How to make a holiday feel longer?
Long vacations such as Obon holidays are something that everyone can't wait for, but when a long vacation is just around the corner, you may feel like you've finished it even though it hasn't started. The reason for this mysterious sensation is explained by Associate Professor Serin Malcock of The Ohio State University, who studies how to maximize happiness by allocating time for work and leisure.
Why vacations feel like they're over before they even start
Associate Professor Malcock focused on Thanksgiving to investigate the feeling that 'it feels like it's not started but it's over'. While Thanksgiving was considered a good subject for research by Associate Professor Malcock on a day most Americans are looking forward to, it's about the stress of cooking, the hassle of cleaning, and the interaction with family members after a long absence. It was because some people thought that they were afraid of Thanksgiving because of their anxiety.
On the day before Thanksgiving in 2019, Associate Professor Malcock asked 510 subjects gathered online, 'Are you looking forward to Thanksgiving?' 'How far does Thanksgiving feel to begin?' We asked them to rate each degree on a 100-point scale for the question, 'How far do you feel the end of Thanksgiving?'
Most people think that when they're looking forward to something, they want it to happen as soon as possible and continue forever, but in general, they feel like they can't wait to live for something they're looking forward to. On top of that, I feel like it will end soon when the time comes. This feeling is also reflected in the results of this experiment, and the answers from the subjects confirmed that 'the more people are looking forward to Thanksgiving, the farther they feel that Thanksgiving is over'.
Just as the phrase 'fun time goes by in a blink of an eye', a 2009
To confirm this prediction, Associate Professor Malcock conducted an experiment in which the subject was asked to go on a trip on the weekend, and to imagine a situation in which a fun / painful event would occur during the trip. As before, we asked the questions 'How far do you feel the start date of the trip?' And 'How far do you feel the last day of the trip is?' And evaluated each degree on a 100-point scale. When asked, 46% of the subjects who imagined that a fun event would occur set the sensory distances on the start and end dates to be about the same, resulting in 'believing that the trip will end soon.' I found out.
From the series of results, Associate Professor Malcock did not ask 'how far does the fun event feel?' Or 'how soon does it feel like it will end?' I guess it would be possible to reduce the number of people who feel that it will end soon because it is fun to ask 'how much'. To confirm this guess, he said to the subject, 'Think of watching two five-minute videos in a row,' and told the content of the second video that it was 'more interesting / boring than the first.' How many minutes do you think the second video will last? '
As a result, in the case where the subject 'the second video is more interesting than the first', the subject estimated that the video was shorter than the actual length, as expected. However, this estimated time is longer than the case of 'asking the sensory distance between the start time and the end time' conducted in the previous experiments, and the hearing 'asking the length of time concretely' is heard. It was suggested that this would reduce the feeling that 'it feels like it has ended even though it has not started'.
From the above results, Associate Professor Malcock said, 'When there is an event that you are looking forward to, such as a vacation, it is important to think about how many days it will be, not the start date and the last date.' Stated.
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