Can Your Hometown's Weather Impact Your Personality?

If you're shy or an introvert, or you'd just rather stay home and watch Netflix on a Friday night, it might be the fault of your hometown's weather, according to a new study.

There's an ideal temperature that makes you more outgoing and agreeable, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature. The study's researchers analyzed more than 1.5 million people in the U.S. and China, and the climates they grew up in.

Apparently, being from a place that's too hot or too cold could both make you an introvert. The researchers' data suggests that 72 degrees Fahrenheit is the sweet spot and if your hometown deviates too much from this temperature in either direction, you're less likely to be extroverted and emotionally stable.

While the study's authors can't say for certain what causes this correlation, they hypothesized that those who live in warmer — but not too hot — areas are more likely to go outside and do activities, leading them to interact with new people and try new things, whereas those in more extreme climates are more likely to want to stay at home.

Interestingly, your personality isn't necessarily as affected by where you live now. The study notes that you're more impacted by the weather where you lived while your personality was first developing. So if you're still shy, moving to a nicer climate might not change that.

To gather the U.S. data, the researchers gave a personality test to 1.6 million Americans, and then asked them to provide the zip code of the place "where they spent most of their youth." They accounted for factors like age, gender, and social class, but still found the same results across the board.

So what does that mean for future generations, what with climate change making the weather so different from when we grew up? The study's authors believe that it could contribute to changes in human personality in the future.