Why are judges more lenient towards the defendants at the beginning of the hearings, while doctors prescribe unnecessary medicines by the end of the appointment? A few arguments in favor of the habit of assigning important things to the morning.
In the morning we feel fresh and rested (if, of course, we slept well at night). But hour after hour, continuous mental efforts gradually deplete our internal resources, and because of this, our behavior changes. We are becoming a little ruder and more cynical towards other people, and it is increasingly difficult for us to make optimal, informed decisions, says Francesca Gino (Francesca Gino), a management specialist at Harvard Business School. Cognitive fatigue leads to a deterioration in concentration, a decrease in motivation and productivity, and finally to burnout. The catch is that all these negative consequences often appear when we are not yet aware that we are tired.
Francesca Gino and her colleagues from Denmark conducted a study showing how children’s learning ability changes depending on the time of day. After analyzing nearly 2 million tests taken by Danish students aged 8 to 15 between 2009 and 2013, they found a clear pattern: the later in the day the test was taken, the worse the results were overall.
But at the same time, the researchers also identified an important “reset” factor. If the test was given after a 20-30 minute break, the children performed better on the test.
Interestingly, both factors — the timing of the test and rest during recess — especially affected the results of poorly performing students.
This applies to adults to no lesser extent. A few years ago, researchers in Israel and the United States set out to find out whether time of day matters in court decisions. After studying 1112 court decisions, they found that at the beginning of the day the judges were more lenient and inclined to grant the defendants’ petitions (in about 65% of cases), but closer to lunch time they were almost always negative and made decisions to refuse the defendants. After a break for lunch, everything was repeated in the same sequence.
Similar results were obtained for representatives of other professions. Some of the research results were simply amazing. For example, it turned out that polyclinic doctors, due to fatigue accumulating during the day, begin to more often prescribe antibiotics that are unnecessary in this case to patients with acute respiratory viral infections.
In other words, there is a vicious circle. The need to make many decisions during the day drains our mental resources quite a lot, and this, in turn, leads to the fact that we make erroneous or unreasonable decisions.
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But that’s not all. Our interaction with other people also depends on the time of day. Francesca Gino talks about a new, yet unpublished, study she did with her American and British colleagues. After examining data from MBA admissions offices at leading US business schools, they concluded that the later in the day an interview was held, the lower the applicant’s educational level and work experience were assessed. The reason is that the more tired the employees, the less constructive they were in the interview. At the same time, neither they nor the applicants were aware of this connection.
Of course, we all know perfectly well that we get tired of our affairs and worries. But we rarely think about how much fatigue affects our efficiency and how much the business we are engaged in suffers from this. On the contrary, in order not to waste a single minute, we often neglect the opportunity to give ourselves a break — for example, we quickly have a snack right at the workplace, without taking our eyes off the computer. It’s time to reconsider your habits: you need to disconnect from work from time to time, and try to assign important things to the morning, the most productive hours.
See more at ScientificAmerican.