Summary: Time feels longer when experienced, and rewards are perceived as less valuable when delayed, a new study on human impatience finds.
Source: Ohio University
An Ohio University study exploring how people decide between a smaller immediate reward and a larger delayed reward was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
The research shows that impatience increases when people must actually wait for a reward compared with when they only imagine waiting. Even with very small stakes—cents and seconds—participants tended to prefer the smaller, sooner payoff over the larger, later one. These findings reveal that real waiting changes how we value time and reward.
“Our focus was on how people compare the time required to obtain something against the amount they receive,” said Dr. Claudia González Vallejo, a professor in Ohio University’s Department of Psychology and second author on the paper. “This line of research, known as intertemporal choice, examines trade-offs between amounts gained or lost and the timing of those outcomes.”
The paper’s lead author is Dr. Ping Xu, now at Shenzhen University’s School of Psychology, and the third author is Dr. Benjamin Vincent from the University of Dundee’s School of Social Sciences. The study builds on Xu’s 2019 dissertation completed under Dr. González Vallejo’s mentorship.
To test real-time impatience, researchers designed an environment where participants experienced actual short waits. Sitting at a computer, participants repeatedly chose between small coins they could receive immediately and larger coins that required waiting a few seconds. Two groups saw the same choice options but differed in timing: one group waited after each selection to receive the larger reward, while the other group did not wait after each choice and instead expected any waiting to occur at the end of the session.
Initially, researchers expected that delays of only a few seconds would be negligible and that participants would reliably choose the larger reward. The study produced the opposite: even very brief waits influenced choices. “Delays matter—seconds matter,” González Vallejo said. “People are generally impatient, and that impatience is stronger when they must actually endure the delay.”
“[The results] overturned our initial plans and predictions, and led us towards something surprising, or to a direction we had never thought of,” Xu said.
Using hierarchical Bayesian modeling, the team identified two mechanisms that explain the behavior. First, subjective time perception changed: time experienced during waiting felt longer than clock time. Second, delayed rewards were devalued—participants perceived the monetary amount as worth less when it was tied to a wait. The modeling provided support for both explanations, though the authors note that further empirical tests are needed to refine these mechanisms.
The study also examined related phenomena such as the magnitude effect and gain-loss asymmetry, reporting that discounting rates and nonlinear perceptions of time were stronger in the condition requiring waiting after each choice. In some cases, participants initially intended to wait for the larger reward but reversed their preference once faced with the actual delay, consistent with hyperbolic-type discounting models.
Although the experiment was designed and conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors argue the results are relevant to public-policy choices that require collective patience. For example, decisions about lockdown timing and duration involved short-term discomfort for potential long-term public-health gains. González Vallejo suggested that policy differences across countries illustrate how willingness—or unwillingness—to wait can affect outcomes when timing is crucial.
Publication in a high-profile American Psychological Association journal is competitive, and the research team expressed relief and pride that the work was accepted. “When I saw the final publication, I felt that I have graduated for the second time,” Xu said. “I am fortunate to have had this experience.”
About this psychology research article
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Ohio University
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Original Research: Closed access — “Waiting in intertemporal choice tasks affects discounting and subjective time perception” by Ping Xu, Claudia González-Vallejo, and Benjamin T. Vincent. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Abstract
Waiting in intertemporal choice tasks affects discounting and subjective time perception
Experimental paradigms in delay discounting typically ask participants to imagine delays rather than experience them. Because even short waits can be aversive, this study introduces a delay discounting paradigm that requires either actual waiting after each choice or no immediate waiting. The paradigm preserves the core trade-off between reward size and immediacy. Using hierarchical Bayesian modeling, the authors decompose discounting behavior and subjective time perception. Across two experiments, the online waiting condition produced greater discounting and nonlinear (convex) subjective time perception compared to a control condition where waiting was deferred until the experiment’s end. Discounting was captured by a hyperbolic-type parameter and linked to reversals between initial intention and actual behavior. These findings support the view that subjective time perception plays a key role in intertemporal choice alongside discounting tendencies.