It’s About Time for Positive Psychology to Get More Involved in Time Use Research

Abstract

Time is an inseparable aspect of life and is therefore a precious commodity. On a rudimentary level life is measured according to number of years alive, or more simply, age. How we spend our time reflects how we live our life, yet many of us allow segments of time to pass without any deliberate thought on how to invest in it for good returns. One reason for this oversight may be that we lack accurate insight on how behaviors relate to outcomes, particularly when it comes to emotional experiences. For example, research on affective forecasting suggests individuals inaccurately predict what will make them happy particularly in the longer term (Wilson TD and Gilbert DT, Adv Exp Soc Psychol 35:345–411, 2003; Curr Dir Psychol Sci 14:131–134, 2005). We are susceptible to recall biases such as emphasizing peaks and ends of episodes, which produce inaccurate memories of past events. These biases are further compounded by research findings that individuals generally misremember their previous (erroneous) forecasts (Meyvis et al, J Exp Psychol General 139:579–589, 2010) and are therefore likely to repeat the same affective forecasting errors when similar situations arise. Evidently, new strategies for improving our understanding of action-consequence relationships based on prior reality are needed to assist us with effective time use in the future.