Weather and Individual Happiness

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates the influence of weather on happiness. While previous studies have examined climatic influence by comparing the well-being of people living in different regions, this paper focuses on how daily changes in weather affect individuals living in a single location. The dataset consists of 516 days of data on 75 students from Osaka University. Daily information on outside events, as well as the daily physical condition and individual characteristics of the respondents, are used as controls. Subjective happiness is related to temperature: in a quadratic model, happiness is maximized at 13.9°C. The effects of other meteorological variables—humidity, wind speed, precipitation, and sunshine—are not significant. The sensitivity of happiness to temperature also depends on attributes such as sex, age, and academic department. Happiness is more strongly affected by current temperature than by average temperature over the day. While enjoyment (a positive affect measure) is affected by weather in a similar way to happiness, sadness and depression (negative affect measures) behave somewhat differently.