Why We Get More Impatient When the End is in Sight

Like millions of her fans, you might be waiting impatiently for Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, to drop. As the big release date draws near, are you growing more impatient, less or roughly the same?

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People tend to experience greater impatience at the end of their wait, according to a new study by Annabelle Roberts at the University of Texas and Ayelet Fishbach at the University of Chicago. Interestingly, though, it is often not because of how much time and energy they have already sunk into waiting. Rather, it is because they want, more than ever, for there to be closure in this area of their lives. This finding could have significant practical implications for public communication and for how we deal with waiting in our own lives.

First, though, more about their findings. One of their main studies had to do with COVID-19 and the release of the first vaccines in the U.S. in the spring of 2021. They surveyed 161 participants at three different times, with the first being after the announcement of the successful Pfizer trial. Each time these participants were asked:

How impatient are you to get a coronavirus vaccine? (1 = not at all; 7 = very)

• November 2020: 4.26
• December 2020: 4.11
• March 2021: 4.53

How impatient are you for the coronavirus pandemic to end? (1 = not at all; 7 = very)

• November 2020: 5.86
• December 2020: 5.76
• March 2021: 5.77

As Roberts and Fishbach write, “Because participants were [becoming] more impatient for the vaccine but not for the pandemic to end, we conclude that the increasing trajectory of impatience was caused by proximity to the end of the wait rather than the distance from the beginning.” In other words, impatience was going up because the end was getting near.

This wasn’t the only study they ran. Another looked at the 2020 U.S. presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They surveyed 215 participants during the days immediately leading up to Election Day, which was November 3. But since the results were not settled in that election until several days later, they got to include extra time in their data set. Here was the key finding:

How impatient are you to find out who wins the 2020 presidential election? (1 = not at all; 7 = very)

• October 31: 5.06
• November 1: 5.03
• November 2: 5.21
• November 3: 5.45
• November 4: 5.69

Interestingly this trend held for both Biden and Trump supporters. It naturally suggests a desire for there to be closure to the election.

In yet another study, participants were asked about their impatience while waiting for a bus. Impatience increased as the amount of time remaining for the bus to arrive decreased. It wasn’t the total amount of time they had waited that mattered, but rather how much time was still left. Additional studies found similar results with imaginary scenarios involving receiving a package, tracking how far away a delivery truck is, and waiting in a traffic delay.

This research by Roberts and Fishbach could have practical implications. One they mention is that those in charge in a particular situation, such as government officials or nurses or Amazon customer service, should “inform people about a delay earlier in the wait and generally overestimate, rather than underestimate, the wait time.” I’ll add another potential implication, which is that when you know a long-anticipated day is about to arrive, it might be good to plan ahead with activities (readings, podcasts, etc.) to help deal with the surge in impatience.

So for all the Swifties out there, you can expect to get more and more impatient as the remaining days go by until the release of her new album (April 19!). Then you will finally have closure.