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In operant conditioning, the timing of reinforcement is crucial. For animals like rats and cats, immediate reinforcement (within a few seconds) is much more effective than delayed reinforcement. For example, a food reward for a rat needs to follow within 30 seconds of pressing a bar to be effective. 
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 26, 2026

Measuring Delay Discounting in Humans Using an Adjusting Amount Task
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Buying time promotes happiness.

Ashley V Whillans1, Elizabeth W Dunn2, Paul Smeets3

  • 1Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02163; awhillans@hbs.edu.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|July 26, 2017
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Spending money to buy time can increase happiness and life satisfaction. This finding holds true across diverse populations, suggesting a valuable strategy for well-being.

Keywords:
happinessmoneytimewell-being

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Behavioral Economics
  • Sociology

Background:

  • Increasing global wealth correlates with a growing sense of time scarcity.
  • Time scarcity is a prevalent issue impacting well-being in modern societies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between spending money on time-saving services and life satisfaction.
  • To determine if purchasing time causally enhances happiness.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of large, diverse survey data from the United States, Canada, Denmark, and The Netherlands (n=6,271).
  • A field experiment involving working adults assessing happiness after purchasing time-saving versus material goods.

Main Results:

  • Individuals who paid for time-saving services reported higher life satisfaction.
  • The field experiment demonstrated that spending money on time-saving purchases led to greater reported happiness compared to material purchases.

Conclusions:

  • Purchasing time can act as a buffer against the negative effects of time scarcity on life satisfaction.
  • Financial resources can be strategically allocated to enhance subjective well-being by acquiring more free time.