I should be used to the fluctuating temperatures... the frigid, the unbearable humid heat, and everything in between. But I am not. My ideal climate would be spring-ish - a light jacket and jeans (the type of weather we had just a few days ago).
During the peak of summer and the dead of winter (like, say, now), I find myself not wanting to leave the regulated temperatures of inside my home. Yesterday, for example, I had to jump start myself to get to our class, as I was so content being inside where it wasn't blowing frigidity into my face. Yes, I am a total weather-picky wuss. However, there are very few places that don't have weather problems. Seattle, for example, is gloomy and rainy almost all year long... in fact, there are myths that the weather actually attributes to its high suicide rate (again, I'm not sure if that's true or not either).
So, here I sit, knowing that I need to be leaving soon to make it to my next class. But, after venturing outside to let my dog out, I'm debating whether I really would like to get bundled up and walk across a slippery, cold campus for 50 minutes of taking notes and being lectured.
Does weather really impact mood and motivation? In my opinion, absolutely. I would be much more prone to attend class (or go anywhere at all) if I knew I wasn't going to freeze, sweat, or being rained upon. This piqued my interest to research the effects that weather and climate have on people.
In The Effects of Weather on Daily Mood: A Multilevel Approach, they conduct a study to examine the widely-accepted belief that weather changes peoples' moods. In the study, participants first were given a questionnaire to measure a variety of factors - extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experiences, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Participants then began recording positive affect (i.e. active, alert, determined...), negative affect (i.e. afraid, upset, irritable...), and tiredness (i.e. sleepy, tired, sluggish, drowsy...) on a daily basis through questionnaires. The researchers recorded daily weather reports, and matched them by zip code to each participant. They focused upon temperature, sunlight, and wind power. They used a multilevel approach, in which identified the main effects of weather on mood, and also controlled for individual differences among the participants (i.e. personality, differences in each individual, and demographics). In general, the researchers found that sunlight has no significant influence on positive mood, but does affect tiredness (which they recognize could be due to a decreased amount of Vitamin D3, which changes serotonin levels). Temperature, wind power, and sunlight, do, however affect negative mood.
There are way more findings in this article, but I wanted to provide you with just a brief summary. If this interests you, I highly encourage you to read the article. I found it on PsycArticles.
Denissen, J. J. A., Butalid, L., Penke, L., & van Aken, M. A. G. (2008). The effects of
weather on daily mood: A multilevel approach. Emotion, 8(5), 662-667.
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