By IANS,
Sydney : “Monday morning blues” or “Friday afternoon highs” are purely a figment of the imagination, as moods tend to remain uniform throughout the week, according to a study.
When people are asked to remember how they felt in the past or are likely to feel in future, they predict being despondent on Monday mornings and really happy on Friday evenings, ahead of the weekend.
But when Charles Areni of Sydney University and Mitchell Burger of marketing consulting firm NTF Group asked 351 people about their moods throughout the week, none of them validated any of the stereotypes.
“Monday mornings were not the low point of the week, and although Friday and Saturday evenings were associated with positive moods, they were no better than moods reported on Tuesdays,” said Areni.
“What we found is that actual moods don’t seem to vary systematically throughout the week. As it turned out, the low point of the week in our data was Wednesday, not Monday.”
Areni said the day-of-the-week stereotypes stem from a cultural belief that people are generally happier when they are free to choose their activities compared to when they are engaged in paid work.
“Monday morning is remembered and predicted to be the worst part of the week because it is the first work-day after two days of free time, and because four work-days follow before the next period of free time.”
“Likewise, Friday evening is the best part of the week because it marks the beginning of an extended period of free time,” Areni said.
But the research, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, does not bear this out.