Impatience and Savoring vs. Dread: Asymmetries in Anticipation Explain Consumer Time Preferences for Positive vs. Negative Events
Hardisty and Weber note that consumers generally prefer positive experiences immediately and often prefer to delay negative ones. Across three studies and a dozen supplemental studies they find that anticipatory feelings push in the opposite direction, differently for positive and negative events. The desire for immediate positives is stronger than the desire to delay negatives. For negative events, anticipatory utility is strongly negative, which reduces the wish to delay and makes consumers want to get it over with.
Hardisty and Weber note that consumers generally prefer positive experiences immediately and often prefer to delay negative ones. Across three studies and a dozen supplemental studies they find that anticipatory feelings push in the opposite direction, differently for positive and negative events. The desire for immediate positives is stronger than the desire to delay negatives. For negative events, anticipatory utility is strongly negative, which reduces the wish to delay and makes consumers want to get it over with.
Written from the abstract as shown on the OpenAlex record, read 2026-11-04.
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Hardisty, D. J., & Weber, E. U. (2020). Impatience and Savoring vs. Dread: Asymmetries in Anticipation Explain Consumer Time Preferences for Positive vs. Negative Events. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 30(4), 598-613. doi:10.1002/jcpy.1169.