MadSci Network: Medicine |
ACCESSION NUMBER: 1985-01286-001 DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal Article AUTHOR: Howarth, E.; Hoffman, M. S. AFFILIATION: U Alberta, Edmonton, Canada TITLE: A multidimensional approach to the relationship between mood and weather. SOURCE: British Journal of Psychology. Vol 75(1), Feb 1984, 15-23. Well, that is and extremely broad question. There are certainly many ways in which the weather might affect people's behavior, and behavior affects health. In recent years, a new category of depression has been related to amount of light people are exposed to, which is related to season. In the winter time, certain people are more prone to become depressed, and we think it has something to do with not getting enough light exposure. When I checked the psychological literature for information about mood and weather,only 7 articles came up between the years of 1984 and 1998. I am including the abstract of one study, which you might find interesting, below. If you're interested, you can get the full article for yourself, which will describe in detail exactly what the authors did and what they discovered. It will also include references to other articles on the topic. AUTHOR: Howarth, E.; Hoffman, M. S. AFFILIATION: U Alberta, Edmonton, Canada TITLE: A multidimensional approach to the relationship between mood and weather. SOURCE: British Journal of Psychology. Vol 75(1), Feb 1984, 15-23. ISSN/ISBN: 0007-1269 LANGUAGE: English ABSTRACT: 10 mood variables were related to 8 weather LANGUAGE: English ABSTRACT: 10 mood variables were related to 8 weather variables in a multidimensional study in which 24 male university students filled out a mood questionnaire over 11 consecutive days. The mood variables included concentration, cooperation, anxiety, potency, aggression, depression, sleepiness, skepticism, control, and optimism. The weather variables included hours of sunshine, precipitation, temperature, wind direction, wind velocity, humidity, change in barometric pressure, and absolute barometric pressure. Humidity, temperature, and hours of sunshine had the greatest effect on mood. High levels of humidity lowered scores on concentration while increasing reports of sleepiness. Rising temperatures lowered anxiety and skepticism mood scores. Humidity was the most significant predictor in regression and canonical correlation analysis. Implications for school and office performance that highlight the importance of humidity as a weather variable are discussed. (25 ref) ((c) 1997 APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved). KEY PHRASE: weather variables, moods, male college students, implications for school & office performance MAJOR DESCRIPTORS: Atmospheric Conditions; Emotional States MINOR DESCRIPTORS: Adulthood; Job Performance; School Learning CLASSIFICATION CODE: 3120 Personality Traits & Processes POPULATION: Human; Adulthood (18 yrs & older) FORM/CONTENT TYPE: Empirical Study
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