A famous study of parole boards in 2011 revealed that judges were less likely to grant paroles if they hadn’t had food for an extended period by a crazy margin of 65%. The Hungry Judge Effect was coined and changed how we view the relationship between moods and thinking.
Thinking is usually viewed as the antithesis of moods, emotions and impulses as it strives to be objective, detached and critical. Yet, Martin Heidegger’s theory of mood [Stimmung] says otherwise.
For Heidegger, mood is not a subjective state that interferes with an objective world. It is the world. Moods prime how we perceive objects, events and people. And since we’re already thrown into a mooded world, sometimes we don’t even realize we’re in it.
For instance, after a horrible night of sleep, a person could find fault in a gourmet French dish. On the other hand, a flat tyre would not be that big of a deal for someone who had had his morning coffee. In the case of the Hungry Judge, hunger primes a certain mood and influences supposedly objective decisions, resulting in a giant margin of discrepancy.
Therefore, thoughts are already attuned to moods. Or in Heidegger’s words:
“All essential thinking demands that its thoughts and utterances be newly extracted each time, like an ore, out of the basic mood1.”
From Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event), p. 19.
A nice reminder that your perception shapes your reality. If you can actively make an effort to improve your mood, you may see la vie en rose like Edith!
this reminds of the time when I took a bus to school and the driver was speeding up. It was early in the morning, I think he hit a road block and the whole bus flipped sideways. I remember that day I was like ii nsuch a zen mode. That I really did nnot care or panic or anything. I was like okey I'm fine, got up and kept walking!