scheduling style, control, and well-being...

Scheduling Style, Control, and Well-Being 1

RUNNING HEAD: SCHEDULING STYLE, CONTROL, AND WELL-BEING

So What If the Clock Strikes?

Scheduling Style, Control, and Well-Being

Anne-Laure Sellier, HEC Paris

Tamar Avnet, Yeshiva University

We thank New York University and the HEC Foundation for financially supporting this

research. We are also grateful for helpful comments that we received from Michel T.

Pham, Rik Pieters and Steven Sweldens on previous versions of this work; finally, we

thank participants in the RED lab at Columbia University, as well as at the HEC-

ESSEC-INSEAD 2013 conference.

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Anne-Laure Sellier & Avnet,Tamar,Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 107(5), Nov 2014, 791-808

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Abstract

Individuals vary in the way they schedule their daily tasks and activities. In particular, two

scheduling styles are commonly followed: clock-time (where tasks are organized based

on a clock) and event-time (where tasks are organized based on their order of

completion). This research shows that adopting a clock-time or an event-time scheduling

style has consequences that go beyond the direct effect on task organization. In

particular, adopting one scheduling style versus the other is shown to potentially

influence personal control and well-being. We demonstrate that the reliance on clock-

versus event-time affects individuals’ perception of the causal relationship between

events in the social world (experiments 1 and 2). Specifically, we show that individuals

following clock-time rather than event-time discriminate less between causally related

and causally unrelated events, which in turn increases their belief that the world is

controlled by chance or fate. In contrast, individuals following event-time (vs. clock-

time) appear to believe that things happen more as a result of their own actions. We

further show that this difference in internal locus of control compromises the ability of

individuals following clock-time to savor positive emotions (experiments 3a-5). We

discuss the implications of these findings for future research in social and cognitive

psychology.

Keywords: Scheduling style, clock-time, personal control, well-being, self-regulation.

Tamar Avnet

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So What If the Clock Strikes?


Time orders events. People attend to their daily activities in succession, on a

continuum going from past to present to future (Picklett, 2010). This basic law of physics

and social interaction evolved into distinct expressions in different cultures. In particular,

cross-cultural research documented the existence of two main styles that people adopt to

schedule their activities over time: “clock-time” and “event-time.” With clock-time,

individuals slice time into standard, objective, and quantifiable units and let an external

clock dictate when activities begin and end (Lauer, 1981; Levine, 1997). A standard day

scheduled in clock-time may start with waking up at 7 am, having breakfast from 7:30 to

8, arrive at work at 9, work until 12, have lunch until 1, resume work until 5, run errands

until 6, and head home for dinner planned at 7. A second documented scheduling style is

“event-time,” where activities are planned relative to other activities, and people begin an

activity conditional on having completed a prior activity. A typical day scheduled in

event-time may start with waking up naturally, having breakfast until one decides s/he is

ready to go to work, work until one decides s/he is hungry for lunch, resume work once

lunch is over, work more until one decides s/he should “call it a day,” run a few errands

until these are complete, head home to prepare dinner, and sit at the dinner table

whenever dinner is ready. In event-time, individuals transition from one activity to the

next when they internally sense that the former activity is completed.

Historically, humans functioned mostly in event-time by default until the use of

sundials in ancient times. While external temporal cues were obviously present before

sundials (e.g., the sun going up or down; the passing of seasons), it is the advent of

sundials and rapid technological progress that enabled the slicing of time into

increasingly precise units (hours, minutes, seconds). Indeed, once some version of a

“clock” was established (the gnômôn, estimated at least prior to 1500 BC; Rohr, 1970), the


adoption of clock-time scheduling increased in leaps throughout history. The popularity

of the clock was intimately intertwined with the need for coordination in order to

maximize economic efficiency and to further technological progress. To illustrate, it is

believed that the first public clocks appeared in the textiles centers of Europe to signal

workers when to arrive, take breaks, and close out the workday; workers even recreated

by the clock (Overman, 2011). By the 1830s, technology had advanced to the point of

allowing people to be conscious of the exact time by pulling a watch out of their pocket

(Overman, 2011). In industrialized societies, the popularity of the clock culminated with

Taylorism and its advocacy of a “one best way” to achieve maximal performance on a

task by defining the optimal amount of time that should be spent on it (Taylor, 1911).

Since then, decades of economics research have been advocating clock-time as the

optimal way to organize activities in modern industrial societies.

It is noteworthy, however, that not all societies have equally embraced clock-

time: past research shows cultural differences in the degree of reliance on clock-time

(e.g., Switzerland, Germany, the U.S.) versus event-time (e.g., Brazil, Ecuador; Levine,

1997). Anchoring on the clock to schedule activities still feels unnatural for much of the

world today (Levine, 1997). For example, in the Arab world, it is common to arrive at a

meeting whenever one is ready to attend it rather than at a specific time; it is also

considered rude to look at one’s watch during a meeting (Ludwig, 2010).

What, then, leads people to adopt clock-time or event-time? Recent research

suggests that, in addition to cultural influence, one’s scheduling style can be related to

self-regulation: clock-time individuals are concerned with efficiency when attending to

planned tasks—they focus on getting things done—whereas event-time individuals are

concerned with effectiveness—they focus on doing things well (Avnet & Sellier, 2011).

The full-blown psychological implications of embracing either of these styles, however,

remain a shot in the dark. What is the subjective experience of living following clock-


time versus event-time? Can these different ways of living shape how we think and feel

about the social world? If these styles relate to self-regulatory concerns for efficiency

versus effectiveness (Avnet & Sellier, 2011), how do they impact other aspects of self-

regulation, such as emotion regulation and well-being?

In this research, we propose that the adoption of either style (whether

deliberately or not deliberately via cultural shaping) has farther-reaching psychological

consequences than has been previously suggested. In particular, we focus on the extent

to which these scheduling styles represent distinct ways of managing personal control

and well-being. Since scheduling consists of a plan for an event to take place at a

particular point in time, a fundamental purpose of scheduling activities is to control

when and where these activities will take place. Hence, we suggest that the adoption of

clock-time versus event-time can reflect different expressions and degrees of control.

What type of control? For one style of scheduling, the clock (an external cue)

controls the planned events, while for the other, the individual controls the planned

events (based on the individual’s own sense, an internal cue). We propose that the

reliance on an external versus internal location of the time cue used to schedule activities

goes hand in hand with people’s location of control, that is, literally their “locus” of

control. In particular, we suggest that the adoption of clock-time or event-time reflects

different degrees to which people believe that they control the environment. People who

rely on clock-time surrender to the dictates of the clock. We suggest that, as a result, they

will more likely perceive the environment as being controlled by an outside force—

chance, fate, or powerful others (Levenson, 1973). In contrast, people who rely on event-

time begin and end scheduled tasks based on their own evaluation of task completion. It

follows that they will likely perceive things happening as a result of their own actions. In

sum, we suggest that scheduling style is intimately intertwined with individuals’

perception of their level of control over their social environment.


We further argue that this different perception of control over the social

environment translates into different approaches to emotion regulation and varying

levels of success in doing so. We propose that relying on the clock rather than on one’s

internal sense can shape the way individuals regulate their emotions. Indeed, we expect

that people who rely on clock-time rather than on their internal sense to schedule events

also rely less on other internal senses (such as emotional experiences) when managing

their environment. Focusing on the case of positive emotions, we suggest that relying on

the clock might decrease individuals’ reliance on and cultivation of positive emotions,

that is, people’s very ability to savor. This prediction is critical, since it introduces the

possibility that relying on clock-time versus event-time entails psychological implications

that go well beyond mere control considerations. Indeed, recent research shows that

individuals’ propensity to savor positive emotions plays a critical role in overall well-

being (Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2010).

In sum, our purpose in this paper is to document possible psychological

implications of adopting clock-time versus event-time that go beyond the immediate

influence on task organization. We present a pilot study and six experiments testing our

predictions about implications for personal control (experiments 1, 2, 4 and 5),

implications for emotion regulation (experiments 3a to 5), and the underlying

mechanisms generating the identified effects (experiments 2, 4 and 5).

Scheduling Styles

A key underpinning of our conceptualization is a formalized definition of

scheduling style. Following prior research (Lauer, 1981; Levine, 1997), we define clock-

time orientation as individuals’ tendency to rely on an external clock, and event-time

orientation as individuals’ tendency to rely on their internal sense when scheduling

activities or tasks. If prior research documented that these styles exist, we spell out how

they are related. At any given point in time, an individual can only be relying either on


the clock or their internal sense to transition from one activity to the next — they cannot

rely on both simultaneously. This means that an individual’s chronic scheduling style may

be represented in space as two distinct vectors — one capturing the tendency to

generally rely on the clock to plan activities, the other capturing the tendency to generally

rely on one’s internal sense. Therefore, we conceptualize these styles as at least partly

independent.

Because individuals can’t rely on both scheduling styles at the same time, it

follows that they either stick to one style, or switch back and forth between clock-time

and event-time. We propose that people’s reliance on clock-time versus event-time varies

as a function of context: an individual following clock-time in their jobs may adopt

event-time scheduling during holidays, or when spending “quality time” with family.

Conversely, an individual following event-time at one point, such as a researcher working

on his/her projects until s/he deems they are ready to be submitted, may switch to

clock-time in other contexts, to deliver a review by a deadline imposed by an editor; or to

teach a class. Individuals may choose to switch from one style to the other; or adjust

their style based on the context, at least occasionally. Indeed, most people in Western

societies must at least partly rely on the clock because their social environment has been

shaped that way and does not entirely fall under their control (e.g., most people can’t go

to their bank after 6 p.m.; school starts at a set hour), making it difficult to embrace pure

event-time. In fact, the reliance on a minimum of external temporal cues to schedule

activities is presumably universal (e.g., reliance on the night/day distinction to schedule

sleep). Pure clock-time living is similarly unlikely (e.g., one cannot schedule getting

pregnant; or getting over a disease). Thus, while our conceptualization can accommodate

a pure clock-time and a pure event-time orientation (i.e., only one vector would exist for

those individuals), these extremes may only be of theoretical relevance.

If context can push individuals to adopt one or the other style, we also contend


that most people have a chronic tendency to predominantly rely on clock-time or event-

time. This means that the clock-time and the event-time vectors may not be of the same

strength, on average across situations. As in a tug-of-war around the origin, one vector

may stretch farther out in space than the other.

In our studies, we either measured participants’ chronic scheduling style, or

manipulated it to temporarily shift participants to follow a more clock-time or a more

event-time scheduling style. For studies in which we measured scheduling style, we

report the separate effects of relying on each style, to examine their independent

influence. We also report effects on the difference score between one’s chronic reliance

on clock-time and their chronic reliance on event-time, to document the psychological

implications of generally relying on one style more than the other. Henceforth, we refer

to people who primarily rely on clock-time to schedule their activities as “clock-timers,”

and to people who primarily rely on event-time as “event-timers.”

Scheduling Style and Locus of Control

Scheduling consists of planning ahead for one or several events to take place at a

selected point in time. In clock-time, the clock defines this point (e.g., let’s go for a jog at

3 pm); in event-time, any action follows a previously planned and completed event (e.g.,

let’s go for a jog once a work task is done). In both cases, scheduling is an attempt to

exert control over one’s planned tasks. As mentioned, clock-time involves organizing

tasks around an externally located cue (the clock), while event-time follows an internally

located cue of task scheduling (one’s internal sense).

We propose that this difference in location—or locus—of scheduling reflects a

difference in locus of control. Locus of control is defined as a predisposition in the

perception of what causes reinforcement (e.g., goal accomplishment, reward; Rotter,

1966). In particular, prior work consistently reveals two main dimensions: an external

locus of control and an internal locus of control (see Levenson, 1973; Rotter, 1975). An


external locus of control reflects a predisposition to perceive that things happen due to

either chance/fate or powerful others. Henceforth, we refer to these two types of

external locus of control as “chance locus of control” and “others locus of control.” By

contrast, an internal locus of control is a predisposition to perceive that things happen

due (at least in part) to one’s own traits or actions (Levenson, 1973).

We propose that the adoption of a clock-time or an event-time scheduling style is

linked to varying degrees of external and internal locus of control. We make distinct

predictions about how scheduling style influences chance locus of control, others locus

of control, and internal locus of control. Next, we develop each of these predictions.

Chance locus of control. By definition, the higher an individual’s chance locus of

control, the more s/he will perceive events in the social world to occur randomly (i.e.,

the link between cause and effect is weak). Therefore, the higher an individual’s chance

locus of control, the less s/he should perceive events, in general, to be causally related in

the social world. Conversely, the lower an individual’s chance locus of control, the more

s/he will recognize the causality between and among events—in other words, recognize

the extent to which events in the social world can be causally related or not.

We suggest that relying on one scheduling style versus the other shapes

individuals’ perception of causality between events. Clock-timers and event-timers differ

in their perception of the interdependence of or relationship between their scheduled

tasks. Clock-timers slice time into standard, quantifiable, and independent units or time

frames (days, hours, minutes; Levine, 1997), which they fit their tasks into. Because the

tasks depend only on the time slots they are in, individuals can manage them most of the

time independent of one another. These time units can be freely rearranged, as long as all

the individual time units fit into the overall timeframe available. For example, if a clock-

timer takes two hours to shop for groceries, as well as two hours to finish some work,

s/he can decide to work two hours in the morning and shop for two hours in the


afternoon or vice versa; or shop for groceries on another day altogether, provided a two-

hour slot is available. Thus, a clock-time scheduling style assumes an arrangement of

activities (e.g., 2hs groceries, then 2hs work), a characteristic of an arrangement being

that it can be rearranged (2hs work, then 2hs groceries).

In contrast, event-timers represent time as a succession of events, with activities

dependent on prior tasks being completed. An event-timer who planned to work and

shop for groceries will start shopping for groceries conditional on a sense that the work

is completed. Tasks scheduled in event-time are akin to a string of pearls in a necklace,

which follow one another in a closed circuit, making the rearrangement of one task

conditional on moving other tasks. As such, event-time scheduling is more a structure than

an arrangement, an organized system involving interdependent elements. This suggests that

event-timers should be more sensitive to the correlation (or lack thereof) between events

compared to clock-timers. Further, because the succession in which tasks are taking place

is also of significance to event-timers (e.g., start grocery shopping once work is done),

they should be more sensitive to the causal relationship (or lack thereof) between events

when compared to clock-timers.

We therefore predict that clock-timers will be less sensitive to the causal

relationship between events than will event-timers. As a result, clock-timers will perceive

the social world similarly to individuals with a high-chance locus of control—as a place

where events occur somewhat randomly, where chance and fate play a greater role than

for event-timers. In contrast, event-timers will perceive the social world similarly to

individuals with a relatively lower-chance locus of control—as a place where events

occur relatively less randomly. We further propose that the relation between scheduling

style and chance locus of control depends on the perception of the causality of events.

Clock-timers (event-timers) will have a higher (lower) chance locus of control when they

perceive their social world as more (less) random.


Importantly, we propose that the influence of scheduling style on the perception

of causality between events in the social world is athematic, that is, independent of what

type of social event is being perceived. By this, we mean that the influence of scheduling

style is not limited to events that are relevant to an individual’s personal schedule.

Instead, we propose that adopting either scheduling style is like putting different glasses

on—it colors one’s view of the social world at large, making no distinction between

social events that are more or less directly relevant to individuals.

Others locus of control. We further expect individuals’ scheduling style to influence

the perception that events in the social world occur because of powerful others, since we

argue that reliance on the clock rather than one’s internal sense generally externalizes

control. However, we do not expect this effect to result from different perceptions of

causality since, by definition, an individual’s others locus of control presumes a causal

relationship between powerful others and social events.

Internal locus of control. Finally, individuals’ scheduling style should also influence

the different degrees of internal locus of control, that is, the extent to which individuals

perceive that events in the social world occur as a result of their own doing. Event-timers

decide when to begin and end a task, therefore it is more likely that they should perceive

events occurring as a result of their own doing (as compared to clock-timers). In

contrast, clock-timers decide when to begin and end a task based on the clock, an

external tool they have no control over. Therefore, they should perceive events occurring

as a result of their own doing to a lesser extent than event-timers do.

To summarize, our investigation of the extent to which scheduling style relates to

personal control leads to four predictions: (1) clock-timers will be less sensitive than

event-timers to the causal relationship between events in the social world; (2) clock-

timers will express relatively higher external locus of control (both chance and others

locus of control) as compared to event-timers; (3) perceived causality will mediate the


relation between scheduling style and chance locus of control; and (4) event-timers will

express a relatively higher internal locus of control as compared to clock-timers.


Recent research shows that individuals’ propensity to savor positive emotions is a

critical antecedent to overall well-being (Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak,

2010). However, are all individuals equally able to savor emotions? Following our

conceptualization, we propose that event-timers are better equipped to cultivate positive

emotions than clock-timers are. Indeed, we reasoned that individuals who have a higher

rather than lower internal locus of control are more likely to seek to actively improve

their well-being, since they perceive a greater level of personal control over it. They are

also more likely to track positive reinforcement, that is, to observe factors that they can

actively use to create positive outcomes in the future. For this reason, when they notice

that they are experiencing positive emotions, they should be more likely to cultivate

those emotions in order to make them linger as long as possible (versus clock-timers).

In contrast, clock-timers should be less able to savor positive emotions than

event-timers, for three reasons. First, if clock-timers have a lower internal locus of

control than event-timers, they should be less motivated to cultivate positive emotions.

Second, their lesser reliance on their internal sense in scheduling activities could result in

a lesser reliance on other internal senses, such as emotional experiences, given that these

holistically contribute to one’s internal sense. Third, clock-timers should also be less

emotionally absorbed in any task they are completing, compared to event-timers. By

definition, they keep track of the external clock, thereby constantly alternating between

attending to their task and checking the external clock in order to know when they need

to transition to their next scheduled task. In other words, as they complete a task, they

have the next task in mind and are not fully immersed in the present task, which should

compromise the cultivation of positive emotions (Erisman & Roemer, 2010).


Overview of Experiments

We present a pilot study and six experiments testing six hypotheses. First, clock-

timers will be sensitive to the causal relationship between events to a lesser extent than

event-timers. Second, clock-timers will express a higher external locus of control (both

chance and others locus of control) as compared to event-timers. Third, the difference in

sensitivity to causality between events will mediate the influence of relying on clock-time

versus event-time on chance locus of control. Fourth, clock-timers will express a lower

internal locus of control as compared to event-timers. Fifth, clock-timers will savor

positive emotions less than event-timers do. Sixth, individuals’ internal locus of control

will mediate the influence of relying on clock-time versus event-time on savoring. Figure

1 summarizes our predictions.

Insert Figure 1 about here

Across our studies, we either measured scheduling style using a scale that we

developed and validated as part of this research (experiments 2 and 3a) or temporarily

manipulated it through priming (experiments 1, 3b, 4, and 5). Before we present our

experiments, we report the results of a pilot study that we designed to validate our

priming manipulation of clock-time versus event-time.

Pilot study

Method

Participants. Sixty-three participants (33 men, 30 women, age = 35% 21-29 years,

23% 30-39 years, 42% over 40 years; 61 native English speakers) took part in an online

study in exchange for $1.50. Three participants were excluded because they failed to

accurately answer an attention question. We report the results for the remaining 60


participants (30 men, 30 women, age = 30% 21–29 years, 25% 30–39 years, 45% over 40

years; 59 native English speakers).

Procedure – Scheduling-style priming. Participants read that they would take part in

two short studies, ostensibly unrelated. The first study had three conditions: we primed

participants with a clock-time scheduling style, an event-time scheduling style, or with a

neutral task vis-à-vis scheduling, which served as a control condition. In the two

conditions priming a scheduling style, participants rated their agreement with five

recommendations about task scheduling (1 = totally disagree; 7 = totally agree), as well as

noted how much they liked each recommendation (1 = dislike extremely; 7 = like

extremely). The recommendations were allegedly borrowed from a bestselling book

aimed at improving readers’ scheduling skills. Participants were exposed to

recommendations in favor of either clock-time scheduling or event-time scheduling. The

clock-time recommendations included statements such as: “Create a timetable for your tasks,

and do your best to stick to it” and “When performing a task without a time limit, make sure to check

the clock so you can pace yourself.” Examples of event-time recommendations were: “Move to

your next activity of the day only after completing the previous one” and “Organize your daily tasks

based on the order in which they should be completed.” Participants in the control condition were

exposed to a list of five product claims that they were told may appear in an ad about a

new razor blade. Using 7-point scales, they rated the importance of each claim (1 = not

at all important; 7= extremely important), as well as how much they liked each claim (1 =

dislike extremely; 7 = like extremely). Examples of product claims were: “Handle is tapered

and ribbed to prevent slipping,” and “Designed with the ‘bathroom’ in mind.”

Manipulation checks. Next, participants were presented with a list of nine errands to

complete in a week, such as: “take the dog to the vet,” “talk to mom,” and “get a haircut.” To

plan these tasks, they were asked to choose between two scheduling methods. Both

methods included a table that had the names of the days of the week on the top;


however, one method—presented as a “to-do list”—had rows labeled 1, 2, etc., below

each day, while the other method—presented as a “time table”—had rows with time

frames below each day (e.g., 8am–9am, 9am–10am). We counterbalanced the order in

which participants saw both methods. Participants chose which method they preferred

and subsequently rated the extent to which they agreed with the following statement:

“The time table provides a better way of organizing tasks” (1–7, totally disagree/agree).

Next, participants reported the extent to which they perceived time as limited

versus plentiful, using four items: “Right now, to what extent do you perceive your time

as limited?” (reverse-coded), “Right now, to what extent do you perceive your time as unlimited?” ,

“Right now, to what extent do you perceive your time as limitless?”, and “Right now, to what extent do

you perceive your time as plentiful?” (Cronbach-α = .84). Demographics and general

information queries closed the questionnaire.

Results. We expected participants primed with clock-time to prefer the “time

table” and participants primed with event-time to prefer the “to-do list.” We also

examined whether our scheduling style prime would be effective at momentarily making

participants more clock- versus event-time than they would be in the absence of a prime.

In particular, we inquired whether our control participants’ preference for the time table

versus the to-do list would fall in between the clock-time and the event-time condition.

Results support our predictions. We found that participants in the clock-time

condition chose the time table (65%) significantly more than the to-do list (35%), while

participants in the event-time condition chose the time table (20%) significantly less than

the to-do list (80%). We also found that the control group fell in between the two

conditions primed with scheduling style, showing a stronger preference for the to-do list

(65%) than the time table (35%; χ2 (2) = 8.75, p < .02, r2 = .14). Participants’ agreement

with the statement that the time table provides a better way of organizing tasks also

varied by condition: participants in the clock-time condition agreed significantly more


than participants in the event-time condition (Mclock = 4.85 vs. Mevent = 3.75, F(1, 59) =

4.56, p < .04, r2 = .07) and more than participants in the control-group condition (Mcontrol

= 3.60, F(1, 59) = 5.89, p < .02, r2 = .09). Participants in the event-time condition and

the control group equally agreed with the statement, t <1. Together, these results suggest

that our manipulation of clock-time versus event-time was effective.

Time as limited versus expansive. After averaging the four items capturing

participants’ perception of time as limited versus expansive, we found that participants

did not vary on this index as a result of the condition they were in, Mclock = 2.85, Mevent =

3.45, Mcontrol = 3.04, F < 1. This suggests that our manipulation of scheduling style was

not confounded with different perceptions of time horizon.

These pilot results are relevant for three reasons. First, they confirm that

individuals’ scheduling style can be momentarily manipulated to influence one’s

preference for a clock-time versus an event-time organization of activities. Second, they

validate a manipulation that we use in three more experiments in this research to test the

influence of scheduling style on the perception of causality between events (experiment

1) and on savoring (experiments 3b and 4). Third, the pilot results show that the

manipulation of scheduling style is independent of individuals’ perception of time

horizon as limited versus expansive. With this validated manipulation, we now turn to

the experiments testing our integrated model in Figure 1.

Experiment 1

Experiment 1 focuses on the proposition that clock-timers are generally less

sensitive to the causal relationship between events, compared to event-timers. In

particular, we test the prediction that clock-timers discriminate between causally related

and causally unrelated events occurring over time to a lesser extent than event-timers do.

Recent research showed a relation between judgments of elapsed time between events

and perceived causal relation between these events, where the less causally related events


in the social world are, the more time is perceived to have elapsed between them (and

vice versa; Faro, Leclerc, & Hastie, 2005; Faro, McGill, & Hastie, 2010). In one study,

participants were presented with pairs of historical events that were either objectively

causally related or objectively causally unrelated (Faro et al., 2005, study 1). Results

showed that participants’ estimates of the correlation between events were indeed smaller

for causally unrelated rather than causally related events.

We borrowed these pairs of events to provide preliminary evidence that clock-

timers (vs. event-timers) are less sensitive to the causal relationship between events

occurring in succession. In experiment 1, we primed participants with either a clock-time

or an event-time scheduling style, as in our pilot study. Subsequently, we used pairs of

events from Faro et al.’s work (2005). We asked participants to provide estimates of the

time they perceived elapsed between the events in each pair, and then to rate the

perceived correlation between the events.

Our central prediction is that clock-timers will display a lesser tendency to

discriminate between causally related and causally unrelated events, compared to event-

timers. This means that the difference in the correlation estimates between the group of

causally related events and the group of causally unrelated events should be

proportionally smaller for clock-timers than for event-timers.

Method

Participants. Ninety participants (40 men, 50 women, age = 40% 21–29 years, 19%

30–39 years, 41% over 40 years; all native English speakers) took part in an online study,

in exchange for $1.50. Sixteen participants were excluded because they took less than the

minimum amount of time required to complete the experiment (seven minutes, as

established in a pretest). We report the results for the remaining 74 participants (31 men,

43 women, age = 32% 21–29 years, 23% 30–39 years, 45% over 40 years; all native

English speakers).



two short studies, ostensibly unrelated. The first study consisted of priming participants

with a clock-time or an event-time scheduling style, as in our pilot study.

Time estimation. Subsequently, participants read that they would see a list of pairs

of events, and that they would be asked to estimate the number of years that elapsed

between the events for each pair. Fourteen pairs of events taken from Faro et al. (2005,

study 2) were used, of which seven pairs were causally related events (e.g., “Assembly of

the ARPANET begins at UCLA and Stanford, marking the beginning of the Internet; E-

mail is invented by Ray Tomlinson” and “Come alive! You’re in the Pepsi generation” ad

campaign by Pepsi kicks off the cola wars; Coca-Cola introduces the New Coke”) and

seven pairs were causally unrelated events (e.g., “The U.S. government bails out auto

manufacturer Chrysler; The Simpsons television program debuts” and “Woodstock

music festival takes place; Cohen and Boyer pioneering recombinant DNA techniques

are created”). Participants provided estimates of elapsed time, in years, by using a sliding

bar ranging from 0 to 100.

Correlations between events. Participants then saw each pair of events again and were

asked to rate how related they believed the two events were, on a sliding scale from 0 to

100, where it was explained that “0” meant no correlation between events and “100”

meant that the two events were completely correlated.

Results

For clarity, and because the direct test of our predictions involves only

correlation estimates, we do not report our time estimate results (the number of years

elapsed between events for each pair)1.

Manipulation checks. As in Faro et al. (2005), we found that participants reported a

lower correlation between causally unrelated events (Munrelated = 9%) than between

causally related events (Mrelated = 74.4%, t(73) = 24.37, p < .001, r2 = .36).


Correlation estimates. An ANOVA analysis of participants’ scheduling style on the

correlation sensitivity index showed a significant effect of scheduling style, where clock-

time (versus event-time) participants had a smaller difference in their correlation

estimates between causally related events and causally unrelated events (Mclock difference =

58.8% vs. Mevent difference = 71%, F(73) = 5.38, p < .02, r2 = .28; see Figure 2). To

understand the nature of clock-timers’ lesser sensitivity to the causal relationship

between events, we further ran a mixed ANOVA of Scheduling style (clock time vs.

event time) on the repeated factor Event type (related vs. unrelated). It revealed a

significant Scheduling style x Event type interaction on the correlation estimates of the

seven pairs of events that participants saw, F(6) = 2.13, p < .05. It was such that, for

related events, participants primed with clock-time marginally perceived events to be less

correlated than participants primed with event-time, Mclock = 71% vs. Mevent = 77% F(73)

= 1.90, p < .17). In contrast, participants primed with clock-time estimated a significantly

greater correlation between unrelated events compared to event-timers (Mclock unrelated=

12.5% vs. Mevent unrelated = 6.1% F(73) = 10.39, p < .0019, r2 = .13). Together, the

perception of marginally less causality between related events, and the significantly

greater causality perceived for unrelated events, suggests that clock-timers are generally

less sensitive to the causal relationship between events than event-timers.

Insert Figure 2 about here.

Discussion. The results in experiment 1 suggest that clock-timers (vs. event-timers)

are less sensitive to the causal relationship between events. They also show that priming a

clock-time versus an event-time scheduling style is powerful enough to subsequently

shape individuals’ perception of causality in the social world. Finally, experiment 1 shows

this effect with social events that are not personally relevant to the participants. This


suggests that the reliance on the clock versus one’s internal sense goes well beyond the

mere organization of personal activities—its influence is athematic.

The purpose of experiment 2 was fourfold. First, we wanted to replicate the

findings in experiment 1, using a measure of participants’ scheduling style instead of a

prime. Second, we wanted to test whether clock-timers demonstrated a higher-chance

locus of control than did event-timers. Third, we wanted to examine whether clock-

timers’ lesser sensitivity to the causality between events would mediate their higher-

chance locus of control. Fourth, experiment 2 tested whether event-timers expressed a

higher internal locus of control than did clock-timers.

Experiment 2

Participants in experiment 2 first saw the same pairs of historical events as in

experiment 1 and provided their time estimates for each pair, followed by their

correlation estimates. Subsequently, participants completed two trait scales: one was a

Task Scheduling Questionnaire, an 11-item scale that we developed to measure chronic

scheduling style. A second scale borrowed the 16 items measuring internal and chance

locus of control in Levenson’s multidimensional scale of locus of control (1973).

As in experiment 1, we focused our analysis on the correlation estimates. Our

expectations were to replicate the results from experiment 1, with a measure rather than

a prime of scheduling style. We also examined the relationship among scheduling style,

perception of causality between social events, chance locus of control, and internal locus

of control. In particular, we tested whether participants’ perception of causality mediated

the predicted effect of scheduling style on chance locus of control. Further, we examined

whether event-timers expressed a higher internal locus of control than did clock-timers.

Method

Participants. One hundred and sixty-one participants (86 men, 75 women, 152

native English speakers, mean age = 35.1 years) took part in an online study, in exchange


for $1.50. Six participants were excluded because they took less than the minimum

amount of time required to complete the experiment (8 minutes, as established in a

pretest). We report the results for the remaining 155 participants (82 men, 73 women,

147 native English speakers, mean age = 35.3 years).

Procedure – Time and correlation estimation. As in experiment 1, participants were told

that they would see a list of pairs of events and estimated the number of years elapsed

between the events for each pair, before they saw each pair of events again and rated

how related they believed the two events were.

Task Scheduling Questionnaire. Subsequently, participants filled out the Task

Scheduling Questionnaire (TSQ), an 11-item scale measuring participants’ chronic

reliance on a clock-time versus event-time scheduling style. The scale involves rating

one’s agreement with statements about the way tasks are scheduled, such as “I usually

organize my tasks for the day (or week) based on the order they should be completed in” and “It is very

important for me to stick to a specific time table” (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree).2 Six

items reflect a clock-time scheduling style, and 5 items reflect an event-time scheduling

style (see full scale in Appendix). A factor analysis with Varimax rotation revealed the

expected two dimensions, with all clock-time items loading primarily onto the first

dimension (38% of the variance), and all event-time items loading onto the second

dimension (15% of the variance).

We averaged responses to the clock-time and event-time items to create two

separate scores, one capturing the reliance on clock-time, the other capturing the reliance

on event-time. Each score ranged from 1 (low clock-time [event-time] orientation) to 7

(high clock-time [event-time] orientation), αclock = .75, αevent = .68. We also created an

overall scheduling style score to capture the dominance of one scheduling style over the

other by subtracting participants’ event-time score from their clock-time score. Thus,

higher scores indicate a relatively greater reliance on clock-time, and lower scores indicate


a relatively greater reliance on event-time. A “0” score indicates that individuals rely on

both scheduling styles to the same extent.

Locus-of-control scale. Finally, participants completed 16 items taken from the

Multidimensional Locus of Control Inventory (Levenson, 1973). These items measured

participants’ chance locus of control (8 items) and internal locus of control (8 items). The

scale involves rating one’s agreement with statements about different occurrences, such

as “To a great extent my life is controlled by accidental happenings” (Chance LOC);

“When I get what I want, it’s usually because I worked hard for it” (Internal LOC). A

factor analysis with Varimax rotation revealed the expected two dimensions, with all

Chance LOC items loading primarily onto the first dimension (32% of the variance), and

all Internal LOC items loading onto the second dimension (12% of the variance).

Responses to the Chance LOC and Internal LOC items were averaged into two indices

ranging from 1 (low LOC) to 7 (high LOC); αchance = .85, αinternal = .79.

Results

Manipulation checks. As in experiment 1, we only note that our time estimate

results are consistent with Faro et al.’s (2005) prior findings3. Further, as in Faro et al.

(2005), causally unrelated events were less correlated compared to causally related events,

Munrelated = 10.86% versus Mrelated = 73.23%, t(154) = 35.39, p < .001, r2 = .89.

Correlation estimates. We computed the same correlation sensitivity index as in

experiment 1. Regressing this index on participants’ clock-time and event-time scores

separately, we only found a significant negative effect of the clock-time score, such that

the more participants relied on clock-time, the smaller the difference in their correlation

estimates between causally related events and causally unrelated events was (βdiff = -5.28,

t(154) = -2.34, p < .02, r2 = .04).

Consistently, regressing the correlation sensitivity index on participants’ overall

scheduling style, we found that the more clock-time rather than event-time-oriented


participants were, the smaller the difference in their correlation estimates between both

causally related events and causally unrelated events was (βdiff = -4.11, t(154) = -2.26, p <

.03, r2 = .03). These results thus replicate experiment 1’s findings with a measure rather

than a prime of scheduling style, suggesting that clock-timers (vs. event-timers)

discriminate less among causally related and unrelated events. Further, our data suggests

that what drives this result is the extent to which individuals rely on clock-time, rather

than the extent to which they rely on their internal sense when scheduling activities.

Chance locus of control. In order to test the relationship between scheduling style and

chance locus of control (henceforth, Chance LOC) we regressed it on participants’ clock-

time and event-time scores. We found a significant effect of both types of scheduling

styles, such that the more participants relied on clock-time, the higher their Chance LOC

(βclock = .40, t(154) = 4.95, p < .001, r2 = .14); and the more they relied on event-time, the

lower their Chance LOC (βevent = -.19, t(154) = -2.49, p < .02, r2 = .04).

Internal locus of control. Next, we regressed participants’ internal locus of control

(henceforth, Internal LOC) on their clock-time and event-time scores. We only found a

significant effect of the event-time score (βevent = .22, t(154) = 3.77, p < .001, r2 = .08),

such that the more participants followed event-time, the higher their Internal LOC.

Furthermore, a correlation analysis showed a negative correlation between Internal LOC

and Chance LOC (r = - .37, p < .001).

Chance locus of control as a mediator. Since we only found participants’ clock-time

score to influence perception of causality and Chance LOC, we ran a mediation analysis

to examine whether the perception of causality between events mediated the effect of the

clock-time score on Chance LOC. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to assess

each component of the proposed mediation model. First, we found that participants’

clock-time score was positively associated with Chance LOC, β = .33, t(154) = 4.26, p <

.001. We also found that the clock-time score was negatively associated with causality


between events, β = -4.10, t(154) = -1.94, p < .05. Lastly, results showed that the

causality between events was significantly negatively associated with Chance LOC, β = -

.013, t(154) = -4.66, p < .001.

Because both the a-path and b-path were significant for Chance LOC, mediation

analysis was tested using the bootstrapping method with bias-corrected confidence

estimates (MacKinnon, Lockwood, & Williams, 2004; Preacher & Hayes, 2004). The

95% confidence interval of the indirect effects was obtained with 5000 bootstrap

samples (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Results confirmed the mediating role of sensitivity to

the causal relationship between events in the relation between participants’ clock-time

score and Chance LOC (β = .05, CI = .02 to.13).

Examining the relation between scheduling style and the two types of LOC

further, we regressed Chance LOC and Internal LOC on participants’ overall scheduling

style (the difference score between participants’ relative reliance on clock-time versus

event-time). Using Chance LOC as the dependent variable, we found a significant effect

of participants’ scheduling style (βChance LOC = .29, t(154) = 4.37, p < .001, r2 = .11), such

that the more clock-time rather than event-time-oriented participants were, the higher

their Chance LOC. Using Internal LOC as the dependent variable, we found a marginally

significant effect of scheduling style (βInternal LOC = -.09, t(154) = -1.68, p < .09), such that

the more participants followed event-time rather than clock-time, the marginally higher

their Internal LOC. Furthermore, a correlation analysis showed a positive correlation

between scheduling style and Chance LOC (r = .33, p < .001), and a marginally negative

correlation between scheduling style and Internal LOC (r = - .14, p < .09).

Locus of control as a mediator. We ran a mediation analysis to examine whether the

perception of causality between events mediated the effect of scheduling style on Chance

LOC, following the same procedure as before. First, we found that a clock-time (as

opposed to an event-time) scheduling style was positively associated with Chance


LOC, β = .29, t(154) = 4.37, p < .001. We also found that a clock-time (as opposed to an

event-time) scheduling style was negatively associated with causality between events, β =

-4.12, t(154) = -2.26, p < .03. Lastly, results showed that the causality between events was

negatively associated with Chance LOC, β = -.013, t(154) = -4.55, p < .001. Results of

the mediation analysis confirmed the mediating role of causality between events in the

relation between scheduling style and Chance LOC, since the confidence interval did not

include “0” (β = .05, CI .01 to.11).

Discussion. This experiment replicated the effect of scheduling style on the

sensitivity to causal relationships between events that we observed in experiment 1, with

a measure rather than a manipulation of scheduling style. We found similar results,

whether we considered participants’ clock-time and event-time scores separately, or the

difference of these two scores. Directly testing our explanation for the effect of

scheduling style on causality, we found that the more clock-time participants were (as

well as the more predominantly clock-time they were), the less they discriminated among

objectively causally related and causally unrelated pairs of events. Further supportive of

our predictions, we found that the effects on the sensitivity of correlation estimates

mediated participants’ chance locus of control. In sum, participants who were clock-

timers were less sensitive to the causal relationship of the events occurring in their

environment. This in turn, caused them to hold a stronger belief that chance or fate is

responsible for what happens in their environment. These findings suggest that adopting

clock-time causes individuals to view their environment not necessarily as a whole, where

everything has a cause and effect, but as an assembly of independent occurrences that

might or might not be related.

Together, our first two experiments document a noteworthy consequence of the

adoption of a clock-time or an event-time scheduling style for personal control. As

individuals adopt a clock-time versus an event-time scheduling style, they seem to


manifest distinct “loci” of control in relation to this style. In particular, our data suggest

that clock-timers are less sensitive to the interrelation between social events than event-

timers. This, in turn, shapes their belief that things happen due to chance or fate.

In the remainder of this paper, we turn to our fifth hypothesis: that clock-timers savor

positive emotions less compared to event-timers, as a result of a lower internal locus of

control. Recall that our conceptualization predicts that internal locus of control should

mediate the influence of scheduling style on savoring. Indeed, because event-timers

decide when to begin and end a task, they should perceive events occurring as a result of

their own doing more than clock-timers—they should have a higher internal locus of

control. In turn, a higher (vs. lower) internal locus of control should increase individuals’

sense that they can control how they want to feel, which should translate into a greater

motivation to cultivate positive emotions in order to achieve well-being.

In experiments 3a and 3b, we focus on the effect we predict, that clock-timers

savor positive emotions less than event-timers. Research in positive psychology illustrates

a number of strategies that people use to up-regulate their emotions in an effort to

cultivate them for as long as possible (Erisman & Roemer, 2010; Quoidbach et al., 2010;

Nelis, Quoidbach, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2011). In particular, four adaptive savoring

strategies are: being present (i.e., savoring the moment), positive mental time travel (i.e.,

reminiscence or anticipation of positive events), capitalizing (i.e., celebrating positive

events with others), and behavioral display (i.e., expressing one’s positive emotions with

non-verbal behaviors). Four maladaptive reactions to contexts eliciting positive emotions

were also documented: distraction (i.e., engaging in thoughts unrelated or detrimental to

the positive event), fault-finding (i.e., focusing on what could have been better), external

attribution (e.g., thinking the good experience won’t last because it is a result of a specific

context), and emotion suppression (Quoidbach et al., 2010; Nelis et al., 2011). Each of

these adaptive and maladaptive strategies was shown to significantly affect well-being


(Quoidbach et al., 2010). In experiments 3a and 3b, we examine the extent to which

scheduling style shapes each strategy, to test our prediction that a clock-time (as

compared to an event-time) scheduling style generally compromises savoring.

Experiment 3a

Method

Eighty-eight participants online (48 men, 40 women, mean age = 33.8 years)

participated in the study in exchange for US $1.50. Three participants were excluded

from the analysis, because they took less time than was minimally necessary to read the

materials (less than 20 seconds per scenario, as established in a pretest). We present the

results for the remaining eighty-five participants (47 men, 38 women, mean age = 33.8

years). Participants were first asked to fill out the Savoring Positive Emotions scale,

which evaluates respondents’ ability to up-regulate positive emotions. It is a subset of the

Emotion Regulation Profile–Revisited (ERP-R), which has been shown to have good

psychometric properties (Nelis et al., 2011). The scale includes six scenarios describing

situations eliciting contentment, joy, awe, excitement, pride, and gratitude. To illustrate,

participants are asked to imagine finishing an important task (contentment), spending a

romantic weekend away (joy), and obtaining the diploma or promotion they were

dreaming about (pride). Following each scenario, participants are presented with eight

possible reactions to the situation. Four reactions capture the adaptive, savoring

strategies, while the other four capture the maladaptive, dampening strategies

documented in prior research (Quoidbach et al., 2010).

Participants were allowed to select as many reactions as they wanted, as long as it

reflected their likely behavior in the situation depicted. We gave participants 1 point

every time they selected a specific strategy, following Quoidbach et al. (2010).

Task Scheduling Questionnaire. After participants completed the Savoring Positive

Emotions scale, they filled out the Task Scheduling Questionnaire, as in experiment 2.


Responses to the clock-time [event-time] items were averaged into a single index ranging

from 1 (low clock-time [event-time] orientation) to 7 (high clock-time [event-time]

orientation); αclock = .70, αevent = .75. As in experiment 2, we first analyzed these scores

separately. Then, to examine the possible influence of one style dominating the other,

we also computed each individual’s overall scheduling score as the difference score of

clock-time minus event-time (scores significantly correlated again, r = .45, p < .001).

Insert Table 1 about here

Results

To examine our prediction that clock-timers generally savor positive emotions

less than event-timers do, we first computed eight scores representing the use of each

regulation strategy across all six scenarios, following prior research (Nelis et al., 2011).

Second, for each participant we computed a savoring score by summing the four

savoring reactions reported across the six scenarios. Similarly, we computed a dampening

score by summing the four dampening reactions across the six scenarios. Finally, we

assessed participants’ positive-emotion up-regulation by subtracting their dampening

score from their savoring score.

Overall positive-emotion regulation. We first regressed participants’ positive emotion

up-regulation score on their clock-time score and their event-time score, and only found

a significant influence of the clock-time score, such that the more participants relied on

the clock, the less able they were to up-regulate their positive emotions, β = -25, t(82) = -

2.03, p < .05, r2 = .05. We then regressed participants’ positive emotion up-regulation

score on their overall scheduling score, and found that the more clock-time-oriented

(rather than event-time) participants were, the less able they were to up-regulate their

positive emotions, β = -.22, t(83) = -2.05, p < .05, r2 = .05.


Savoring and dampening strategies. Next, to test our central prediction, we regressed

participants’ savoring score on their clock-time and event-time scores, and only found a

significant influence of the clock-time score, such that the more participants relied on the

clock, the less able they were to savor, β = -.25, t(82) = -2.08, p < .05, r2 = .05. Focusing

on participants’ overall scheduling score, we found that the more clock-time-oriented

(rather than event-time) participants were, the less they savored positive emotions, β = -

.22, t(83) = -2.01, p < .05, r2 = .05.

Examining the specific savoring strategies, a series of regressions on participants’

clock-time and event-time scores showed only two marginal effects of the clock-time

score, on behavioral display (β = -.22, t(82) = -1.88, p = .06), and being present (β = -.23,

t(82) = -1.93, p = .06). Regressing the strategies on participants’ overall scheduling score,

we found that the more clock-time-oriented participants were (rather than event-time),

the less they engaged in behavioral display, β = -.21, t(83) = -1.97, p = .05, r2 = .04. We

also found a marginally lesser engagement in being present, p = .07, as well as in positive

time travel, p = .09 (see full statistics in Table 1).

A series of regressions of the dampening score on participants’ clock-time and

event-time score, and on their overall scheduling score, revealed no difference in the

extent to which clock-timers and event-timers rely on dampening strategies, all p’s > .15.

Emotional experiences. Finally, for each participant, we summed up the savoring

reactions for each of the six emotions under study. A series of regressions on

participants’ clock-time and event-time scores showed an effect of the clock-time score,

such that the more participants rely on the clock, the significantly less they experience

contentment (β = -.29, t(82) = -2.48, p < .02), and the marginally less they experience joy

(β = -.23, t(82) = -1.88, p = .06) and awe (β = -.22, t(82) = -1.85, p = .07). We also found

an effect of the event-time score, such that the more participants rely on their internal

sense, the more they experience pride (β = .25, t(82) = 2.08, p < .05). Regressing each


emotion on participants’ overall scheduling score, we found that the more clock-time

rather than event-time-oriented participants were, the less they savored awe and pride,

both p’s < .05. There was no difference in savoring the other four emotions, all p’s > .12.

Discussion. These findings support the prediction that relying on an external clock

rather than one’s internal sense to decide when to move from one planned task to the

next compromises the up-regulation of positive emotions. In particular, we find that

clock-timers generally savor positive experiences less than event-timers do, which leads

them to less successfully up-regulate their positive emotions overall.

Experiment 3b

The purpose of experiment 3b was to examine whether manipulating scheduling

style would be enough to produce the savoring effects we observed in experiment 3a.

Replicating the effects of experiment 3a with a manipulation rather than a measurement

of scheduling style would also establish a causal influence of scheduling style on savoring.

In this experiment, we primed scheduling style as in our pilot study and experiment 1,

before participants filled out the Savoring Positive Emotions scale as in experiment 3a.

Method

Ninety-five undergraduate students at a large eastern U.S. university (52 men, 43

women, mean age = 20.2 years) participated in exchange for course credit. They were

first primed with a clock-time or an event-time scheduling style. Then, in an ostensibly

unrelated study, they filled out the Savoring Positive Emotions scale, using paper-and-

pencil. We instructed the lab experimenter to code only fully completed Savoring

Positive Emotions scales. We computed the same emotion-regulation scores as in

experiment 3a (see Table 2 for full statistics).

Insert Table 2 about here


Results

Overall positive-emotion regulation. Focusing on participants’ overall positive-emotion

regulation and replicating the results of experiment 1, we found that clock-timers were

overall less effective than event-timers at up-regulating their positive emotions, Mclock =

4.47 vs. Mevent = 8.11, t(93) = 3.13, p < .002, r2 = .10.

Savoring and dampening strategies. Focusing on participants’ savoring and dampening

scores, we again replicated the results of experiment 3a. We found that clock-timers

savored positive emotions significantly less than did event-timers, Mclock = 7.32 vs. Mevent

= 11.04, t(93) = 3.48, p < .001, r2 = .12. There was again no difference between clock-

timers and event-timers in their reliance on dampening strategies, all p’s > .20.

Emotional experiences. Finally, examining the six discrete emotions under study, we

found that clock-timers up-regulated joy, excitation, pride, gratitude, and contentment

significantly less than did event-timers, all p’s < .05. There was no difference in the

savoring of awe, p > .05. The results of experiment 3b replicate the finding that clock-

timers up-regulate their positive emotions less than event-timers do, because they rely on

savoring strategies to a lesser extent. This finding holds whether we measure individuals’

chronic scheduling style or temporarily manipulate it.

Thus far in this research, we found a significant effect of scheduling style on

chance locus of control, a marginal effect on internal locus of control (experiment 2),

and a significant causal effect on savoring, and more generally the up-regulation of

positive emotions (experiments 3a and 3b). In experiments 4 and 5, we wanted to see

whether individuals’ locus of control and their regulation of positive emotions are

themselves related as a function of individuals’ scheduling style, or whether scheduling

style independently influences these constructs. To this end, we conducted two last

experiments, one in the context of gambling and another — a field study — in the

context of yoga practice. These experiments also allowed us to examine influences of a


clock-time versus an event-time scheduling style in relatively more externally valid

settings than those we examined so far.

Experiment 4

Participants. Ninety undergraduate students (58 men, 32 women, age = 50%

between 21-29, 25% between 36-40, and 25% older than 40, 88 native English speakers)

took part in an online study in exchange for $1.50. We excluded five participants because

they failed to accurately understand the instructions (they reported a “6” or “7” on a

scale ranging from 1 = understood the instructions clearly, to 7 = totally confused about

the instructions); and another 17 subjects who took less than the minimum time required

to read the instructions (5 minutes, as concluded from a pretest). We report the results

for the remaining 69 participants (40 men, 29 women, age = 50% 21–35 years, 25% 36-

40 years, 25% over 40 years; all native English speakers).


two, ostensibly unrelated short studies. The first study consisted of priming participants

as in the pilot study, with a clock-time scheduling style, an event-time scheduling style, or

a filler task neutral vis-à-vis scheduling style (control condition).

Card game task. As part of the second study, participants read that they would

play a card game, and read the rules. The card game was a variation of the “black jack,”

in which a player plays against a “dealer” (in this case, the computer). In the beginning of

the game, participants were shown their own hand of initially 2 cards, and one card from

the dealer’s hand. The goal of the game is to have points of one’s hand add up to a

number as close to (but not exceeding) 21 as possible. Because participants can only see

one of the dealer’s cards, they have to decide whether they would like to stay with the

two cards they were initially given, or add another card to their hand. This decision

involves gauging the chance of getting a card making them win against the dealer versus

the risk of going over the 21 points ceiling. Participants could be dealt as many cards as


they wanted as long as the total points on the cards did not go over 21. Once participants

were satisfied with their hand, the dealer-computer revealed its hidden card. If the

computer had less than 17 points in its hand, it automatically drew another card until it

reached 17 points or higher. Once it reached 17 points or higher, the game ended. The

player with the highest points without going over 21 won the game. After going over two

examples of a round at their own pace, participants played three rounds. The outcomes

of the games were programmed to be held constant across participants regardless of their

actual performance, such that they all won games 1 and 3 and lost game 2. After

participants finished playing the three rounds, they read a report of their “performance”

and proceeded to answer questions about their experience of the game.

We chose this game for two reasons. First, it involves both skill and luck. Hence,

we expected that individuals with a high chance locus of control would attribute their

performance more to luck, while individuals with a high internal locus of control would

attribute their performance more to their own skill. Second, card games are generally

considered enjoyable, and we therefore expected that they would provide a good

platform to examine savoring experience.

Savoring of the game. Two items measured participants’ savoring of the game: “How

much did you enjoy playing the game?” (1-7, 1 = not at all enjoyable; 7 = very enjoyable) and

“How fun was it to play this game? (1-7, 1 = not fun at all; 7 = a lot of fun; r = .88, p < .001).

Locus of control. Next, four items measured internal control: “How well do you think

you played the game? (1 = not well at all – 7 = very well); “I played really well and that is the

reason why I won 2 of the rounds,” “The reason I lost the second round was because I did not play well,”

“My performance at this game resulted from being skillful in playing the game” (1-7; disagree /

agree; α = .69). Four items measured external control: “How lucky did you feel while playing

the game?” (1-7; not at all / very lucky), “I was very lucky and that is the reason why I won 2 of the

rounds,” “The reason I lost the second round was because I was unlucky,” “This game is more about


luck than about skill” (1= disagree, 7= agree; α = .78).

Post-game savoring. Finally, to measure the extent to which participants’ savoring of

the game lingered beyond the game itself, two items were: “Do you still think about how you

felt while playing the card game?” (1-7; 1 = Not at all, I forgot all about it, 7= Yes, I can still

recall how enjoyable it was to play the game and win) and “Do you believe you will think

about this game and specifically about your winning rounds later today?” (1-7; 1 = no, 7 = yes; r =

.55, p < .001). Participants were then thanked and paid.

Results

Savoring of the game. After averaging the two items capturing participants’ savoring

of the game, we ran an ANCOVA to examine the influence of participants’ scheduling

style on their savoring of the game, controlling for their general liking of card games. The

analysis revealed a significant effect of Scheduling style on participants’ savoring of the

game. In particular, participants primed with clock-time savored playing less than

participants primed with event-time (Mclock = 5.57 vs. Mevent = 6.11), while participants in

the control group behaved similarly to clock-timers (Mcontrol = 5.38; F(68) = 3.88 p < .03,

r2 = .05). There was also a significant effect of the covariate, such that clock-timers

generally liked card games more than event-timers and control participants (Mclock = 5.80

vs. Mevent = 5.14 and Mcontrol = 5.17; F(68) = 12.71 p < .001, r2 = .16).

Internal control. After averaging the four items capturing internal locus of control,

we subjected this score to an ANCOVA analysis, using participants’ scheduling style as

the independent variable, and general liking of card games as a covariate. This analysis

only revealed a significant effect of Scheduling style. Participants primed with clock-time

attributed their performance to how well they played less than participants primed with

event-time (Mclock = 4.10 vs. Mevent = 4.98), while the control group behaved again

similarly to clock-timers (Mcontrol = 4.33; F(68) = 5.41 p < .001, r2 = .07).


External control. After averaging the four items capturing participants’ external

locus of control, we subjected this score to an ANCOVA analysis, using participants’

scheduling style as the independent variable, and general liking of card games as a

covariate. This analysis only revealed a significant effect of scheduling style. Participants

primed with clock-time attributed their performance to chance more than participants

primed with event-time (Mclock = 5.10 vs. Mevent = 4.13), while the control group fell in-

between (Mcontrol = 4.50; F(68) = 3.39 p < .04, r2 = .05).

Post-game savoring. After averaging the two items capturing participants’ post-game

savoring, we subjected this score to an ANCOVA analysis, using scheduling style as the

independent variable, and general liking of card games as a covariate. Participants primed

with clock-time showed a less intense post-game savoring experience as compared to

participants primed with event-time (Mclock = 5.14 vs. Mevent = 5.61), with the control

group being again similar to clock-timers (Mcontrol = 5.16 F(68) = 3.09 p < .05, r2 = .04).

Mediation analysis on savoring. We ran mediation analyses to examine whether

internal locus of control and/or external locus of control mediated the effect of

scheduling style on savoring of the game. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to

assess each component of the proposed mediation model. First, we found that a clock-

time (vs. an event-time) Scheduling style was negatively associated with savoring, β = -

.56, t(68) = -2.53, p < .01. We also found that a clock-time (vs. an event-time) Scheduling

style was negatively associated with Internal locus of control, β = -.45, t(68) = -3.07, p <

.003, and positively associated with External locus of control, β = .48, t(68) = 2.86, p <

.005. Lastly, Internal locus of control was positively associated with savoring, β = .58,

t(68) = 3.46, p < .001 and External locus of control was negatively associated with

savoring, β = -.36, t(68) = -2.42, p < .02.

Because both the a-path and b-path were significant for Internal locus of control

and for External locus of control, we tested for mediation as in experiment 2. Results


confirmed the mediating role of Internal locus of control in the relation between

Scheduling style and Savoring , since the confidence interval did not include “0” (β = .12,

CI = .06 to 0.58). Results also confirmed the mediating role of External locus of control

in the relationship between Scheduling style and savoring, β = -.17, CI = -.43 to -0.04.

Mediation analysis on post-game savoring. We ran mediation analyses to examine

whether internal and/or external locus of control mediated the effect of Scheduling style

on post-game savoring. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to assess each

component of the proposed mediation model. First, we found that a clock-time (as

opposed to an event-time) Scheduling style was negatively associated with post-game

savoring, β = -.22, t(68) = -1.83, p < .07. We also found that a clock-time (as opposed to

an event-time) Scheduling style was negatively associated with Internal locus of control, β

= -.45, t(68) = -3.07, p < .003, and positively associated with External locus of control, β

= .48, t(68) = 2.86, p < .005. However, Internal locus of control was only marginally

positively associated with post-game savoring, β = .18, t(68) = 1.78, p < .08 . External

locus of control, on the other hand was significantly negatively associated with post-

game savoring, β = -.19, t(68) = -2.30, p < .02.

Because both the a-path and b-path were significant only for External locus of

control, mediation was tested only for External locus of control, as before. Results

confirmed a mediating role of External locus of control in the relationship between

Scheduling style and post-game savoring, β = -.09, CI = -.23 to -0.02.

Discussion. The findings in experiment 4 lend further support to our nomological

net in Figure 1. In the context of playing a game involving both skill and luck, we find

that scheduling style shapes players’ perception of the extent to which their skill versus

luck is responsible for the game outcome. In particular, replicating our finding in

experiments 3a and 3b, we find that clock-timers savor playing less than event-timers.


We also find that clock-timers’ lower internal locus of control (as compared to event-

timers) is responsible for this difference in savoring; as well as that, as in experiment 2,

they have a lower internal locus of control and a greater external locus of control,

compared to event-timers. Importantly, these results were obtained with a manipulation

rather than a measurement of scheduling style, which establishes the causal role of

scheduling style in producing these effects.

Experiment 4 also revealed an effect that we did not predict: we found that

clock-timers’ higher external locus of control (as compared to event-timers’) accounts for

their lesser ability to cultivate positive emotions, both during and following the card

game they played. Post-hoc, we reasoned that one possibility for this result is the

particularly strong association of the card game we used with the element of chance. It

could be, then, that clock-timers’ belief in the role of chance in shaping the social world

around them, makes it irrelevant to rely on positive emotions in the context of this game,

similarly to their lesser belief in the fact that they have control over the game. A helpful

aspect of experiment 5 is that we tested the same predictions as in experiment 4, but in a

context in which the role of luck is less blatant: yoga practice.

Experiment 5

Method

The purpose of this last experiment was threefold: first, as in experiment 4, we

wanted to examine the potential relationship between individuals’ scheduling style, their

locus of control, and their experience of positive emotions, but in a setting offering

greater ecological validity. Second, we wished to rule out regulatory focus as an

alternative explanation for our effects, since prior research found that regulatory focus

influences individuals’ organization of their activities in a way consistent with clock-time

versus event-time (Avnet & Sellier, 2011). We therefore controlled for regulatory focus in

experiment 5 to examine whether scheduling style is at least partly independent from it.


We also controlled for time horizon perspective, as in our pilot study. Third, we used a

different manipulation of clock-time and event-time to test our predictions.

For this study, we took advantage of a course taught by one of the authors,

during which students perform a session of hot yoga. Hot yoga is a system of physical

exercises and breathing control performed in a humid room heated to 105°F during 90

minutes. It consists of executing a sequence of 26 postures (see the first 6 postures in

Figure 3). Classes are taught by certified teachers who recite detailed instructions at a

standard pace while yogis execute the poses.

Hot yoga offers several advantages for our research. First, one needs

considerable personal control to successfully hold challenging postures in intense heat.

For this reason, we expected that event-timers would perform better than clock-timers,

since we found in previous studies that they have a lower external locus of control, and a

marginally higher internal locus of control. Second, the practice of hot yoga was shown

to provide an overall sense of well-being, derived from improved blood flow and

distribution of oxygen throughout the body (Lorr, 2012). We reasoned that if event-

timers can savor positive emotional experiences better than clock-timers, they should be

able to cultivate positive emotions during their practice to a greater extent than clock-

timers. Therefore, hot yoga provides a field setting in which we could examine whether

event-timers perform better than clock-timers at a task involving substantial control; and

how the effects of scheduling style on both locus of control and well-being are related.

Third, because hot yoga involves a constant number of postures done in a

specific order, it is structured as a predominantly event-time practice. Indeed, the

standard hot yoga instructions make no mention of the duration that yogis must hold a

given posture. Instead, it only guides yogis by announcing each posture and explaining its

form. Once the posture is completed, the following posture is announced and explained.

From this primarily event-time default instruction script, we were able to easily create a


clock-time version, by adding the amount of time (in seconds or minutes, depending on

the posture) that each posture was to be held for. This manipulation of the instructions

script was part of our manipulation of scheduling style in experiment 4.

A final advantage of hot yoga for our purposes is that yogis can attribute their

performance to two sources of control in the studio: they can attribute it to themselves,

which should reflect their degree of internal locus of control, or they can attribute it to

the instructor, being that the latter dictates when to begin and end the postures at a

standard, externally determined pace. Attributions to the instructor therefore capture

external locus of control. In this case, external control is not attributed to chance or fate,

but to powerful others (the instructor/people who developed the hot yoga instructions).

In sum, our last experiment allows testing the following predictions over the

course of a 90-minute hot yoga experience: compared to event-timers, clock-timers

should (1) experience lower internal control, (2) experience higher others locus of

control, and (3) experience and/or maintain positive emotions to a lesser extent. Further,

we tested whether (4) internal locus of control mediates the influence of scheduling style

on savoring. Finally, because we expected clock-timers to have a lower internal locus of

control, and a greater external locus of control compared to event-timers, we examined

whether they would generally have a lesser control of their body throughout the practice,

and would perform the sequence of postures less well as a result.

Participants and overview. Ninety undergraduate students (53 men, 37 women, mean

age = 23 years, all native English speakers) at a European business school took part in

the study in return for course credit. As part of a creativity class, they were told that it

was important for them to develop the ability, as future managers, to remain in control

of themselves in increasingly adverse business environments. They were further told that

an analogy to remaining in control in tough environments was managing a hot yoga

session, and that, for this reason, they would be asked to do as well as they could in a hot


yoga session. The sessions were facilitated by a hot yoga center located in a European

capital city. We manipulated scheduling style (clock-time vs. event-time) between

sessions to see its impact on personal control and well-being, as well as on performance.

Procedure. In a class preceding the yoga sessions, we measured participants’

regulatory focus, using the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (Higgins, Friedman, Harlow,

Idson, Ayduk, & Hymes, 2001). At the end of class, the group was split in four, and

students were given the date they were to do their hot yoga session. The four sessions

took place over three weeks, started at the same time of day and were counterbalanced

so that two sessions were in clock-time, and two were in event-time.

We manipulated scheduling style in two ways. First, we worked with hot yoga

instructors to revamp the instructions to either mention how long each posture was to be

held (in seconds or minutes—clock-time condition) or to entail no mention of clock-

time and only announce one posture after the next (event-time condition). Second, we

either placed a clock on the studio wall (clock-time condition) or masked the clock with a

rectangular drawing of black and white stripes (event-time condition). In sum, clock-time

yogis heard clock-time instructions and had the option to track time, while event-time

yogis heard the event-time instructions and could not track time (no one wore a clock).

For each session, as they entered the studio, students were placed by a yoga

instructor on a dedicated mat. Five certified instructors took part in each session, so that

one would recite the instructions while three practiced along with students to show them

the proper alignment of each posture (91% of students had never done hot yoga; the

most hot yoga experience a participant had was only two sessions). A last instructor

(always the same) tracked students’ performance during the session. She sat in a corner

of the room where she could observe all participants. Participants were told that she had

just finished her teaching training and wished to observe a session to take notes. As each

session unfolded, she tracked performance by noting how many times each participant


gave up the practice to sit on their mat, as well as how many postures they skipped.4, 5

Following the session and a shower, participants gathered in the studio lobby to

wait for a debriefing about the analogy between hot yoga practice and entrepreneurship.

While waiting, they responded to a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. Participants first

filled out a 20-item PANAS scale documenting the emotions they experienced

throughout their yoga practice (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Next, participants

reported how much internal and others locus of control they experienced during the

session, noting the extent to which they agreed with a number of statements (1–7,

“completely disagree” to “completely agree”). We measured internal control using five

items: “The fact that my yoga practice happened the way it did primarily depended on

me,” “Things that happened to me during the yoga session generally happened because I

decided so,” “What made me manage the session well or not well primarily depended on

my actions,” “The fact that I obtained the postures I desired or not primarily depended

on my efforts to obtain them,” and “It is my own actions that determined the pleasant

and unpleasant experiences that happened to me during the yoga session” (Cronbach-α

= .68). Next, two statements captured others locus of control: “I feel that what happened

to me during the yoga session was primarily determined by the instructors” and “I feel

that my performance in the yoga session was controlled by the instructors” (Pearson r =

.68, p < .01). Demographics and general information queries closed the questionnaire.

Participants were debriefed about the study and its results during class four weeks later.

Results

Exclusions. We excluded six participants from the sample for the following

reasons: one suffered from chronic low blood pressure and could not tolerate the

temperature in the studio, three had back injuries preventing the completion of most

postures, and one had to leave early on to throw up (he ate a heavy meal shortly before

the session). We did not code the data for these participants and report the analysis for


the remaining 84 participants (50 men, 34 women, mean age = 23 years).

Emotional experience. First, we examined the PANAS items. A factor analysis

(maximum likelihood with Varimax rotation) showed that positive and negative items

loaded on independent factors. We averaged all positive (negative) items to form a

Positive (Negative) Affect score (α for each score = .81). Focusing on the Positive

Affect score, we found that event-time yogis experienced positive emotions significantly

more than clock-time yogis during their practice (Mevent = 3.47 vs. Mclock = 3.20, t(82) =

2.12, p < .04, r2 = .05). In contrast, we found no difference in the experience of negative

affect between clock-time and event-time yogis (MNegative Affect = 1.88, t < 1).

Personal control. We created an internal locus of control index by averaging the five

items capturing it. We found that event-time yogis reported feeling significantly greater

internal locus of control during the session, compared to clock-time yogis (Mevent = 4.99

vs. Mclock = 4.46, t(82) = 2.61, p < .02, r2 = .08). Similarly, we averaged the items

capturing others locus of control and found that clock-time yogis attributed their

performance significantly more to the instructor than did event-time yogis (Mclock = 4.24

vs. Mevent = 3.59, t(82) = 2.18, p < .04, r2 = .05).

Yoga performance. Focusing on the number of times that yogis gave up the practice

to sit on their mat, we found that yogis in the clock-time sessions sat down significantly

more often than yogis in the event-time sessions, Mclock = 1.05 vs. Mevent = 0.41, t(82) =

2.07, p < .05, r2 = .05. They also missed significantly more postures, Mclock = 1.28 vs.

Mevent = 0.27, t(82) = 2.61, p < .02, r2 = .08. These two performance measures were

correlated, Pearson r = .74, p < .001. Thus, as we expected, event-timers performed

better on average, compared to clock-timers.

Given this difference in performance, we conducted a series of analyses using our

two proxies of performance as covariates, to examine the extent to which the difference

in performance could explain our other results. We found no significant influence of


those covariates on our dependent variables of interest, all p’s > .10. Besides, our effects

remained significant above and beyond the impact of the covariates, with the exception

of the effects on others locus of control, which became marginally significant after

controlling for yoga performance, both p’s < .10.

Other controlled factors. Using the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire that we collected

before the yoga sessions, we computed a Promotion and a Prevention score for each

participant, as well as a Regulatory Focus score defined as the Promotion score minus

the Prevention score, as in prior research (e.g., Brockner, Paruchuri, Idson, & Higgins

2002; Pham & Avnet, 2004, 2009). We ran a series of separate univariate ANOVAs using

our performance, affect, and control measures as dependent variables, scheduling style as

independent variable, and either the Promotion score, the Prevention score, or the

Regulatory Focus score as covariate. Analyses revealed that if some of these scores

sometimes had a significant effect as a covariate, the effect of scheduling style remained

significant above and beyond the impact of the covariate.

Similarly, a series of analyses using each of the three items capturing the extent to

which participants experienced time as limited versus unlimited during the session

showed that our effects remained significant above and beyond any impact of these

covariates, all p’s < .05.

Mediation analysis. We ran a mediation analysis to examine whether the effect of

Scheduling style on Positive affect was mediated by internal locus of control, controlling

for participants’ yoga performance. As in experiment 4, we conducted multiple

regression analyses to assess each component of the proposed mediation model. First,

we found that a clock-time (as opposed to an event-time) Scheduling style was negatively

associated with Positive affect, β = -.26, t(82) = -1.97, p < .05. We also found that a

clock-time (as opposed to a event-time) Scheduling style was negatively associated with

Internal locus of control, β = -.53, t(82) = -2.49, p < .02. Lastly, Internal locus of control


was positively associated with Positive affect, β = .14, t(82) = 2.10, p < .04. Replicating

our findings in experiment 4, mediation analyses confirmed the mediating role of

Internal locus of control in the relation between Scheduling style and Positive affect, β =

- .08, CI = -0.19 to -.009. In addition, the effect of Scheduling style on Positive affect

became non-significant when controlling for Internal locus of control, β = - .18, t(82) = -

1.38, p > .15, thereby suggesting full mediation.

The results of experiment 5 show that individuals’ scheduling style influences the

degree to which they believe that things in the world happen as a consequence of their

own doing. This difference, in turn, leads clock-timers to cultivate positive experiences

significantly less than event-timers. Clock-timers also believed that powerful others—in

this case, the yoga instructors—were more responsible for their performance, as

compared to event-timers. These results occurred with a different manipulation of clock-

time versus event-time than in prior studies. This second manipulation was again subtle:

the mere mention of how long each posture was to be held (vs. no mention), along with

the presence (vs. absence) of a clock on a wall, was enough to produce our effects.

Together these results provide further support to our conceptualization of how

scheduling style, personal control, and savoring are interrelated (Figure 2). The field-

study nature of experiment 5 finally suggests that scheduling style effects can be powerful

enough to be observed in externally valid settings.

General Discussion

Decades of economics research have documented the benefits of relying on the

clock to organize tasks and activities in modern commerce and daily life. The concern

with efficiency has driven formidable improvements in human coordination (in

particular, with Taylorism) and therefore productivity. It remains striking, however, that

in several parts of the world individuals still schedule daily activities by following their

internal sense of when it feels time to move from one activity to the next (Levine, 1997).


Even today, human reliance on event-time lives on.

To improve our understanding of the persistent popularity of both scheduling

styles, along with individuals’ natural preference to use one style versus the other, the

present research examined some implications of relying on either scheduling style. The

most significant finding across our experiments is that adopting either scheduling style

has much farther-reaching consequences for personal control and well-being than

previously thought. Whether elected (through conscious choice) or imposed (through

country or group culture), we found that reliance on the clock or one’s internal sense

profoundly shapes individuals’ perception of and reaction to the social world. In

particular, our first two experiments suggest that clock-timers (vs. event-timers) are less

sensitive to the interrelation between events occurring in succession independent of the

objective degree of causality between those events. We believe this is due in part to the

fact that clock-timers view the world as a composition of separate units of events that

can be scheduled independently of one another, while event-timers view the world as a

composition of linked events that occur in an orderly fashion. As experiment 2

demonstrates, clock-timers’ lesser sensitivity to causality translates into a higher-chance

locus of control (that is, they believe that events occur as a result of chance or fate) as

compared to event-timers. In contrast, event-timers are more sensitive to the causal

relationship between events (or their absence). Further, experiment 1 shows that a subtle

prime of clock-time or event-time is enough to trigger these effects on personal control.

Delving further into the implications of such effects on personal control, we

examined consequences of relying on clock-time versus event-time for well-being. In

experiments 3a, 3b, 4, and 5, we found that relying on the clock rather than on one’s

internal sense to schedule activities compromises the regulation of internal sensations—

in this case, cultivating positive emotions. This happened whether we considered

participants’ chronic scheduling style (experiment 3a) or we temporarily manipulated it,


using two different manipulations (experiments 3b, 4 and 5). Similar to our findings for

personal control, we found that subtle reminders of clock-time or event-time are

powerful enough to causally affect the way individuals regulate their emotions. In

experiment 4, our manipulation of clock-time and event-time was enough to shift

participants’ scheduling style temporarily to produce our results, compared to a control

group. In that experiment, we found that the control group tended to behave similarly to

clock-timers, a finding that is not surprising given that participants were English-

speaking Westerners, a culture documented to have clock-time social norms (Levine

1997). We emphasize that control groups in other cultures (e.g., Italy, India) may behave

more similarly to event-timers. Experiments 4 and 5 bridge the effects we identify for

personal control and savoring. Both experiments show that it is clock-timers’ lower

internal locus of control that leads them to cultivate positive emotions less, as compared

to event-timers. Interestingly, while our conceptualization did not formally predict it, we

also found that clock-timers’ higher external locus of control accounts for their lesser

savoring in experiment 4.

In sum, our findings suggest that scheduling one’s activities by following the

clock versus one’s internal sense has implications that extend well beyond fitting tasks

into one’s schedule or to-do list. While recent work showed that scheduling-style choices

and preferences are related to self-regulation (Avnet & Sellier, 2011), the present research

documents more precisely how scheduling style relates to two distinct facets of self-

regulation: personal control and well-being. In particular, it suggests that scheduling style

affects the perception of causality between events in the social world, the perception of

personal control over these events, and the ability to make positive experiences linger. It

also shows that the psychological implications of scheduling style are at least partly

independent from two potential alternative accounts for our findings: regulatory focus

(experiment 5) and individuals’ perception of time horizon as being limited versus


unlimited (pilot study and experiment 5).

The findings that clock-time (vs. event-time) (1) makes people perceive the world

as a relatively more random place, (2) makes them perceive that things happen less

because of their own doing, and (3) compromises savoring may tempt readers to assume

that we argue that event-time is better than clock-time. It is not the case. Consider our

finding, in experiment 3b, that the more our participants relied on event-time, the more

they savored pride. A downstream implication of this preliminary finding may be that

event-timers can be arrogant, a potentially harmful attitude in certain situations. Similarly,

the finding in experiment 4 that event-timers savor a gambling situation more than clock-

timers may put them at greater risk of gambling addiction. Our intent is not to pit clock-

time against event-time but to illustrate some effects that following either style can have

on personal control and well-being—effects that extend beyond simple task organization.

Before any claim can be made about one style being more beneficial than the other (if at

all), considerable additional research is required. Next we suggest directions for research

that we believe would further our understanding of how scheduling style may shape

aspects of thinking and feeling other than those documented in this paper.

Throughout the paper, we referred to event-time as a scheduling style whereby

one follows an internal sense that signals when it is time to move from one task to the

next. We specifically avoided making any assumptions regarding the nature of this signal

and what exactly it is based on. An important direction for future research is to further

document this internal sense that event-timers actively use, and clock-timers largely

ignore. We believe that it is a type of metacognitive affective experience that signals

when the current task is complete and one should move on. We do note that this internal

sense may be related to individuals’ natural cycles of waking and sleeping in the absence

of any external time cue (e.g., see Siffre, 1963). It may also relate to the observation of

individuals’ social group of reference. For example, Nuers from the Sudan have a


calendar based on seasonal changes. They break camp and return to villages in the month

of dwat, and define dwat as the month during which they break camp (Lauer, 1981;

Levine, 1997). The point is, the metacognitive experience that it is time to move on may

also come about following the observation of others’ behavior in an ambiguous situation.

However, whether this is the case or whether event-timers use a more cognitive type of

signal is left open for future research to explore. We also left open the question of

whether or not clock-timers experience this internal sense but decide to ignore it. In our

studies, we do find that clock-timers have a lesser ability to cultivate emotions than

event-timers do. It remains unclear, however, whether they experienced the positive

feelings they read about less than event-timers, or whether they experienced them to the

same extent but subsequently ignored them, thereby failing to cultivate them as well as

event-timers later did.

Another interesting topic we believe is worth exploring further is the construct

behind clock-timers’ reduced ability to savor and up-regulate positive emotions. In

particular, future research could look at the relationship between scheduling style and

future orientation. Clock-timers are constantly occupied with sticking to a schedule,

verifying that the present task will not take time from the next one. This may influence

them to be more future-oriented than event-timers. By future-oriented, we mean that

they may consider it more often than event-timers do (holding time horizon constant).

Indeed, as they attend to a task, they need to keep track of time and therefore keep the

next planned task in mind relatively more than event-timers do. If one task takes longer

than anticipated, it will affect the timing of the next one. This constant occupation with

future tasks while still performing a present task may activate a “get ready” mindset

focused on gearing up for anticipated difficult tasks (Bosmans, Pieters, & Baumgartner,

2010). These authors show that people who anticipate difficult tasks in the future

unnecessarily mobilize important cognitive resources on the current task being


completed. This results in wasting limited cognitive resources in the present, which in

turn can deleteriously affect the performance of the difficult task once it gets attended to.

Clock-timers’ relative inability to savor positive experiences might, therefore, also result

from being cognitively busier (Gilbert & Osborne, 1989).

Finally, we want to revisit our finding that clock-time scheduling is associated

with a perception of events in the social world as occurring randomly. Some readers

might have been surprised by this result, since a commonly held belief about clock-

timers is that they are more in control of their schedule compared to event-timers, with

the former’s focus on getting things done within an anticipated time frame. The

heightened belief in a random world that we observed in clock-time participants in

experiment 2 can be interpreted as a belief in chaos or randomness at a molar level, but

not necessarily at a molecular level. Indeed, when giving themselves two hours to

complete a given task, clock-timers may have better control over the sequence of actions

they need to precisely complete in order to get the task done within the time allotted.

Since they schedule their actions around standard time units, clock-timers should be

better equipped to break a given activity into specific units necessary for completion, as

long as they can clearly identify how to deconstruct the activity (i.e., the activity is

algorithmic). Therefore, although clock-timers believe the world at large works in a

chaotic manner, they might control their task performance in it rather well, that is, enjoy

a high internal locus of control for algorithmic tasks.

In experiment 5, we found a deleterious effect of the clock on performance on a

non-algorithmic task (i.e., yogis just saw instructors execute the postures properly, but

did not know how to achieve complete body control, and were thus forced to go for trial

and error). In contrast, event-timers presumably work on a task in a more opaque

fashion, since they will keep working on it until they get a sense that the task is

completed. They may thus be confronted with greater molecular chaos than clock-timers.


Future research varying the level at which scheduling style is being studied—molar

versus molecular—may lead to markedly different findings.

Another reason why researchers might want to look at the notions of molar

versus molecular chaos is to sort out the underlying factors that motivate individuals to

choose clock-time versus event-time scheduling in the first place. While the adoption of

either scheduling style can result from culturally ingrained social norms (e.g., Levine,

1997), individuals can self-select to function in a clock-time or an event-time manner

(e.g., Avnet & Sellier, 2011). When chosen, scheduling style may reflect a way to harness

molecular chaos (choice of clock-time) or molar chaos (choice of event-time). To

illustrate, consider Chuck Noland, the main protagonist of the movie Cast Away (Hanks,

Rapke, Starkey, & Zemeckis, 2000). Chuck is a time-obsessed Fedex manager, following

clock-time to deliver on the job. Most of the issues he has to deal with are at a relatively

molecular level (e.g., operational concerns causing delays in mail deliveries). Chuck’s

concern with molecular issues even dominates his concern with more molar issues: he

chooses going to Malaysia to solve a Fedex delivery problem over going home to get

married. Following a plane crash, however, Chuck finds himself stranded alone on a

beach, unbeknownst to the rest of the world. For four years he survives, initially hanging

on to clock-time (he marks days on a cavern wall), until he lets go of the clock to

embrace event-time scheduling, a more appropriate choice given the molar chaos he is

now confronted with (e.g., eat when fish becomes available; wait for a boat to pass when

later lost at sea on a raft). The choice of scheduling style can thus vary within an

individual, as a function of the type of chaos that is most demanding in the present.

Our findings so far may suggest that there is a trade-off to make between

efficiency at the societal level and successful self-regulation at the individual level. Since

the clock is pervasive in today’s social environment in industrialized countries, should we

question its presence? We don’t think it is that clear. Indeed, it is noteworthy that recent


technological advances—particularly the advent of the Internet—have enabled

individuals to perform activities in event-time that used to be dependent on the clock.

For example, before people could go online, they had to physically carry out bank

transactions or shopping during business hours. Such transactions now take place at

people’s convenience, literally around the clock rather than as a function of it. It is

possible, then, that the Internet is causing a societal shift towards relative event-time

living. If it does, it is also noteworthy that it would not come at the cost of efficiency, but

rather go hand in hand with it. In other words, technological progress may be creating a

new experience of efficiency, which positively contributes to both society and

individuals’ ability to successfully self-regulate.

This research spells out some implications of relying on the clock versus one’s

internal sense to schedule daily activities. Taken together, our findings show that the

adoption of either scheduling style harnesses a person’s perception of the social world.

It appears that the quasi-adage in economics of clock-time being “the one best way” of

organizing activities in modern societies would benefit from a deeper examination

through the lenses of social and cognitive psychology.


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Footnotes

1 For the interested reader, we report that we also replicated Faro et al.’s (2005) prior finding that participants found causally-unrelated events to to be further separated in time compared to causally-related events. Participants estimated that significantly more years passed between causally-unrelated events (Munrelated = 19.87 years) than between causally-related events (Mrelated = 15.87 years, t(73) = 6.76, p < .001, r2 = .38). 2 The pretesting of this scale is available upon request. 3 As in experiment 1, we replicated Faro et al.’s (2005) prior finding that participants found causally-unrelated events to occur farther apart in time compared to causally-related events, Munrelated = 19.25 years vs. Mrelated = 16.88 years; t(154) = 3.62, p < .001, r2 = .08). 4 A limitation of this experiment is that the instructors were not blind to the condition. We note that the alternative would have been to have a different set of instructors both deliver the instructions and show the postures / track students’ performance. This, however, would have generated a possible instructor effect, another problematic limitation, since one goal of the experiment was to capture participants’ beliefs about powerful others. With different instructors across conditions, it would have been difficult to interpret the (possible) finding that clock-timers believe their yoga performance resulted from the instructors, compared to event-timers. For this reason, we kept the same set of instructors despite their not being blind to the condition. 5 We emphasize that our performance measure is only a remote proxy. The assessment of performance in yoga is a tricky question, since yoga practice is not concerned with performance per se, but improvement and well-being. Further, one and the same posture is considered “correct”, whether it is executed in its deepest version or in a timid attempt to it —again, what matters in yoga is the intention, not the visible outcome. For this reason, to assess performance unequivocally, we could only resort to a relatively remote assessment: counting the number of times that yogis gave up their practice to sit on the mat, and the number of postures they elected to skip.


Appendix. Items of the Task Scheduling Questionnaire – All Items Ranging from 1

(Completely Disagree) to 7 (Completely Agree).

*Clock-time items ^ Event-time items

1.When I have more than one task to complete in a given time frame, I usually decide to move on to the

next task only after I am satisfied with the completion of the current task. ̂

2. I usually organize my tasks for the day (or week) based on the order they should be completed in. ̂

3. I don't mind how long it takes to complete a task as long as it is done well. ̂

4. I decide on moving on to my next activity of the day only after I am done with the previous one.^

5. I decide on moving on to my next activity of the day based on what time it is, even if it means cutting

my current activity short.*

6. When I am performing a task with no time limit, I check what time it is to pace myself.*

7. When I have more than a few items to complete in a task, I first determine the amount of time I should

dedicate to each item.*

8. When I make a timetable for a task, I usually stick to it.*

9. When I have more than one task to complete at once I usually decide to move on to the next task based

on what time it is.*

10. When I have a task to complete I decide when to start working on it based on when it is due.*

11. When I have a task to complete I decide when to start working on it when I feel I have time to

complete it.^


Figure 1. Integrated Model of the Predicted Relationship Between Scheduling Style,

Locus of Control, and Savoring.

Chance

locus of control

Others

locus of control

Internal

locus of control

Savoring

Perception of causal

relationship between events

Scheduling style (clock-

time vs. event-time)


Figure 2. Correlation Estimates (in percentages) Between Pairs of Events Within

Scheduling Style in Experiment 1 (N = 74).

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Clock-timers Event-timers

Causality related pairs Causality unrelated pairs

Correlation estimates in percentage


Figure 3. Overview of the First 6 Hot Yoga Postures Performed in Experiment 5.


Table 1. Summary of Regression Analyses in Experiment 3a (N = 85).

Regression on: Separate scores Difference score

Measure Bclock-time p Bevent-time p Bscheduling score p

Positive emotion regulation -.25 .05 .18 .15 -.22 .05

Savoring strategies

Behavioral display (A)

Being present (B)

Capitalizing (C)

Positive time travel (D)

Savoring score

(A+B+C+D)

-.22

-.23

-.10

-.20

-.25

.06

.06

.41

.11

.04

.18

.14

.01

.16

.16

.15

.24

.91

.19

.18

-.21

-.20

-.06

-.19

-.22

.05

.07

.59

.09

.05

Dampening strategies

Distraction (a)

Fault-finding (b)

External attribution (c)

Emotion suppression (d)

Dampening score

(a+b+c+d)

.07

-.04

.13

.15

.10

.56

.74

.30

.21

.40

-.03

-.03

-.17

-.07

-.10

.84

.81

.16

.58

.42

.05

-.005

.16

.12

.11

.65

.96

.15

.29

.33

Emotional experiences

Contentment

Excitement

Joy

Awe

Pride

Gratitude

-.29

-.07

-.23

-.22

-.16

-.14

.02

.57

.06

.07

.18

.25

-.06

.001

.10

.21

.25

.14

.63

.99

.40

.09

.04

.26

- .12

- .04

- .17

- .23

- .22

- .15

.27

.74

.12

.04 .05 .18


Table 2. Key Means (SDs) of the Savoring Positive Emotions Scale and Comparisons

between Clock-Time and Event-Time Participants (Experiment 3b, N = 95).

Measure Clock-time (N = 49) Event-time (N = 46) p

Positive emotion regulation 4.47 (5.33) 8.11 (5.98) .002

Savoring strategies

Behavioral display (A)

Being present (B)

Capitalizing (C)

Positive time travel (D)

Savoring score (A+B+C+D)

1.86 (1.57)

1.98 (1.51)

1.47 (1.59)

1.88 (1.62)

7.32 (5.01)

3.09 (1.88)

2.82 (1.97)

2.47 (1.92)

2.67 (2.02)

11.04 (6.76)

.01

.02

.01

.04

.01

Dampening strategies

Distraction (a)

Fault-finding (b)

External attribution (c)

Emotion suppression (d)

Dampening score (a+b+c+d)

.79 (1.10)

.67 ( .90)

.65 (1.03)

.69 (1.09)

2.79 (3.11)

.80 (1.05)

.93 (1.29)

.48 ( .91)

.78 ( .81)

3.05 (2.68)

.97

.24

.40

.65

.67

Emotional experiences

Contentment

Excitement

Joy

Awe

Pride

Gratitude

1.04 (.76)

1.06 (.80)

1.35 (1.11)

1.35 (1.15)

1.06 (1.16)

1.43 (1.15)

1.59 (1.34)

1.83 (1.25)

2.00 (1.28)

1.80 (1.38)

1.63 (1.27)

2.09 (1.30)

.02

.01

.01

.08 .03 .01

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