Time and Interdependence: Accounting for Pace

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This research project concerns how time is valued in social interaction. Our approach is based on three premises: (1) We argue that emotion is critical to temporal evaluation in social contexts. As research shows, people often get anxious in response to time compression, and people often experience anger in response to delays. (2) We argue that people place a value on the experience of flow and momentum across events -- people have pacing goals in social interaction. (3) We posit that people innately value feeling "in-pace" with others -- they have an "in-synch" preference. The degree to which this preference is met in interaction affects cognitive and emotional processing, as well as the actual outcomes and relationships that emerge through interaction. Thus, in our research, we predict that when feeling in-synch (that is, when people have the same pacing goals), people will experience the highest levels of satisfaction and function most effectively in interaction. When feeling out-of-synch, negative emotions will be triggered, cognitive functioning will falter, and diminished joint performance will be observed. We have designed four series of studies to test these propositions. When our research is complete, it will offer new insights (a) into how time is valued among social actors and (b) about group and organizational dynamics during times of turbulence and change.