On the Sunny Side of Life: Sunshine Effects on Life Satisfaction

This paper seeks to analyze the influence of the weather on a person’s self-reported life satisfaction. On a theoretical level,
it is claimed that ‘nice’ weather can improve the affective well-being of a person. Given this, it is argued that affects
can, in turn, have an impact on that person’s general assessment of his or her life. In particular, it is expected that people
would report a higher life satisfaction on days with unambiguously ‘nice’ weather. Data from three German large-scale surveys
are used to test empirically to what extent self-reported life satisfaction is determined by the weather. All in all, the
results are mostly consistent with the initial hypothesis. In all three samples those respondents surveyed on days with exceptionally
sunny weather reported a higher life satisfaction compared to respondents interviewed on days with ‘ordinary’ weather. In
two out of three samples, this difference was statistically significant. Hence, the supposed sunshine effect on peoples’ life
satisfaction does indeed exist. Implications of these findings are discussed in a conclusion.