Sources of Moods and Emotions.

 

In a moment of self reflection, have you ever said “i got up on the wrong side of the bed today”, snapped at a friend for no particular reason or maybe some days felt like nothing could get you down? Ever also wondered why this is so? In this section we will discuss some of the primary influences.

 

Personality

Moods and emotions have a trait component: most people have built-in tendencies to experience certain moods and emotions more frequently than others do. People also experience the same emotions with different intensities. Some people most of the time seem very calm and collected whilst others tend to “fly off the handles” and throw a tantrum much more easily. The intensity of how we experience emotions can be called affect intensity, that is how strongly we feel them.

 

Day of the week and time of the day

According to studies, people tend to be in their worst moods (highest negative affect and lowest positive affect) early in the week. Their best mood (highest positive affect and lowest negative affect) late in the week. This may not come as a shocker. However, we often talk about ourselves as “morning” or “evening” people but according to the research, most of us tend to follow the same pattern. Regardless of what time we go to bed at night or get up in the morning, levels of positive affect tend to peak around the halfway point between waking and sleeping. Negative affect, however, shows little fluctuation throughout the day.

 

So what can we learn from this? Well it is probably not the greatest idea to ask your colleague or study friend for a favor or convey some bad news.

 

Weather

When do you think you are in a better mood, when it is a sunny warm day or cold, gloomy or rainy? Most of us would naturally say when it is sunny and nice weather. However, if we are to believe in a fairly large and detailed body of evidence conducted by multiple researchers, then weather has actually little effect on our mood. According to data from this, people did not report a better mood on bright sunny days or worse mood on dark and rainy days. Researchers explains this by the term illusory correlation which is when people think nice weather improves their mood. This occurs when people associate two events that in reality have no connection.

 

Stress

As we know stress is something we all experience every now and then. It can be from an impending deadline, the loss of a big sale or just having too many things going on at the same time. Stress negatively affect moods and it also builds up over time, even a low amount of stress can build over if not dealt with in time. Mounting levels of stress can worsen oir moods and we experience more negative emotions. Although, sometimes we thrive on stress as it pushes us forward, most of us find stress taking a toll on our mood.

 

Social Activities

For most people, social activities increase positive mood and have little effect on negative mood. Does the type then of social activity matter? Indeed it does! Research suggests activities that are physical (skiing, hiking or sporting with friends), informal (going to a party), or epicurean (eating with others) are more strongly associated with increases in positive mood than events that are formal (attending a meeting) or sedentary (watching TV with friends).

 

Sleep

Sleep quality affect mood. Workers who are sleep deprived report greater feelings of fatigue, anger and hostility. One reason is that poor or reduced sleep impairs decision making and makes it difficult to control emotions.

 

Exercise

Research consistently shows exercise enhances people’s positive mood. Although not terribly strong overall, the effects are stronger for those who are depressed.

 

Age

Do you believe young people experience more extreme positive emotions like “the youthful spirit” for example? If you answered “yes”, you were wrong. At least according to studies. One of which, including ages from 18 to 94, revealed that negative emotions seem to occur less as people get older. Periods of positive moods lasted longer for older individuals and bad moods faded away more quickly. The implies emotional experience improves with age; as we get older, we experience fewer negative emotions.