Melanie Rudd, Kathleen Vohs, and Jennifer Lynn Aaker recently posted their latest paper, “Awe Expands People’s Perception of Time, Alters Decision Making, and Enhances Well-Being” (forthcoming Psychological Science) on SSRN. For those of you who have time to read it, here is the abstract.
When do people feel as if they are rich in time? Not often, research and daily experience suggest. However, three experiments showed that participants who felt awe, relative to other emotions, felt they had more time available (Experiments 1, 3) and were less impatient (Experiment 2). Participants who experienced awe were also more willing to volunteer their time to help others (Experiment 2), more strongly preferred experiences over material products (Experiment 3), and experienced a greater boost in life satisfaction (Experiment 3). Mediation analyses revealed that these changes in decision making and well-being were due to awe’s ability to alter the subjective experience of time. Experiences of awe bring people into the present moment, which underlies awe’s capacity to adjust time perception, influence decisions, and make life feel more satisfying than it would otherwise.
Download the paper for free here.
Related Situationist posts:
- The Situation of Time and Mind
- Time and the Situation of Marshmallows
- The Death of Free Will and the Rise of Cheating
Image from Flickr.
