In a world increasingly characterized by fast-paced interactions and instant gratification, new research reveals a counterintuitive human tendency: individuals often choose to delay their return to previously rewarding activities, despite prolonged absence and apparent eagerness. This phenomenon, explored comprehensively in a forthcoming study by Linda Hagen and Ed O’Brien, challenges traditional assumptions about human motivation and offers profound implications for understanding procrastination and delayed gratification within the context of behavioral psychology.
The study delves into the paradoxical behavior where people, after experiencing a hiatus from pleasurable pursuits such as social gatherings, dining out, or leisure activities, opt not to resume these activities immediately upon opportunity. Instead, participants reported intentionally postponing their return, aiming to make the eventual experience feel distinctively special or more gratifying than if they were to engage in these activities promptly. This deliberate deferment was consistent across diverse social behaviors, pointing to underlying perceptual and cognitive mechanisms guiding human decision-making.
A series of empirical investigations underscored these findings. In one of the hallmark surveys administered post-COVID-19 societal reopening, Americans disclosed prolonging their return to restaurants, movie theaters, and family visits well beyond the closure period. Their responses suggest that an extended absence doesn’t translate into prompt re-engagement; rather, the perceived passage of time inflates the subjective value placed on the subsequent experience. This insight is pivotal, as it opposes the intuitive belief that people, having been deprived of certain pleasures, would “jump at the chance” to reclaim them instantly.
A crucial factor influencing this delay lies in the perceived length of the hiatus. Respondents who felt that their intermission from an activity was extensive were markedly more inclined to defer their return than those who perceived the break as relatively brief. This perception indicates that subjective memory and time estimation play instrumental roles in shaping return behavior, suggesting that psychological time, distinct from actual time, directly impacts motivation and decision-making processes.
To probe the behavioral underpinnings further, Hagen and O’Brien conducted controlled experiments involving interpersonal communication tasks. In one such experiment, college students were asked to either write short notes of appreciation to a friend or undertake a monotonous work-related task. Results revealed a striking difference: 55% of participants who had last contacted their friend recently, roughly within one week, proceeded to send the note, whereas only 41% of those whose last contact was distant, averaging about one year, chose to reach out. This decrement in initiation behavior despite longer absence illustrates a complex interaction between social closeness, emotional inertia, and return motivation.
Complementing this, an experiment involving adult participants tasked to send a brief greeting message to a friend mirrored similar patterns, thereby reinforcing the robustness and generalizability of the observed delay in return behavior across varying demographics. The replication highlights that this tendency transcends age and context, suggesting a fundamental cognitive-emotional mechanism at play.
When participants were queried about their rationale for voluntarily delaying returns to favored activities or social contacts, their explanations illuminated a salient psychological strategy: creating optimal experiential value. They expressed a desire for their first reunion or resumption to be “special,” implying a form of experiential enhancement whereby temporal distance is leveraged to augment anticipation, thereby enhancing satisfaction. This proposition aligns with theories in behavioral economics and psychology that posit that the subjective value of rewards can be amplified by increasing the anticipation period.
The implications of these findings extend beyond isolated social behaviors into broader behavioral phenomena such as procrastination. The authors argue that the same cognitive valuation processes that govern delayed returns to pleasurable activities may underlie certain forms of procrastination, particularly when a future task is perceived as positively valuable or rewarding. In these cases, deferral is not necessarily avoidance due to fear or anxiety but may reflect a strategic, albeit subconscious, effort to preserve or heighten the subjective value of task completion. This nuanced understanding challenges traditional deficit-based models of procrastination, offering a more integrated perspective.
Moreover, this research offers a conceptual framework for interpreting why the temporal marker “right now” might rarely feel sufficiently significant to prompt immediate action. The human psyche seems predisposed to seek an ideal threshold of meaningfulness before engaging in valued activities again, underscoring the powerful role anticipation plays in temporal decision-making. This insight could have practical applications in designing interventions aimed at reducing maladaptive delays in behavior, including strategies to recalibrate anticipatory perceptions or to create artificially enhanced ‘special’ moments to motivate earlier engagement.
From a neuropsychological standpoint, the tendency to delay return to rewarding behaviors may be associated with the brain’s reward circuitry, particularly structures such as the ventral striatum and prefrontal cortex, which mediate reward anticipation, valuation, and self-regulatory control. The interplay between emotional memory of the absence and cognitive foresight likely influences the temporal discounting of rewards, modulating the subjective utility of immediate versus delayed engagement.
Additionally, the authors’ work invites a reevaluation of social reconnection dynamics. The findings suggest that the emotional inertia following prolonged social absence creates a barrier to immediate re-engagement, which is mitigated only by the expectation of creating a heightened, special occasion. This may inform social psychotherapy and counseling approaches by acknowledging reluctance in resuming social contacts, not merely as social anxiety but as a complex valuation and motivational calculation.
In the context of post-pandemic societal adaptation, when individuals worldwide faced enforced isolation and restrictions on social and leisure activities, these findings illuminate behavioral trends that may have shaped reopening phases, consumption patterns, and social reintegration strategies. Public health communications and business sectors could harness these insights to plan staged reengagement efforts that capitalize on the human desire for special, rewarding experiences rather than immediate, routine resumption.
This nuanced understanding of human motivation enriches the discourse on time perception, reward systems, and decision-making psychology. It underscores the adaptive role of delay as a means to optimize experiential value rather than merely a failure to act promptly. Future research may explore how individual differences in personality traits such as sensation seeking, delay discounting, or emotional regulation moderate this behavior and whether interventions can be designed to balance the benefits of anticipation against the costs of delay.
In sum, Hagen and O’Brien’s study offers a compelling, empirically grounded narrative revealing that “lost time” after enforced or voluntary absence does not necessarily accelerate return behaviors but paradoxically may undermine them. By highlighting the psychological and emotional complexities underlying this tendency, their work reframes how we understand temporary disengagements and comeback behaviors in both social and personal domains, with broad implications spanning psychology, behavioral economics, and public policy.
Subject of Research: Psychological mechanisms influencing delayed return to previously rewarding behaviors and their relationship to procrastination
Article Title: Lost time undermines return behavior
News Publication Date: 24-Jun-2025
Keywords: Psychological science, social behavior, procrastination, reward anticipation, time perception, behavioral psychology
