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Time in Consumption: Bridging Past, Present, and Future Consumer Research

Thomas Derek Robinson et al.

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research2026https://doi.org/10.1086/741359article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

This special issue explores the ubiquitous yet complex role of time in the marketplace. Building on over 50 years of research, this collection synthesizes contributions across micro-psychological, meso-institutional, and macro-cultural levels. Some of the work in this issue examines the fresh deadline effect, the dominance of enjoyment in goal progress, and gendered consumer timework used to navigate societal timelines. Collectively, these papers reposition time as an engineered meaning system with significant ethical and managerial implications regarding consumer pressure and well-being. Beyond synthesizing current findings, this editorial proposes a novel future agenda titled The Edge of Time. It advocates for a shift from within-time thinking toward outside-time thinking, exploring phenomena such as non-time, mortal-time, temporal solvents in extraordinary experiences, and the mega-time of climate and geology. By investigating these temporal boundaries, consumer researchers can better understand how time experiences are managed to help both people and the planet thrive.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1086/741359

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@article{thomas2026,
  title        = {{Time in Consumption: Bridging Past, Present, and Future Consumer Research}},
  author       = {Thomas Derek Robinson et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of the Association for Consumer Research},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1086/741359},
}

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Time in Consumption: Bridging Past, Present, and Future Consumer Research

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 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.