Alice Sun writes:

The seasons have been shown to influence many elements of our psyches and behavior: mood, color preferences, how charitable we are, even cognitive performance. But recently, researchers found they may also affect what we tend to consider among our most profoundly held convictions: how we decide what is right and wrong.

A team of researchers looked at a decade’s worth of responses to an online survey about morals and analyzed how these responses changed from one season to the next. Their findings, published recently in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, suggest that, at a population level, people are less likely to endorse more traditional moral values in summer and winter.

The team of researchers relied on data from a website called YourMorals.org, a collaboration between cognitive scientists and social psychologists, including social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. The website offers a “moral foundations questionnaire,” where respondents can rate how strongly they agree or disagree that something is right or wrong. [Continue reading…]