How was the Weekend? How the Social Context Underlies Weekend Effects in Happiness and other Emotions for US Workers

Abstract

In this paper we estimate the size of weekend effects for seven emotions and then explore their main determinants for the working population in the United States, using the Gallup/ Healthways US Daily Poll 2008-2012. We first find that weekend effects exist for all emotions, and that these effects are not explained by sample selection bias. Full-time workers have larger weekend effects than do part-time workers. We then explore the sources of weekend effects and find that workplace trust and workplace social relations, combined with differences in social time spent with family and friends, together almost fully explain the weekend effects for happiness, laughter, enjoyment and sadness, for both full-time and part-time workers, with significant but smaller proportions explained for the remaining three emotions-worry, anger and stress. Finally, we show that workplace trust and social relations significantly improve emotions and life evaluations on both weekends and weekdays for all workers.

The Friday Effect: How Communal Religious Practice Heightens Exclusionary Attitudes

“…We begin from the general observation that individual beliefs and behaviors often modulate based on specific temporal patterns. For example, across Germany, the UK, and the United States, happiness, stress, and job satisfaction systematically correlate to days of the week, in particular, to whether individuals are interviewed as the weekend approaches or ends (Akay and Martinsson 2009; Helliwell and Wang 2015; Stone, Schneider, and Harter 2012; Taylor 2006; Tumen and Zeydanli 2014). Closer to our specific research question, the Islamic holy month of Ramadan induces changes in individuals, including heightening prosocial and cooperative beliefs and behaviors (Akay, Karabulut, and Martinsson 2013, Akay, Karabulut, and Martinsson 2015; Seyyed, Abraham, and Al-Hajji 2005).…”

Support for Domestic Islamist Terrorism in Bangladesh: Insights from a Novel Survey

“…1.There is also a complex literature on the effects of the day of the week when respondents were interviewed upon the measurement of variables of interest, inter alia: Taylor (2006); Akay and Martinsson (2009); Stone et al (2012); Helliwell and Wang (2015); Tumen and Zeydanli (2014). …”

Three questions about happiness

“…Their short-term nature makes them natural for use as outcome variables in experimental and time-use studies. They are also the most important means of measuring weekend effects, which show up in daily emotional reports but not in life evaluations (Helliwell & Wang, 2015, figure 2), thus demonstrating the congruence of the two types of measure. Furthermore, the frequency of a number of positive and negative emotions (especially positive emotions; e.g., Cohen & Pressman, 2006) has been found to predict a number of future health outcomes, including mortality from both sickness and suicide.…”