When Does Anxiety Increase Attempts to Spend Time and Money Efficiently?
通过五项实验，研究发现当消费者因目标进展缓慢而焦虑时，会在无关决策中更追求效率，如选择高时薪工作、多任务处理或购买折扣商品；但焦虑源于外部威胁或时间稀缺时则无此效应。
ABSTRACT Consumers today are anxious. How does this anxiety influence how they spend their time and money? Five experiments demonstrate that when consumers feel anxious because they are making insufficient progress toward a goal, they attempt to use their resources more efficiently while making decisions unrelated to the goal. This desire to be efficient makes them more likely to (a) choose jobs that offer higher payout rates rather than a higher total payout, (b) perform tasks simultaneously rather than sequentially (i.e., multitask), and (c) select products and activities that cost less money and time than usual (i.e., price and time discounts). However, anxiety increases efficiency‐seeking only when consumers are anxious about slow goal progress, rather than when they are anxious about threats outside their control (terrorism, disease, climate change, etc.) or when they feel that time is scarce, but they are not behind on their goal. Furthermore, the desire to be efficient occurs only when consumers feel anxious, not merely when they fall behind on a goal but do not feel anxious.