Next Week, Next Month, Next Year: How Perceived Temporal Boundaries Affect Initiation Expectations Mar 13, 2017 By Benjamin ConverseM. Hennecke Next Week, Next Month, Next Year: How Perceived Temporal Boundaries Affect Initiation Expectations To move from commitment to action, planners must think about the future and decide when to initiate. We demonstrate that planners prefer to initiate on upcoming days that immediately follow a temporal boundary. For example, aspiring dieters who considered a time horizon from Thursday, February 27th to Tuesday, March 4th showed expectation increases from Days 4 to 5 (Sunday to Monday) when induced to think of weekdays and from Days 2 to 3 (February 28th to March 1st) when induced to think of calendar dates. Using both causal steps- and moderation-based approaches, we demonstrate that this occurs (in part) because planners neglect situational constraints when evaluating initiation opportunities after (vs. before) temporal boundaries. A field experiment demonstrated a costly consequence: Aspiring dieters were more likely to sacrifice 1 week of access to an expensive weight-loss program if it allowed them to start on a day they perceived to follow a temporal boundary. Social Psychological and Personality Science Social Psychological and Personality Science Benjamin Converse Benjamin Converse is an associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on motivation, social judgment, problem solving and decision making. He teaches courses related to leadership and negotiations. Read full bio M. Hennecke Related Content Benjamin Converse Better Sharing of “Eco-Innovations” Can Combat Rising Climate Despair Research Climate despair is emerging as a psychosocial threat. Ben Converse, associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Batten School, along with Batten post-doc Maura Austin and other UVA researchers, have found a potential source of hope that is underutilized. People systematically overlook subtractive changes Research A series of problem-solving experiments reveal that people are more likely to consider solutions that add features than solutions that remove them, even when removing features is more efficient. Finding a Seat at the Interdisciplinary Research Table News UVA Batten hosted the “Annual Behavioral Science Across Grounds Conference” earlier this month, bringing some of the brightest minds of UVA’s research community to Garrett Hall to exchange ideas, interests, and insights. Associate professor Ben Converse gave the keynote. New Research: Sharing "Eco-Innovations" Can Ease Climate Despair News Climate despair is emerging as a psychosocial threat. Ben Converse, associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Batten School, and other UVA researchers have found a potential source of hope that is underutilized.
Benjamin Converse Benjamin Converse is an associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on motivation, social judgment, problem solving and decision making. He teaches courses related to leadership and negotiations. Read full bio
Better Sharing of “Eco-Innovations” Can Combat Rising Climate Despair Research Climate despair is emerging as a psychosocial threat. Ben Converse, associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Batten School, along with Batten post-doc Maura Austin and other UVA researchers, have found a potential source of hope that is underutilized.
People systematically overlook subtractive changes Research A series of problem-solving experiments reveal that people are more likely to consider solutions that add features than solutions that remove them, even when removing features is more efficient.
Finding a Seat at the Interdisciplinary Research Table News UVA Batten hosted the “Annual Behavioral Science Across Grounds Conference” earlier this month, bringing some of the brightest minds of UVA’s research community to Garrett Hall to exchange ideas, interests, and insights. Associate professor Ben Converse gave the keynote.
New Research: Sharing "Eco-Innovations" Can Ease Climate Despair News Climate despair is emerging as a psychosocial threat. Ben Converse, associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Batten School, and other UVA researchers have found a potential source of hope that is underutilized.