As Van de Vliert rightly claims, freedom is very unevenly distributed across the earth. But so unfairly is distributed almost everything that is important to human life: literacy, wealth, life expectancy, and even mental abilities. Although it is almost impossible that distribution of these complicated concepts replicates even partially the distribution of climatic warmth, Van de Vliert argues that cold winters and hot summers shape human minds and direct people's behavior.
Van de Vliert has done admirable work to convince readers that almost everything from charismatic leadership (Van de Vliert Reference Van de Vliert2006) to driving performance (Daanen et al. Reference Daanen, Van de Vliert and Huang2003) is determined by climate. In Isaiah Berlin's terms, Van de Vliert is evidently a hedgehog who knows a lot about climate and its influence on human mind. Although not even De Montesquieu (Reference De Montesquieu2011/1748) thought that climate determines everything in human nature and society, Van de Vliert tries to convince readers that climate with its immanent presence is the most powerful factor. Because a variety of phenomena are probably influenced by ambient annual temperature, the most demanding task is to establish the exact causal chain from temperature to the observed consequence among myriad other competing factors. This is not an easy task, and there are many hurdles to accomplish this mission. Neither historians nor social scientists are particularly advanced in assessing relative causal importance of multiple factors that could affect the observed phenomenon (Pork Reference Pork1985).
In early stages of development, both hominids and the society they created were certainly very vulnerable to all climatic deviation from the comfort zone. It seems that bipedalism in early hominids emerged from the necessity to cool the brain in response to heat stress (Falk Reference Falk2004). It is also very likely that the development of human society was constrained by climatic conditions and especially by ambient temperature. However, with the development of technology, more and more people in advanced societies spent most of their time in an artificially created room climate, irrespective whether the outside temperature is below zero or more like a Finnish sauna. It is expected that with the development of wealth the pressure from climato-economic factors will start to diminish. Therefore, it is not surprising that self-reported mood is practically independent of hourly weather conditions (i.e., temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and luminance) even in demanding Nordic climatic conditions (Kööts et al. Reference Kööts, Realo and Allik2011). In the view of all these evidences, it is slightly embarrassing that the picture of climatic determinism drawn by Van de Vliert is fully static without any traces of history.
Van de Vliert treats freedom extremely holistically. It is rather unrealistic to assume that, for example, “freedom from want” belongs to the same category as “freedom of expression and participation.” If we unite many different concepts under the same heading, then there is no guarantee that these entities have in fact anything in common. For example, it does not make much sense to put the need of food into the same category as freedom from religious prosecution (“freedom from discrimination”). Giving them an arbitrary common name (“freedom”) does not make them identical in any meaningful way. Because so many disparate things are collected into one heading, the proposed theory obviously loses, rather than gains, its explanatory strength: if almost everything is explained by cold winters or hot summers, then nothing is explained.
It is needless to say that many things are not affected by cold or heat stress. For example, it is very likely that metaphorical thinking that describes friendly people as warm, passionate people as hot-blooded, and distant people as cold in English and many other languages may also shape national stereotypes. Nevertheless, Pennebaker and colleagues (Reference Pennebaker, Rime and Blankenship1996) tested De Montesquieu's (Reference De Montesquieu2011/1748) hypothesis that hot weather makes individuals relatively lazy, pleasure seeking, and impulsive. They found only modest support for this provocative hypothesis. Later studies also found little support for the proposal that the aggregate personality traits (e.g., the facet of Extraversion called E1: Warmth) is related to mean annual temperature of these places where people habitat (McCrae et al. Reference McCrae, Terracciano, Realo and Allik2007). The only replicable finding that related country aggregate personality scores to temperature was that members of nations with warmer climates were higher, rather than lower, on conscientiousness (Allik & McCrae Reference Allik and McCrae2004). However, national stereotypes in a sample of 49 cultures, which generally do not reflect actual differences in the mean level of personality traits (Terracciano et al. Reference Terracciano, Abdel-Khalek, Adam, Adamovova, Ahn, Ahn and McCrae2005), supported a stereotype that people from physically warm environments are thought to be friendly, whereas a chilly climate makes people more businesslike and cold (McCrae et al. Reference McCrae, Terracciano, Realo and Allik2007).
It is true that Van de Vliert sometimes tested rival explanations in terms of a country's historic roots, population diversity, or societal inequality (e.g., Van de Vliert Reference Van de Vliert2011a). Surprisingly Van de Vliert does not mention series of books written by Richard Lynn and his collaborators. The scope of Lynn's work is very similar to the aims of the target article. For example, the “IQ and global inequality” tries to explain human inequalities by the concept of cognitive abilities (Lynn & Vanhanen Reference Lynn and Vanhanen2006). Looking at the list of observed inequalities, it is immediately clear that this list is overlapping with Van de Vliert's list of freedoms. Among other things, Lynn and Vanhanen (Reference Lynn and Vanhanen2006) also consider the impact of latitude and annual mean temperature on human inequalities. As expected, latitude has a substantial impact on the quality of human life. However, the authors conclude that “the impact of latitude and annual mean temperature on the quality of human conditions takes place principally through national IQ, which is the intervening variable in the relationship between geographic and climatic factors and the quality of human conditions.” (p. 181).
Many readers most likely disagree with Lynn and Vanhanen's (Reference Lynn and Vanhanen2006) conclusion that psychometrically measured intelligence is the prime factor of human inequalities and fundamental freedoms. But it is unfair to ignore this as a rival explanation because it was proposed that survival in cold geographical environments exerted a strong selection pressure on human populations (Lynn Reference Lynn and Nyborg1997).
As Van de Vliert rightly claims, freedom is very unevenly distributed across the earth. But so unfairly is distributed almost everything that is important to human life: literacy, wealth, life expectancy, and even mental abilities. Although it is almost impossible that distribution of these complicated concepts replicates even partially the distribution of climatic warmth, Van de Vliert argues that cold winters and hot summers shape human minds and direct people's behavior.
Van de Vliert has done admirable work to convince readers that almost everything from charismatic leadership (Van de Vliert Reference Van de Vliert2006) to driving performance (Daanen et al. Reference Daanen, Van de Vliert and Huang2003) is determined by climate. In Isaiah Berlin's terms, Van de Vliert is evidently a hedgehog who knows a lot about climate and its influence on human mind. Although not even De Montesquieu (Reference De Montesquieu2011/1748) thought that climate determines everything in human nature and society, Van de Vliert tries to convince readers that climate with its immanent presence is the most powerful factor. Because a variety of phenomena are probably influenced by ambient annual temperature, the most demanding task is to establish the exact causal chain from temperature to the observed consequence among myriad other competing factors. This is not an easy task, and there are many hurdles to accomplish this mission. Neither historians nor social scientists are particularly advanced in assessing relative causal importance of multiple factors that could affect the observed phenomenon (Pork Reference Pork1985).
In early stages of development, both hominids and the society they created were certainly very vulnerable to all climatic deviation from the comfort zone. It seems that bipedalism in early hominids emerged from the necessity to cool the brain in response to heat stress (Falk Reference Falk2004). It is also very likely that the development of human society was constrained by climatic conditions and especially by ambient temperature. However, with the development of technology, more and more people in advanced societies spent most of their time in an artificially created room climate, irrespective whether the outside temperature is below zero or more like a Finnish sauna. It is expected that with the development of wealth the pressure from climato-economic factors will start to diminish. Therefore, it is not surprising that self-reported mood is practically independent of hourly weather conditions (i.e., temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and luminance) even in demanding Nordic climatic conditions (Kööts et al. Reference Kööts, Realo and Allik2011). In the view of all these evidences, it is slightly embarrassing that the picture of climatic determinism drawn by Van de Vliert is fully static without any traces of history.
Van de Vliert treats freedom extremely holistically. It is rather unrealistic to assume that, for example, “freedom from want” belongs to the same category as “freedom of expression and participation.” If we unite many different concepts under the same heading, then there is no guarantee that these entities have in fact anything in common. For example, it does not make much sense to put the need of food into the same category as freedom from religious prosecution (“freedom from discrimination”). Giving them an arbitrary common name (“freedom”) does not make them identical in any meaningful way. Because so many disparate things are collected into one heading, the proposed theory obviously loses, rather than gains, its explanatory strength: if almost everything is explained by cold winters or hot summers, then nothing is explained.
It is needless to say that many things are not affected by cold or heat stress. For example, it is very likely that metaphorical thinking that describes friendly people as warm, passionate people as hot-blooded, and distant people as cold in English and many other languages may also shape national stereotypes. Nevertheless, Pennebaker and colleagues (Reference Pennebaker, Rime and Blankenship1996) tested De Montesquieu's (Reference De Montesquieu2011/1748) hypothesis that hot weather makes individuals relatively lazy, pleasure seeking, and impulsive. They found only modest support for this provocative hypothesis. Later studies also found little support for the proposal that the aggregate personality traits (e.g., the facet of Extraversion called E1: Warmth) is related to mean annual temperature of these places where people habitat (McCrae et al. Reference McCrae, Terracciano, Realo and Allik2007). The only replicable finding that related country aggregate personality scores to temperature was that members of nations with warmer climates were higher, rather than lower, on conscientiousness (Allik & McCrae Reference Allik and McCrae2004). However, national stereotypes in a sample of 49 cultures, which generally do not reflect actual differences in the mean level of personality traits (Terracciano et al. Reference Terracciano, Abdel-Khalek, Adam, Adamovova, Ahn, Ahn and McCrae2005), supported a stereotype that people from physically warm environments are thought to be friendly, whereas a chilly climate makes people more businesslike and cold (McCrae et al. Reference McCrae, Terracciano, Realo and Allik2007).
It is true that Van de Vliert sometimes tested rival explanations in terms of a country's historic roots, population diversity, or societal inequality (e.g., Van de Vliert Reference Van de Vliert2011a). Surprisingly Van de Vliert does not mention series of books written by Richard Lynn and his collaborators. The scope of Lynn's work is very similar to the aims of the target article. For example, the “IQ and global inequality” tries to explain human inequalities by the concept of cognitive abilities (Lynn & Vanhanen Reference Lynn and Vanhanen2006). Looking at the list of observed inequalities, it is immediately clear that this list is overlapping with Van de Vliert's list of freedoms. Among other things, Lynn and Vanhanen (Reference Lynn and Vanhanen2006) also consider the impact of latitude and annual mean temperature on human inequalities. As expected, latitude has a substantial impact on the quality of human life. However, the authors conclude that “the impact of latitude and annual mean temperature on the quality of human conditions takes place principally through national IQ, which is the intervening variable in the relationship between geographic and climatic factors and the quality of human conditions.” (p. 181).
Many readers most likely disagree with Lynn and Vanhanen's (Reference Lynn and Vanhanen2006) conclusion that psychometrically measured intelligence is the prime factor of human inequalities and fundamental freedoms. But it is unfair to ignore this as a rival explanation because it was proposed that survival in cold geographical environments exerted a strong selection pressure on human populations (Lynn Reference Lynn and Nyborg1997).