One American statistician once said “99% of all statistics only tell us 49% of the story.” I feel a bit that way with Moodscope scores. I scored 49% yesterday – that sounds bad to me, but how about to you? And my 76% the day before yesterday? 

My long-term Moodscope average is 61%, which sounds OK – I bet a lot of you have lower averages – but it hides as much as it tells:

Firstly, when I decide I’m “quite excited”, for example, in a similar state you might say you are “very excited”; or when I decide I’m “quite anxious”, in a similar state you might decide you were “very anxious”. It’s down to the meanings we assign to “quite” and “very”.

Secondly, I almost always do my Moodscope test somewhere between 8:30am and 10am, after breakfast, washing and dressing, which is usually one of my best times of the day. If I did my test late evening every day, 8 days out of 10 my scores would be lower - sometimes a LOT lower.

Thirdly, averages can be misleading. I’ve always suffered from mood swings which appear to be much greater than most people’s. My Moodscope scores over the last decade or so have ranged from 17% to 91% since; even in the last month I’ve scored as low as 41% and as high as 79%.

So, how does this resonate with you? Do you have any notions of what a “good” or “bad” score is? And what reservations do you have about how much to read into Moodscope scores? “     

Best regards

Oldie but Goldie

A Moodscope member