As the end approaches, we confidently throw our bucket list in the trash: ‘People are more likely to make familiar choices’

An explanation is put forward that ‘lust satisfaction’ is accompanied by innovation. Activities we’ve never done or things we’ve never experienced hold our attention even more strongly, so we enjoy them more. A study suggests that new experiences satisfy our curiosity, stimulate creativity, and leave a “pink imprint on our memories.” Familiar things and activities, especially those that are too repetitive, can bore us.

There is another side to the story

But there is another side to the story. This is because the time people have to pursue their desires and passions seems to be a determining factor. If that time is short, in other words: at the end of the period of choosing something new or familiar, the preference changes completely. That’s according to new research conducted by two psychologists from the University of Chicago. It appeared in this week’s trade journal Journal of Personality and Social Psychology .

Research shows how the science of impending doom affects our choices and determines what we want to do with the time we have left. It may seem dramatic (reminding someone that the days are numbered), but we continue to enjoy the end of summer, travel, but also quiet time (before a busy period at work) or a Burgundian lifestyle (for the diet). The results need not be final.

In the study, approximately 6000 people (university students, similar to the psychology course, but also older adults recruited online) were asked about their preferences for leisure activities and their familiar or new descriptions. This happened in eight different subtests. In one of them, psychologists who already started their research at the end of 2019, gratefully used the lockdowns that brought public life to a standstill in the United States – and that ended.

An immediate decision makes people think about what is meaningful to them

Subjects were divided each time into a group where the immediate result was present and a control group where there was not. In one of the experiments, participants were able to obtain a restaurant coupon, but not before completing a thinking exercise. In it, one group was reminded of the limited amount of time available for dinner, and the control group was told that time was unlimited. Almost 70 percent of the first group chose a voucher at a trusted restaurant, while less than half of the other group did. To the critics: A so-called manipulation check ensured that participants in the first group had limited time in mind when choosing a restaurant voucher.

For example, now you know why you rushed to your favorite pub the weekend before October 19, 2020, when the new lockdown began.

The results of the research collide with the idea of ​​a bucket list, a list full of new things you still want to do in your life. Psychologists have realized that. “In a descending environment, we see the opposite: people are more likely to make familiar choices,” they say in an American Psychological Association press release.

In it, psychologists have also explained why. An immediate decision makes people think about what is meaningful to them. And they are often things they are very familiar with.’ The researchers write that people prefer to end on a beautiful, positive note — a familiar note, in other words. For example, now you know why you rushed to your favorite pub the weekend before October 19, 2020, when the new lockdown began.