title: People's preference patterns for gains/losses in multiple time period situations.
abstract: Little research to date has been devoted to investigating whether people treat time differently from money when facing multiple gains or losses. This study tested the hypothesis that because time is characterized by perishability, fixed supply, and infungibility, people with strong motivation to obtain a long period of uninterrupted discretionary time would strive to trim the time needed for non-discretionary activities or to combine several non-discretionary activities. As a result, people prefer integration over segregation of multiple time losses or gains, which is not consistent with the prediction based on hedonic editing theory or the renewable resource model. This proposition is supported by results from four experiments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Business Administration, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan. sschang351@cycu.edu.tw
authors.forename: Shin-Shin
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Marketing and Logistics, MingDao University, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Jung-Hua
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D013995:Time; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult