The photosynthetic President: Converting sunshine into popularity

This paper tests the proposition that public opinion can be measurably influenced by sunlight. Specifically, it hypothesizes that sunlight should boost Presidential approval ratings because sunlight generally makes people happy and optimistic. Analysis reveals that, in spring and winter, survey respondents are indeed more likely to indicate approval of the President on sunny days than on cloudy days, even after controlling for demographic, ideological, and geographic predictors of approval. This paper is organized into three sections. The first draws on academic literature from sociology, economics, psychology, psychiatry, and political science to explain how sunlight should affect survey response. Section 2 describes the data employed to test the proposition that sunlight boosts Presidential approval. Results and conclusions are discussed in Section 3. (C) 2010 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.