Exploring the Human Side of Meteorology: A Brief Report on the Psychology of Meteorologists

Abstract

: Exploring the human side of meteorology: a brief report on the psychology of meteorologists. J. Operational Meteor., 6 (3), 23-32, doi: https://doi.org/10.15191/nwajom.2018 Links between autism spectrum conditions and scientific aptitude were first investigated twenty years ago. Since then, associations between autism and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) aptitude have been established and discussed via the empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory. E-S theory hypothesizes that autistic individuals are naturally driven to create and analyze sets of logical rules, or "systems," related to and constructed around things in the world. This is at the expense of cognitive, but not affective, empathy. Here, we not only extend previous work in testing the similarity of meteorologists, engineers, and physicists with respect to empathizing, systemizing, and autistic traits; we also report the first examination of meteorologists' personality and mental health relative to other representative physical scientists. Meteorologists in this sample were higher in empathizing and systemizing, extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, and less stressed, depressed, and anxious, than were engineers and physicists. Implications for the meteorological workplace are discussed. ABSTRACT (Manuscript

An Exploratory, Preliminary Report on United States Weather Education Trends and General Population Links Between Weather Salience and Systemizing

“…However, meteorologists who gravitate towards weather broadcasting are much more extroverted (Bolton and Ault 2019), sharing this trait with social scientists (Feist 2006). This is in line with the hybrid cognitive profile hypothesis (Baron-Cohen 2003) and results in support of this, indicating meteorologists are strong in empathizing as well as systemizing (Bolton et al 2018a). Second, and on a related note, these individuals will likely be strong in systemizing with a correspondingly higher interest for things than for people (Feist 2006;Graziano et al 2011;Prediger 1982).…”

“…Third, one might expect weather-interested students to display higher levels of trait conscientiousness, and thus to have a higher regard for duty and commitment; and to be more dispositionally open to new experiences. Our work with meteorologists (Bolton et al 2018a; Bolton and Ault 2019) has found them highly conscientious, agreeable, and extraverted (regarding this and empathy, they seem to present a hybrid cognitive profile among physical scientists). Feist (2012) found openness and NFC positively correlated with one another and that introversion is likewise linked with science interest.…”

“…students will be more socially aloof and disinterested and, perhaps accordingly, to have a greater need for cognition (NFC; i.e., the tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful thinking; Feist 2012) as they tend to be more introspective. Interestingly, research (e.g., Baron-Cohen et al 2001Bolton et al 2018a) has found physical scientists, including meteorologists, high in traits characteristic of autism, and one marker of autism is social disinterest (Clements et al 2018). However, meteorologists who gravitate towards weather broadcasting are much more extroverted (Bolton and Ault 2019), sharing this trait with social scientists (Feist 2006).…”

“…Baron-Cohen and colleagues (1997, 1998, 2009Baron-Cohen 2015;Billington et al 2007;Wheelwright et al 2006) and other researchers (e.g., M. Stewart and Austin 2009;Zeyer et al 2012) have linked systemizing to a predisposition for STEM interest. Meteorologists previously have been found to be good systemizers (Bolton et al 2018a), while recent research into psychological factors associated with learning and practicing meteorology (McNeal et al 2019) revealed that cognitive disembedding ability (observing and recognizing patterns among a mass of nonessential information) positively predicts meteorological data analysis skill. One component of systemizing, attention to detail, can be tested by assessing cognitive disembedding.…”

Identifying Significant Cognitive Factors for Practicing and Learning Meteorology

“…Like geologists, operational meteorologists regularly perform cognitively complicated tasks that involve analyzing data from satellite images, radar, and remote sensors, while digesting output from numerical model guidance. Human performance studies in meteorology have exposed revelatory and practical insights about operational meteorology, such as decision making (Joslyn and Jones 2008;Wilson et al 2016), mental health (Bolton et al 2018), color salience and interpretation of displays (Bryant et al 2014), factors of workstation design (Hoffman 1991), and forecaster use of mental models (Trafton et al 2000). However, the way that specific cognitive factors affect performance of meteorological tasks is an under-investigated area, yet one that may yield insight into how to best train and educate operational meteorologists.…”