Time is tight: How higher economic value of time increases feelings of time pressure.

2011/01/01 by Sanford E. DeVoe, Jeffrey Pfeffer · 126 citations
Decision Sciences · Mathematics · Psychology · #Affect (linguistics) #Behavioral Health and Interventions #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #Economics #Feeling #Mathematics #Microeconomics #Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research #Psychology #Scarcity #Social psychology #Statistics #Time value of money #Travel time #Value (mathematics) #Value of time

paper · doi:10.1037/a0022148

published in Journal of Applied Psychology 96(4), 665-676 (American Psychological Association)

openalex publication_date 2011/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27

Abstract

The common heuristic association between scarcity and value implies that more valuable things appear scarcer (King, Hicks, & Abdelkhalik, 2009), an effect we show applies to time as well. In a series of studies, we found that both income and wealth, which affect the economic value of time, influence perceived time pressure. Study 1 found that changes in income were associated with changes in perceived time pressure. Studies 2-4 showed that experimentally manipulating time's perceived economic value caused greater feelings of time pressure and less patient behavior. Finally, Study 5 demonstrated that the relationship between income and time pressure was strengthened when participants were randomly assigned to think about the precise economic value of their time.

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