Study: Gained Free Time Feels Longer Than Expected
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- Gabriela Tonietto, associate professor of marketing at Rutgers Business School, led a study in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research showing that a gained hour feels longer than an hour that was always free, a 'contrast effect' against the implicit reference point of having no free time.
- Researchers from Rutgers, Ohio State University, the University of Toronto, and Peking University ran seven surveys with more than 2,300 participants; across all studies, people who gained unexpected free time chose longer activities—for example, a 45-minute task over a 30-minute one, or walking to a coffee shop instead of grabbing a hurried cup.
- Tonietto warned that bosses who cancel meetings at the last minute may backfire, noting that 'the more unexpected the gain is, the more likely you are to be unproductive' because surprise openings steer people toward leisure rather than work.
- The findings build on Tonietto's prior work on 'time famine' and the hidden costs of over-scheduling, and could help organizations design schedules that 'enable flexibility without unintentionally encouraging procrastination or drift.'
- The study was published in 2026 (DOI: 10.1086/740288) and was framed with a pop-culture nod to Severance's Lumon Industries, where the workday never ends—a contrast to the liberating feeling most workers get from a canceled meeting.
Why it matters: The study gives managers a behavioral reason to be careful with last-minute calendar changes: surprising employees with free time makes them more likely to drift toward leisure than to redirect effort, which could hurt output even as workers enjoy the gift. For the 2,300-plus people surveyed, the practical lesson is that any surprise open hour should be treated as perceptually expanded and used intentionally.
