The Role of Time and Enjoyment in Consumers' Goal Progress Perceptions
Yuchen Wu et al.
What the paper says
Consumers must invest time to make progress on a goal. Yet across nine studies (seven preregistered), including a supplemental study and post-test, consumers relied more on an activity’s enjoyment than on perceived or actual time investment when judging goal progress. This effect arises because consumers hold two lay theories about progress: a time-progress lay theory and an enjoyment-progress one. Consumers rely more on the latter, in part because enjoyment is easier to evaluate and more attention-grabbing than time. For example, gym-goers believed they made more progress and burned more calories when exercise was more (vs. less) enjoyable, than when it felt longer (vs. shorter); similarly, increasing enjoyment of a skill-building task increased perceived skill development more than increasing task duration. These lay theories affect choice: consumers preferred a shorter, more enjoyable activity, unless the time-progress lay theory was activated and/or the diagnosticity of the enjoyment-progress lay theory was challenged.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.