Time, Money, and Happiness: Does Putting a Price on Time Affect Our Ability to Smell the Roses?

Abstract

DeVoe and House (2012; Experiment 3) demonstrated that the process of thinking about one’s income in relation to time (i.e., as an hourly wage) affected the enjoyment that participants derived from pleasurable experiences. Participants compelled to think of “time is money” experienced more impatience and less enjoyment in reaction to listening to a pleasurable piece of music compared to participants not asked to think of time as money. These effects were attenuated when participants were financially compensated for this leisure time. This suggests that putting a price on time can influence enjoyment of leisure activities, depending on the degree to which individuals are compensated for engaging in these activities. To determine the reliability, and magnitude, of the reported effects, two preregistered high-powered close replications were conducted. These independent replication attempts, as well as the analyses on the combined sample, failed to replicate the original pattern of findings. The results of the current studies suggest that, using these operationalizations of the study variables, the interactive effects of compensation and calculation cannot be considered robust and may not consistently predict happiness or impatience.

Keywords: Time, Money, Impatience, Happiness, Replication, Reproducibility

JEL Classification: C91, J20, E40, M54, M12, M31, D12, E20