Is Moderate Climate the Matter Over Mind?

Is Moderate Climate the Matter Over Mind?

"Growing up in temperatures that are close to the psycho-physiological comfort optimum encourages individuals to explore the outside environment, thereby influencing their personalities."
Study, Nature

"Overall, it is interesting that although people instinctively believe that better weather results in better moods, the evidence for this assumption is weak. In general, the effects of "better weather" on people's feelings are modest, inconsistent, and at times counter to commonly-held expectations. Moreover, warm weather seems associated with breakups and more antisocial behavior. Yet there can be benefits, not only directly for people who suffer from SAD, but via indirect effects when people get out in nature and exercise more. As with many assumptions in life, presumed cause-effect relations can be wrong. Often, the key to experiencing benefits depends on what people do with their opportunities rather than whether they simply have them in the first place."

Allen R McConnell Ph.D., Psychology Today

Does climate determine personality? I am not sure."
"But from my own research, I do know that weather and climate affect mood, and this may be reflected in some of the [study] authors' assessments."
Alan Stewart, professor of psychology, University of Georgia

So, does geographical climate have an effect on forming peoples' personalities? As in making them happier, more satisfied people, easier to get along with? If, that is, they happen to live where the climate is moderate, not given to extreme swings of warm and cold. We commonly think of people from the Nordic countries as being slightly morose in temperament, and people living say, in Hawaii, light-hearted and stable. These are impressions, they don't reflect actual scientific measurements of human nature being formed by prevailing weather patterns.

People living in northern climes, it is true, tend to fixate on the weather because they live with extremes of temperature and those extremes impose on their style of living, from travelling and communicating to recreational opportunities. In Canada, as an example, there is an outdoor winter culture that impresses people to get out in the snow and the cold because not only is it beautiful in appearance, but these conditions lend themselves to enjoying and taking part in winter recreational habits available to anyone -- and staying fit in the process.

Human beings tend to become bored with any kind of environment that seems static, unchanging. The change in seasons is a natural, unending ritual that brings a changing landscape introducing another chapter to the year's seasons, resulting in anticipation and appreciation of season-appropriate activities. If the transitions are to relatively moderate, albeit vastly different seasons they're more than tolerable. If the transitions herald extremes of alternate weather landscapes they can seem intrusive and unwanted.

If we take a geography like Hawaii as ideal, however, why is it that according to the U.S. Census Bureau there are more people leaving the state daily than there are those moving into it. While the weather may be great, the geological beauty impressive, the unemployment rate low with a robust labour market, and few concerns about cyclones hitting states like Florida, it is an enormously expensive place to live in. So while people living there may be happily satisfied with the climate, they are dissatisfied with the opportunities to forge ahead financially.

And quite the same can be said for Canada's Pacific coast province of British Columbia, a spectacular geography, never too hot and sun-baked in the summer, and with mild winters where snow falls for the most part in the interior and coastal mountains and cities like Vancouver enjoy moderate climatic features. The fly in that particular urban ointment is spectacularly high real estate costs, so much so that even with well-remunerated employment few residents can dream of owning their own homes in the urban core.

Tokyo's situation is much the same, with weather very similar to that of Georgia, for example, where a snowfall is rare, and when it does come down, it is languid and scarce and quickly dissipates as the unusual cold that brought it in leaves. On the other hand, summer heat and humidity in Tokyo can make life uncomfortable for those who prefer dryer, less humid and hot atmospheres. And again, like Hawaii and Vancouver, home ownership and rental costs are phenomenally expensive.

So what does make people happy and content? The researchers in the most recent study cited above conclude that in places where the comfort of warmth prevails for most of the year with an average high temperature about 21C people tend to be agreeable, open and emotionally stable growing up and maturing in a warm climate, as compared, for example to being raised and coming to maturity in Marquette, Michigan with its average high temperature of 10C.

Research has previously linked personality to geography; as in "Midwest nice", and "New York abrasive". But while it can be true that regions appear to have group personalities with social cultures that are recognizably linked to geographies, there is little proof of cause and effect. Yet according to the researchers linked to this new study  the significant factors in personalities are linked to the average temperatures prevailing in the places that nurture us. We are shaped personally by the climate we live with.

That should make Canadians pretty surly people, and they are, in fact, noted for their tendency to be rather moderate in their emotional presence to the point of being boringly predictable in their easy-going attitudes. Still, it is the researchers' contention that people who are raised in regions with average temperatures around 22C tend to be agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable, extroverted and open; personality traits psychologists identify as "the big five".

Take it with a grain of salt.