WEBVTT - The Seven Day Week, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.400 My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.720 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:19.799 and we're back with part two of our series on 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.279 the seven day Week. What is it? Where did it 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.360 come from? What? What's it doing in our brains? All 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:27.520 right now? When we cut off in the previous part 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.520 of this series about the week, you were talking a 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.879 bit about some sources you were reading about the history 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.200 of the week, where the seven day week comes from, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.639 because obviously, you know, one of the main things we 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:42.920 we talked about in the last episode is that other 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.000 major blocks that we use for measuring times, such as 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.560 the month, the year, and the day, are all based 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.680 on facts about nature. Are usually about astronomy. You know, 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.760 how the Earth moves, Earth moves around the Sun, or 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.240 how the moon moves around the Earth. But the week 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:02.320 has no such basis in physical reality. It's an artificial construction, 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.200 with the possible exception that some people think there may 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:11.280 be some underlying biological uh rhythms that contribute to it. 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.080 One hypothesis that's been offered is the minstrual cycle or 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.280 things like that. But it's hard to know for sure. 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.800 So we know at least that the week is not 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:24.600 based in astronomy. So where does it come from historically? Yeah? 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:26.520 And in that we were getting into this idea of 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:31.400 the market week, the time it takes for vegetables or 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:35.440 fruits to uh to travel in from market, uh, be 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.600 sold in market, and then for uh the individuals who 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.760 brought it there to return then to the fields. Um. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.840 This would be just a basic market cycle, a market week. Uh. 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:47.840 And one of the sources that I was discussing here 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:52.960 was um Avatar Zarubaville is the seven day circle. UM. 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:55.800 So you know, point the author here points to the 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.880 ten day market week of ancient southern China. Various other 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.960 systems as well. UM. Because again there's nothing set in 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.800 stone about it taking seven days to reach any given 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.000 market anywhere in the world. It's going to vary obviously. Uh. 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.120 So you have you have different systems that were in place, 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.040 the ten day system. We also see the eight day 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.080 system that emerged in what is now Italy. This is 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.360 the Etruscan system. And so the Truscan system that that 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.120 the name of that would come from the Etruscan culture, 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:30.480 a culture that inhabited the Italian peninsula before the Roman period, right, 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.640 and then the Romans would of course inherit the Intruscan system, 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:40.000 and this eventually became the internudenum tempests or the period 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:44.160 between the ninth day affairs, which Zaruberville rights involves the 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:48.239 Roman practice of inclusive counting, in which the last day 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.640 of one cycle is the first day of the next. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.120 So this involves a market day held every eight days. 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.080 Market and social life revolved around this market day, and 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.800 schools and courts were closed for the day as well. 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.120 It was also a day to set work aside to 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.079 go to the baths um, and the cap limit for 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.280 guests was raised as well, so you could have more 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.640 people over on this market day. Now, the decline of 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.200 the eight day week, the author rights, coincided with the 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.280 expansion of Rome. It simply became too big for this 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.880 system to logistically work anymore. Um. And you know this 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.480 comes down to the fact that a true urban economy 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.239 ends up demanding continuous commerce. But this this was interesting 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.240 as well. I'm gonna read a quote from the seven 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:39.840 day circle here, uh quote. Coincidentally, the astrological and Christians 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.240 seven day weeks that had just been introduced into Rome, 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:47.360 were also becoming increasingly popular. There is evidence indicating that 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.720 the Roman eight day week and those two seven day 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:55.840 cycles were used simultaneously for some time. However, the coexistence 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.080 of two weekly rhythms that were entirely out of phase 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.320 with one another obviously could not be sustained for long. 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.280 One of them clearly had to give way. As we 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.680 all know, it was the eight day week that soon 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:12.920 disappeared from the pages of history forever. Okay, so you're 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:17.440 positing a time here where there exists such things as weeks, 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.839 sort of like the weeks we imagine, but not everybody's 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.600 using the same weeks at the same time, so they're 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.799 just sort of like overlapping different systems that different people 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:31.599 are using, which sounds incredibly chaotic and not especially useful. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.919 because it's it's it's hard to exactly imagine what this 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.000 would have been like because we think that the week 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.719 is just set in stone, it's just this this grid 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.280 work that arranges our lives. But too and and then 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:44.960 I'm tempted to try and think of it, well, maybe 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.680 would be like using both uh, you know, pounds and 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.839 uh and and and grahams or something, you know, having 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.000 to to use two different systems of measurement. But it's 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:57.440 not quite that either because because there's still like you know, 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.400 there's still a certain length to uh, you know, to 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.880 to some fencing or care at, etcetera. Um. But but 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.839 when you're dealing with with time here and you're dealing 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.240 with these market cycles, it it seems like you would 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.440 just you know, would just be this confusing arrangement to 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.599 have these two or more overlapping systems of different different 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.200 amounts of time. Well, it's a big difference. Is that. Say, 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.239 if you're converting from standard to metric, there's a fixed 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.760 conversion rate. It's not like how many pints go into 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.480 a leader changes every day. But if you but if 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.479 you have weeks of different numbers of days and everybody's 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.880 not on the same one, you can't just line it 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.320 up and say, oh, okay, this day in our cycle 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.039 is the is this other day and somebody else's cycle. 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.520 It would change every cycle because they're not the same numbers. Right. 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.560 Like imagine like thinking back on on like TV, uh, 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.800 just like TV programs and TV schedules, like what do 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:57.480 you have NBC and CBS um had not only like 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.599 different schedules of what's coming, but they had different calendars, 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:03.720 like different days of the week, like one did an 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:05.360 eight day cycle and the other one day to seven 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.640 day cycle. Like that would be that would be incredibly confusing, 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:10.680 you know, trying to figure out like what what is 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.640 on what day and what is opposite another show. It's 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.400 it's it's just like again, it's it's it's interesting to 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.599 try and imagine what this would have been like. But 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.599 if I'm understanding zarubaval right in this quote, what he's 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:26.400 saying is that, um, so you had this original sort 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.400 of eight day cycle, the Etruscan system that was inherited 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:31.839 by the Romans, but then you had these other systems 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:36.120 of seven day weeks, the the astrological, the Roman astrological 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.320 seven day week, and the Christian seven day week, which 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.800 I believe would be inherited at least in part from 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.160 the from the Jewish Sabbath observance. Yeah. That that all 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.000 this being said, it is important to realize that there 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:54.400 is still a reality to a market week cycle. In 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.560 many cases, you know, you have other four forces haven't changed. 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.200 What's happening with people actually ringing in crops and in 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:06.279 the in the economic activities surrounding the sale of those crops. Um. 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.760 Then even if you end up adopting, say a seven 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:14.200 day week, you can still see these other market cycles 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:18.240 uh coexisting with it, and he points to some examples 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.080 of this. Points out that both Christian and Islamic use 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:26.280 of the seven day week heavily influenced the continent of Africa. 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.720 But you still see four day market cycles in parts 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.280 of Africa, as well as eight and sixteen day weeks 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:38.240 as well. So these economic rhythms in many cases still 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.000 remain um or even if those economic rhythms shift like 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.440 they're still not going to necessarily uh you know, conform 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.960 completely to the seven day week cycle that has been 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.520 superimposed on a region. Now, he he points to in 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.080 UH some other week cycles that are that are pretty interesting. 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.520 He points uh for instance, to the nineteen day behind 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.200 cycle goal of social and religious activity, who was introduced 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.480 in eighteen forty four by the Persian prophet uh Saeed 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:11.160 Ali Mohammed also known as Bob b a b Uh. 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.880 It's generally spelled in English. UH. Nineteen is apparently a 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.560 mystical number in the Behigh Faith, and we see that 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:20.240 in the use of a nineteen week year in the 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:24.360 Behidh faith as well as a nineteen year va head 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.280 UM and then three hundred sixty one years make a 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:31.080 kola shay. And that's because nineteen times nineteen equals three 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:35.520 d sixty one UH. So UM all that's interesting as well. 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.400 Here's an entire system that's based on UH nineteen four 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:45.160 mystical purposes UH, spiritual purposes UH, similar to the the 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.679 adoption of the seven within UH, you know, the the 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:53.200 cycle that we we know and are immersed in. He 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.160 also mentions that the Maya, on the other hand, used 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:01.719 a twenty day um unital, which was the quote cornerstone 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.800 of the entire Maya time measuring system. UH. The Mayan 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.080 and the Aztecs solar calendars consisted of three hundred sixty 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.880 five days made up essentially of eighteen twenty day weeks 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.200 plus five blank days UH. They also had a two 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.240 hundred sixty day UH divination calendar year that was used 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:24.480 exclusively for divination. There's also a ninth century Indonesian system 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.120 that he mentions that they made use of both a 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.320 five day market week. Six five and seven day weeks 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.120 were used then to chronicle events and the Indonesian system 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.960 had several uses, but the main function, according to Zerubaville, 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.960 was divination. Uh. There were the right days to do 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.760 various things, both inherently sacred things such as say, bearing 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.760 the dead, and things that we might think of in 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.360 a sort of modern life as being mundane, things like 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.440 moving or starting a new business, but of course, within 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.000 the confines of a given culture, those things too may 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.120 be considered highly sacred. So these are more examples of 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.880 the what we talked about in the last episode, which 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.560 is that you know it depends on how you define 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.120 a week, to say where the week comes from. Because 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.560 there's a there's a history you can track of our 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.720 current unbroken system of seven day cycles, but there also 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.079 have been just lots of other things throughout the world, 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.680 throughout history that subdivided the month into some number of days, 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.560 but it wasn't necessarily the same as our seven day week, right. 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:28.880 And And I think it's interesting to think about how, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.480 on on one hand, you have very practical, very real 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.880 world considerations and arranging these days in two weeks, uh 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.120 and and saying well, I need to know what we're 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.120 calling four days from today, I need to know what 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.040 we're calling eight days from today so that I can 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.920 plan things out, but then also getting into this divination 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.560 area of well, is there something about the day after 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:53.680 tomorrow that makes it more appropriate for me to do 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.560 this act or this other act or to make a 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.400 certain decision on that day. Um, and you kind of 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.800 get into the sort of the roots of divination that 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.000 we've discussed on the show before, where it becomes this 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.480 kind of um system that you know, you may and 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.280 it certainly entails supernatural ideas about seeing into the future 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.920 and using impulling luck uh and uh and you know 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.520 perhaps the uh, you know, the good will of various deities. 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:22.320 But it also is about like making uh, making space 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.240 for decision and like helping decisions be made, and and 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:30.160 and in introducing randomness in some cases. Yeah. Actually got 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.760 me wondering about the same thing, about whether a cycle 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:35.920 of days in a week, whether that's seven days or 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.920 whatever other numbers, just having a named day within the 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:45.200 cycle could aid in productivity and in spurring action uh 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.280 instead as opposed to say differring action forever, because if 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.280 you live in a system where you don't have named 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.240 days within a cycle. Again, I don't know this, I 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:57.400 don't have direct evidence of it. But I wonder if 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.240 that's sort of just um, we allow you to have, well, 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.600 you have right now, and then maybe you have a 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.800 concept like tomorrow, and then beyond that you've just got 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:11.240 the future. And so like it does having a named 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.160 day that's, you know, a predictable number of days ahead 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.839 of now allow you to plan action in a way 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.840 that you're more likely to follow through on an execute. Yeah, 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:23.959 I mean it reminds me of some studies that I've 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:28.160 I've seen about the importance of having deadlines just for 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.120 productivity reasons. And I mean to a certain extent. I 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.200 guess this varies depending on what one's you know, job is, 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.800 what one's industry is. But the basic seven day week 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.760 kind of has a built in deadline, like Friday is, 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.680 at least to a certain extent, always a deadline. Like 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:49.640 it's assuming again that you have a job where you 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.080 don't have to work on Saturday and Sunday, like that's 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.720 the last day of the week. So in many cases 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:56.720 you're trying to get something done, you're trying to reach 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.400 like some level of finality, right, or at least it 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.920 leans at it. It allows you to lean into that 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.280 interpretation anyway. Yeah, yeah, well it at least it gives 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.360 you a principle on which to organize those those timelines. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.839 I mean again, I wonder like if we didn't have weeks, 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.200 and we just you know, just worked whenever, and you 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.120 were like, how long is it gonna take me to 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:18.719 do this? I mean, how how long do we We 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.439 would usually say, I don't know, one week, two weeks, 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.000 and what would you say that I'm gonna say, thirteen 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.720 days is how long it will take me. Yeah, there's 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.680 something weird about like a thirteen day estimate on something, right, 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:34.480 Why why not bump it up to fourteen days? Like 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.800 it would seem equally wrong to give a fifteen day 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.240 estimate on something like why is it taking two weeks 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.320 and one day? Why didn't it just take two weeks? 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:51.920 That just seems like trolling. Yeah, well, maybe here is 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.520 a good place to come back to some psychology research 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.199 about the effects of the week, because in the previous episode, 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.280 I may say, psychology paper that looked into what it 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.959 called mental representations of week days. This was by Ellis 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.640 at All, and we talked about it in the context 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:11.920 of the idea that while the week is broken into 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.840 different types of days, weekends and week days. Each day 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.960 is also its own distinct concept, and this paper examined 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.640 this in a number of ways. Overall, I'd say it's 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:26.480 findings would be not very surprising to anybody who's ever 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:28.640 been to school or had a full time job that 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.160 was organized on regular bank hours. But it's good to 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.760 have that information anyway, because a lot of times, you know, 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:37.520 I often have this thought where like, you do a 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.040 study and then the results come back and people say, like, 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:43.600 that's obvious. Why do you need to do a study 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.080 to know that. It's like, well, because if you if 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.040 you just go by your assumptions all the time, you're 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.000 actually going to turn out to be wrong a good bit, 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.960 so it's worth checking. But it did find that, for example, 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.720 people were most conscious of what day it was on 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.240 Mondays and on Fridays, as measured by reaction times when 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.000 asked to name the day. It found that people were 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.960 most likely to feel like it was the wrong day. 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:08.640 I feel like it was a different day than it 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.080 was on days that were in the midweek, so Tuesday, Wednesday, 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.400 and Thursdays. That's also not very surprising. Those are sort 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.720 of the the middle days. The days that are you know, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.240 easy to get lost in the shuffle. It found that 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.640 in terms of affective response, people really really like Fridays 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.800 and really dislike Mondays, and the other days in between 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.960 basically just kind of slope up and down between those extremes. 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.040 And of course the standard note that these responses, as 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.120 well as the ones in the um uh studies I'm 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.040 about to mention here are are primarily, I think, from 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.680 industrialized societies in North America and Europe, where the seven 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.480 day work week is highly salient. I have no way 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.320 to prove it, but I strongly suspect that you would 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.400 not find these same patterns at all if you were 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.560 to exclusively survey populations that were less connected to this 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:02.240 type of of economic work cycle, for example rural farmers 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:06.360 or hunter gatherers. But since then, I just wanted to 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:08.560 talk about a bunch more studies I was looking at 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.680 about the days of the week and how we represent 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:13.600 them in our brains, how we feel about them, and 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.560 how they affect our behavior. Uh So, a couple that 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.960 I looked at had to do with people's feelings about 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:22.680 days of the week. Following up on that, you know 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.840 idea from the previous study that people like Fridays they 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.480 don't like Mondays. So one study I looked at was 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:33.360 from twenty eleven published in Psychological Reports by Charles s Irrany, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:38.280 Mitchell Burger, and Natalina as Latevska called factors affecting the 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.960 extent of Monday Blues evidence from a meta analysis. This 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.520 was a meta analysis that looked at a bunch of 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.640 samples from previous studies that tracked both mood and days 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.320 of the week and tried to see if there were correlations, 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.240 and they said they did find evidence of a small 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.960 but reliable quote Monday blues effect, so people had worse 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.720 moods on Mondays, but the size of the effect varied 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.080 greatly depending on what types of demographic groups featured in 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.280 the sample. So for contrasts, they mentioned that samples focused 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:15.200 on university students showed a large and consistent Monday Blues 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:19.919 effect college students really hated Mondays, whereas samples limited to 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.000 a smaller, different cohort. The one they single out is 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.960 married men who were not students showed a smaller effect. 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.680 It was still there, but much smaller and with greater 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.400 variation between the samples. Rob, does this track with your 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.159 experience that you hated Mondays more when you were like 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:40.520 a college student or younger in general. Yeah. Yeah, and 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.800 it I mean, it's it's easy to sort of fall 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.720 on on sort of stereotypes when thinking about this. You know, 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.400 you think of like the college student is is out 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.440 partying all weekend and then open and they've got to 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.879 go to class Monday morning, and uh and the married 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:02.280 adult is maybe not partying all weekend. Um yeah, I um, 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.080 I don't. I don't think I ever remembered necessarily just 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.760 hating Mondays. But if I if I didn't like my job, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.120 then I was probably adverse to going back on Monday 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:15.720 to work there. I feel like nowadays, though, like Monday, 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.320 I really don't have a problem with in large part 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.240 because I feel like I'm actually well rested on a Monday, 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:25.879 whereas I'm I'm less' not that I'm I'm like losing 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.200 a lot of sleep, but during the course of the week, 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.560 I feel like I kind of steadily lose a little 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.160 bit of sleep towards the end, so that Fridays I'm 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:35.720 a little more worn out, um, and then I catch 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:37.760 up in my sleep over the weekend, and by Monday, 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:39.920 I'm good to go. Yeah, that's something I think might 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.800 be underappreciated, especially when it gets to a study we'll 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.320 look at in a minute on um on on behavior 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.200 the the effects of cumulative fatigue over the course of 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.320 week days. I think that that is a very good idea. 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.040 But okay, so so that was that one study. Another 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.199 one I looked at was by Stone, Schneider, and Harder 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.280 I published in twelve of in the Journal of Positive Psychology. 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.360 This one used a huge telephone survey with like hundreds 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.360 of thousands of participants, tested for demographic variables and how 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.200 people felt about different days of the week. They found, 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.639 again unsurprisingly, a strong preference for weekends. People really really 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:21.800 love Fridays. They like weekends. Uh. This study found weaker 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.240 evidence that people really hate Mondays. Uh. It was it 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.920 was a more reduced Monday blues effect, but they did 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.800 find some variations. This one also found that day of 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.280 the week effects on mood in general were more pronounced 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.760 in younger people generally, and that day of the week 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.360 had less effect on mood for older people and especially 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.679 retired people. So that might not be surprising because I 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.600 think a lot of these day of the week effects 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.520 probably have to do with when you have to go 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.680 to work. Uh. They found no differences on the basis 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.560 of gender or on the basis of the presence of 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.479 a romantic partner. Now, it does seem strange that there 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.560 wouldn't be much emphasis put on Wednesday, though, because it 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.359 seems like Wednesday is hump Day, right, Like Wednesday is 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.320 the day where you may, uh, you know, feel the 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.680 satisfaction of knowing that the the you're you're halfway there, 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.639 You're you're more than halfway there, you are over the 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.160 hump and headed in towards that Friday that you're looking 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.560 forward to. You want scientific confirmation of hump day, hump 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.360 Day confirmed. It's like if hump day is I mean 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.560 this kind of we come into our assumptions, right, I 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:28.320 have these assumptions about hump days. But if those assumptions 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.400 are not borne out in uh, in the data, then 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.760 then maybe it's just like it's a silly notion. Anyway, Well, 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.000 there may be some ways in which hump day is 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.560 a salient effect, but it just kind of gets lost 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.240 in the noise of this this big study with a 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.919 bunch of other things going on. Maybe it doesn't show up, 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:46.560 just fades into the noise when you're asking people, how 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.080 do you feel about today, about this day of the week, 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.520 or how do you feel today on the day that 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.560 I'm asking you this as opposed to other more targeted 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.159 questions that may pull out the hump day nous of 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:01.320 hump day, maybe questions about like optimism about the future 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:05.760 or something. Now you could ask another question. Again, we've 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.120 been talking about, well, what's obvious or what we would 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.399 just assume, But here's another question. Seems like it has 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.680 an obvious answer. Why do people seem to like weekends 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.160 so much more than week days? I think I think 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.600 both common intuition as well as some of the data 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.200 we've looked at already would tell us it's because people 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.119 like being off work. Uh though interestingly, of course, not 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.359 everybody's work hours conformed to the standard Monday to Friday 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.320 nine to five, and some people and some people also, 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.040 you know, even if they do conform to that, really 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:35.560 enjoy their work. But at least at the population level, 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:37.960 this effect shows up strongly anyway. So I don't know 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.160 if you know people who are restaurant servers whose busiest 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:43.119 work is on the weekends or something like that, if 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.080 they're just not enough of them to balance out the 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.119 survey data, or maybe somehow, even though it's their busy 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:52.240 work times, they that they prefer weekends as well. I 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.439 don't know. I I haven't found data on that. But 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.679 this question of what causes people to enjoy weekends the 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:02.240 most has also been analyzed in psychology research, sometimes referred 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.640 to as the weekend effect. And I was looking at 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:08.359 a study from ten in the Journal of Social and 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:13.680 Clinical Psychology by Ryan Bernstein and Brown called weekends work 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.600