Catch the Moment

If there’s a waiting line, it’s not fully open. 

We find the first written description of people standing in line in an 1837 book, The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle described what he thought was a strange sight: people standing in an orderly line to buy scarce bread from bakers around Paris. Today, the average person spends five years waiting in lines and queues throughout their lifetime, whereas we spend roughly six months waiting at traffic lights. Experts say that staying in lines is a way for us to cultivate our own identity. “self-signaling” is a psychological phenomenon in which people decide to communicate the type of person they are to themselves. Self-signaling arises when the individual can influence her self-beliefs through her actions. Ben- abou and Tirole (2006) explore the formal game theory of self-signaling, modeling behavior, and the corresponding self-signal as equilibrium outcomes in a game of incomplete information. Self-signaling involves Self-control. Good self-control is an individual’s capacity to override impulses, urges, temptations, desires, and ingrained habits. Self-control is adaptive; it allows people to engage in sustained, effortful behavior to attain long-term outcomes, often at the expense of short-term gains and gratification. Self-control is part of a group of skills called executive function. Kids develop these skills as they mature. There are three types of self-control: impulse control, emotional control, and movement control. For example, we need self-control when staying off social media while at work, sticking to a budget, and regulating sugar or alcohol intake. Waiting appears to influence satisfaction strongly. We can soothe the adverse effects of waiting more effectively by improving the attractiveness of the waiting environment than by shortening the waiting time. They’re trying to keep up with a slammed schedule every day, and that’s not sustainable. The next time you see people waiting for a long time, recognize how much work goes into each aspect of running that kind of facility.

WE&P by: EZorrillaM.