THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SEASONAL MOOD CHANGE AND PERSONALITY - MORE APPARENT THAN REAL

A number of recent research reports have reported significant relation ships between seasonal mood change (seasonality) and personality. Howe ver, some of the results are difficult to interpret because of inheren t methodological problems, the most important of which is the use of s amples drawn from the southern as opposed to the northern hemisphere, where the phenomenon of seasonality may be quite different. The presen t study examined the relationship between personality and seasonality in a sample from the northern hemisphere (minimum latitude=49 degrees N). A total of 297 adults drawn from the general population(112 male a nd 185 female subjects) completed the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Ques tionnaire, and the results obtained confirmed most of the previously r eported relationships and showed that these are reliable across (i) di fferent hemispheres, (ii) different measures of personality and (iii) clinical and general population samples. However, the impact of the re lationship seems to be more apparent than real, with personality accou nting for just under 15% of the total variance.