“Workers, even those with interesting high status jobs, really are happier on the weekend”
– that’s the finding of a new research project from Richard Ryan, Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, & Education and colleagues at the University of Rochester NY.
The team set up an experiment which tracked the mood of 74 working adults over a period of 21 days. They were randomly paged three times per day, and their mood and overall feelings of wellbeing (or lack of) were logged.
Subsequent analysis of the results showed that men and women alike, regardless of ‘status’, and in all the kinds of work environments studied, consistently felt better – mentally and physically – at the weekend. Or, put another way, worse during the week.
See : Weekends, Work, and Well-Being: Psychological Need Satisfactions and Day of the Week Effects on Mood, Vitality, and Physical Symptoms in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Volume: 29 ,Issue: 1, Jan 2010.
Professor Ryan explains more about the findings – and how they relate to recently developed Self Determination Theory in the first of a new series of exclusive Improbable video vignettes entitled ‘Can You Expand’.