(Just down the road in Geneva, earlier this week.)
I was interested to read in an great psychology blog I came across recently (www.spring.org.uk) that, despite what you are probably thinking right at the moment, shivering on the sofa under a blanket and listening to the wind howl outside, we are not cheered up by sunshine – bad news not only for Katrina, but for the waves too. Nor are we made miserable by yucky weather, so we’ll have to think of another excuse.
Klimstra et al. (2011) tested teens and their mums and found that over half of them were completely unaffected by the weather when questioned on their mood and then comparing the results with the weather reports.
In fact only 15% of teens and a third of mums showed signs of being happier in summer - conditions with less rain, more sun, higher temperature etc.
Surprisingly more teenagers, 27% in fact, preferred rain and lower temperatures, probably because they could hide their complex ridden skinny bodies under swathes of clothing instead of flaunting it as we would if we looked like that.
Finally, an amazingly low, in my opinion at least, 8% of adolescents and 12% of their mums were happier when it wasn’t raining. I can only assume the others questioned haven’t got an energetic dog that needs a good walk whatever the weather.
Other experiments have shown the same thing; the only negative effect found was that we do tend to feel more tired when there is less sunlight.
Still, I’d be really pissed off if this was my car, wouldn’t you?
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