The Peak-End Rule, according to psychology is the effect of how we judge situations and how it highly depends on the feelings we associate with the memory, as well as the end result of the moment. There are two points, the intense experience and the conclusion we have at the end and not the average feeling throughout the experience.

This is a very interesting phenomenon, as many people find themselves saying how something has made their day, and despite it being a small thing such as someone you haven’t spoken to in a while, sending you a message saying they miss you. That is a very small moment during your day, however it has an impact because of the intense feelings you’d associate with the moment, therefore you will most likely think about it the whole day and it would make you be in a better mood. Whereas if something such as walking down the street and a car drove past and splashed water from a puddle on you happened, again despite it being a small moment in your day, the effect of it will resonate for the rest of the day and will most likely put you in a bad mood as your plan for the day wasn’t exactly to get soaked with water from a puddle while walking down the street.

Reading the blog post “Why A Single Incident Can “Make Your Day” – The Peak-End Rule” made by user zwang21, has really put into perspective how small things really affect our day. Near the end of the post, it mentions about holidays and how it doesn’t matter how long we go on holiday for but actually what matters is how many fun activities we do on the holiday. As you are more likely to remember and have a more intense feeling towards something more fun such as bungee jumping (an example given in the article) rather than laying by the pool every day of your holiday. Therefore giving the overall holiday a better end and therefore you’ll have better memories of it and of how much fun it was.

I found it very interesting reading the blog post, really made me think about how we all have a routine and we get carried away in the routine of life and don’t appreciate smaller things in life and usually tend to focus on the bad things and let them affect us. However the article mentions how if we are more mindful to the present and live our lives more in the moment then we can actually come to appreciate more experiences throughout the day which neither peak or end, which could therefore make our days overall better. Or maybe more dull? As there won’t be a specific moment in the day which made us feel better, there won’t be an up and down of emotions but more of a neutral feeling towards everything.