Sigh:
So how come many of us are convinced the weather
affects mood? Denissen et al. (2008) suggest that we may be responding
to a culturally transmitted idea that weather affects mood. Effectively
we think the weather has significant effects on our mood because
everyone else thinks and says it does.
We may also pay a
disproportionate amount of attention to a very small number of people
who really do have what has become known as Seasonal Affective Disorder
(SAD). These people report that their moods are very strongly
associated with the weather. While it might be assumed that this
connection is the same for everyone: winter = sad, summer = happy, the
data collected by Denissen et al. (2008) doesn't support this. Instead
it suggests there are just as many people with SAD who become sadder in
the summer and cheer up in the winter. But for the vast majority of us
there is no effect.