Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbon. Here in the early part of
Speaker 1: the twenty first century, psychologist Dr David A. Ellis performed
Speaker 1: possibly the shortest experiment in the history of the social sciences.
Speaker 1: He gathered sixty randomly selected test subjects, invited them into
Speaker 1: his office one by one, and asked them this fateful question,
Speaker 1: what day is today? That's it? Thank you, please sign
Speaker 1: the release form on the way out. Done so, what
Speaker 1: could Ellis possibly learn from asking people the day of
Speaker 1: the week? A heck of a lot, as it turns out.
Speaker 1: Using this simple experiment and others, Ellis was trying to
Speaker 1: decode the complex psychology of time, and even to help
Speaker 1: answer the age old question wait is it Wednesday or Thursday?
Speaker 1: Because although each week day is twenty four hours long,
Speaker 1: they're far from equal from a psychological standpoint. We spoke
Speaker 1: with Elis via phone back in from the University of
Speaker 1: Lincoln in the UK. He said, when you ask people
Speaker 1: about Monday and Friday, they have a lot to tell you,
Speaker 1: and those words evoke very strong emotions, whereas when you
Speaker 1: ask them about the middling days, people tend to draw
Speaker 1: a blank. Asked to free associate about Monday, Ellis's test
Speaker 1: subjects wrote strongly negative words like tired, boring, early, and rubbish,
Speaker 1: it being the UK after all, and when asked to
Speaker 1: describe Friday, they came up with wildly positive words like fun, friends, party,
Speaker 1: and someone unexpectedly bacon. When asked about the rest of
Speaker 1: the week, people struggled to come up with anything at all. Tuesday,
Speaker 1: for some is like a Monday hangover, long and busy
Speaker 1: topped the list, but the description most people came up
Speaker 1: with for Wednesday was simply middle. There are even a
Speaker 1: lot more songs about Mondays and Fridays than other days
Speaker 1: of the week. Consider New Orders, Blue Monday, The Mamas
Speaker 1: and the Papa's Monday, Monday, The Bengals, Manic Monday, The
Speaker 1: Cures Friday, I'm in Love, Katie Perry's Last Friday Night,
Speaker 1: Rascal Flats Friday. Though, of course, let's not discount the
Speaker 1: midweek brilliance of the Rolling Stones, Ruby Tuesday. But Ellis
Speaker 1: pointed out that there can be serious unintended consequences to
Speaker 1: these strong and weak psychological associations with certain days of
Speaker 1: the week. He explained suicide rates are higher at the
Speaker 1: start of the week, for example, and stocks perform better
Speaker 1: on Friday. Missed medical appointments also peak at the start
Speaker 1: of the week in the United States. These can be
Speaker 1: a costly inconvenience for doctors and patients, but they can
Speaker 1: be costly to the whole community for state run health
Speaker 1: systems like in the UK. The better we understand the
Speaker 1: psychological biases toward different days of the week, Ellis says,
Speaker 1: the better weekend tailor interventions and design subtle nudges, it
Speaker 1: might have significant societal payoff. In a previous study, for example,
Speaker 1: Ellis found that working people are much more likely to
Speaker 1: miss Monday doctor's appointments than retirees. The health system could
Speaker 1: save loads of money by booking retirees at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the week and US working stiffs on Fridays, Which
Speaker 1: brings us back to the original question what days it today?
Speaker 1: When Alice asked that question, he timed each subject's response
Speaker 1: on Mondays and Fridays. He discovered people gave the correct
Speaker 1: answer twice as fast as people asked on Tuesdays, Wednesdays,
Speaker 1: and Thursdays. Some midweek folks couldn't think of the day
Speaker 1: at all. Given the strong if opposing psychological associations with
Speaker 1: Monday and Friday. It's not surprising that people are more
Speaker 1: aware of those days. It seems the rest of the
Speaker 1: work week can get lost in the shuffle. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: Or More on this and lots of other timely topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of
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