Lot’s of bad things tend to happen on Mondays: stock market returns are lower¹, employee incivility is at its highest² and even STD helplines see a peak in call volume³.

Is it any wonder then that for many people Monday’s are a source of dread?

The classic working pattern for many is a five day working week — with Monday to Friday being working days and Saturday and Sunday being non-working days. This distinction between working and non-working days is also common within the research literature. After all, it can be a convenient way to explore the psychological effects of work and rest cycles. However, there is one important issue with this approach:

It assumes that all days of the working week are experienced in a similar way⁴.

But let’s face it, our experiences are much more nuanced than that. What tends to happen is more along the lines of:

• Monday — Urgh

• Tuesday — Let’s get productive

• Wednesday — Hump Day

• Thursday — Almost the weekend

• Friday — TGIF

• Saturday — Me time

• Sunday — Wait, where did the weekend go?

Of all of the working days Monday has the worst reputation by far. In a survey of 202 employees, Monday was consistently rated as the worst day of the week whilst its fun-time cousins Friday and Saturday were rated as the best days of the week⁵.

But are Mondays ACTUALLY as bad as we tend to think they are?

Psychological research paints an interesting picture on the impact of Mondays on employee mood.

Mondays Are Remembered as Being Worse Than They Are

Remember that survey, where employees rated Mondays as the worst day of the week? That’s a pretty common finding across research studies and there does appear to be modest evidence that people’s moods tend to be lower on Mondays. However, there’s an important catch. Mondays are most frequently rated as the worst day of the week when employees are asked to REMEMBER their mood from a previous week. When employees are asked to rate their mood in real-time on the day itself the negative impact of Mondays tends to be reduced⁶⁷

What this suggests is that whilst people may have an initial negative reaction to the thought of returning to work on Monday, we tend to adapt pretty quickly once we’re there and end up not being effected for long⁸.

So if our moods aren’t actually THAT much lower on a Monday, why do we often think that they are? Well it’s potentially thanks to human quirk known as focalism.

Focalism is the tendancy to focus too much on a single piece of information⁹ (in this case our negative perception of Mondays) whilst ignoring other relevant sources of information (such as enjoying the chance to catch up with colleagues) when making judgements.

So when we ask employees to remember how their mood was last Monday, the stereotype of Monday being perceived as a bad day potentially blocks out those smaller, but important, moments that make it comparable to the rest of the working week.

Living in the Moment — There’s a real case here then for mindfulness. Thinking ahead to Monday may trigger those negative stereotypes and decrease your mood. However, by being present in the moment and exploring your mood in real-time you may begin to recognise that Monday is not actually that bad.

There is still more work to be done in understanding the dynamic effects of the days of the week on individuals mood and performance.

However, as organisations increasingly trial alternative working patterns (such as four day working weeks) it will be interesting to see how our days of the week stereotypes change and evolve. Will we all be saying ‘thank God it’s Thursday’ or will the extra rest day give us a boost to coping resources, helping employees to stay both productive and satisfied with their work?

Only time will tell. But through the continued work of business psychologists we will be able to build a clearer picture of what works best and for whom.

Dr. Anthony Thompson

References

1- Pettengill, G. N. (2003). A survey of the Monday effect literature. Quarterly Journal of Business and Economics, 42(3/4), 3–27.

2- Nicholson, T., & Griffin, B. (2017). Thank goodness it’s Friday: Weekly pattern of workplace incivility. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 30(1), 1–14.

3- Crutzen, R., & Mevissen, F. E. (2011). Just another manic Monday: peaking sexual concerns after the weekend. Archives of sexual behavior, 40, 1105–1106.

4- Pindek, S., Zhou, Z. E., Kessler, S. R., Krajcevska, A., & Spector, P. E. (2021). Workdays are not created equal: Job satisfaction and job stressors across the workweek. Human Relations, 74(9), 1447–1472.

5- Areni, C. S., & Burger, M. (2008). Memories of “bad” days are more biased than memories of “good” days: past Saturdays vary, but past Mondays are always blue. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(6), 1395–1415.

6- Stone, A. A., Hedges, S. M., Neale, J. M., & Satin, M. S. (1985). Prospective and cross-sectional mood reports offer no evidence of a” blue Monday” phenomenon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(1), 129.

7- Totterdell, P., Parkinson, B., Briner, R. B., & Reynolds, S. (1997). Forecasting feelings: The accuracy and effects of self-predictions of mood. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 12(3), 631–650.

8-Areni, C. S., Burger, M., & Zlatevska, N. (2011). Factors affecting the extent of Monday blues: Evidence from a meta-analysis. Psychological reports, 109(3), 723–733.

9- Ehrlinger, J., Readinger, W. O., & Kim, B. (2016). Decision-making and cognitive biases. Encyclopedia of mental health, 12(3), 83–7.