The further we are going to go on vacation, the longer we wait for the day of departure, say scientists in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Let’s imagine that we will leave Poland on vacation in a month. It turns out that depending on the place to which we go, our time will be more or less longer. If in Slovakia – it will seem shorter, if in Sri Lanka – longer.
We often think of time in different contexts, without realizing how much our sense of time is susceptible to seemingly insignificant factors such as spatial distance, authors from the United States write.
Scientists conducted a simple experiment. They asked the volunteers to imagine that they were going to the post office today, and to the bookstore in three months. Some were told that the distance between the post office and the bookstore was long, and others that the two buildings were close to each other.
In the first case, the respondents seemed to have a long waiting time.
The same was the case with employees who expected retirement. If it involved moving to a remote place, they felt as if they were still a long time away from that moment.
Scientists emphasize that we must be aware of such dependencies in situations when, for example, we make consumer decisions. Spatial distance affects our perception of the future – they conclude. (PAP)
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