Shared Time Scarcity and the Pursuit of Extraordinary Experiences

Abstract

This work documents a relationship-maintenance strategy that individuals use when they perceive their time with a partner as scarce (vs. abundant): choosing to share extraordinary experiences (i.e., those characterized by uniqueness and superiority; pilot study N = 57). Study 1 first tested this notion in a social media experiment ( N = 35,848 ad impressions on 25,148 adults). Study 2 ( N = 393 adults) suggested that individuals choose extraordinary experiences as a way of sustaining the focal relationship, which leads them to prioritize extraordinariness over other attributes, such as quantity (Study 3: N = 100 adults) and convenience (Study 4: N = 799 adults). Consistent with the relationship-maintenance account, results showed that this prioritization of extraordinary experiences when facing shared time scarcity occurs only when individuals have a strong relationship-maintenance goal (Study 4). Taken together, these studies advance our understanding of the antecedents of experiential choices in close relationships.