How Long Did I Wait? The Effect of Construal Levels on Consumers’ Wait Duration Judgments

We examine how construal levels affect wait duration judgments through two different routes: one based on consumers’ subjective feelings (an affective route) and the other based on mental markers (a cognitive route). We further identify the conditions under which the affective versus the cognitive route operates. We theorize that low-level construal people generate more wait-unrelated thoughts during the wait than high-level construal people. This difference in turn affects duration judgments in opposite directions depending on the judgment strategy that people use. People spontaneously rely on their subjective feelings—how long they feel they have waited. In this case, low- (vs. high-) level construal consumers, who are more distracted by their wait-unrelated thoughts, find the wait to be less boring and hence judge it to be shorter. However, when subjective feelings become less accessible (after a delay) or diagnostic (perceived as less trustworthy), or when mental markers become more accessible, people resort to the number of thoughts they had during the wait to infer the duration—the more thoughts they had, the longer it must have been. In this case, low- (vs. high-) level construal people perceive the wait to be longer. Results from five studies support the proposed framework.