Publications

Journal Article

Physiological needs for thermal comfort, nutritional comfort and healthiness make colder and hotter climates more demanding than more temperate climates. Affluence may help to meet those thermal demands. Two country-level studies indeed show that thermal demands (colder and hotter climates) and wealth-related resources (higher income per capita) are joint roots of happiness (N = 55) and altruism (N = 71). In colder climates richer societies are less happy and altruistic. In hotter climates richer societies are happier but poorer are unhappier.

In both colder and hotter climates richer societies tend to be happier at the expense of being more altruistic whereas poorer societies tend to be more altruistic at the expense of being happier. The findings generate demands - resources theory on self- and other-directed consequences of thermoclimate.