Temporal Dynamics of Pleasure and Meaning Effects of Durations of Time on Preferences and Behaviors

Abstract

Pleasure and meaning are primary concerns when thinking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Even with the substantial research in these domains over the last 50 years, we still struggle to explain common human behaviors in reference to happiness pursuits. Previous literature has demonstrated a distinction between types of happiness (i.e. pleasure and meaning). However, very little is known as to what factors are most relevant in distinguishing these often highly correlated types of happiness. The present study aims to address this gap in our understating by investigating how durations of time influence decisions with respect to pleasure and meaning oriented activity choices. This study contributes to the literature by examining durations of time and their effect on decisions in 5 studies. First, participants indicated a clear preference for pleasure or meaning focused activities in a 1 day (short) or 6 months (long) duration condition (Study 1). This effect becomes increasingly pronounced as durations are extended (i.e. 10 minutes, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year) (Study 2). In an implicit association task, participants demonstrated an association between pleasure related words with short durations, and meaning related words with long durations (Study 3). When considering durations of time as a perspective on life (i.e. life is short or life is long), these perspectives were associated with the frequency of real world pleasure and meaning oriented behaviors (Study 4). Finally, in a priming study short, long, and neutral perspectives demonstrated the primed short duration condition intended to give less to a charitable cause relative to the long duration condition (Study 5). Taken together, these studies demonstrate broad domains in which durations of time have a measurable effect on preferences and behaviors.