THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF SOCIAL EPISODES - POSITION EFFECT IN TIME JUDGMENTS OF UNFILLED INTERVALS

An experiment was conducted to test the prediction, derived from field theory, that unfilled intervals at the core of a social episode (in-p rocess) are perceived to last longer than unfilled intervals at the be ginning (preprocess) or toward the end of the social episode (postproc ess). As expected, individuals who judged in-process unfilled interval s overestimated their duration and judged them to last longer than ind ividuals who judged preprocess or postprocess unfilled intervals. More over, this finding was observed in both immediate and delayed time dur ation estimates, and the overestimation effect for in-process interval s was stronger in the remote than in the immediate estimates. Relation s to prior research on delays in services and implications for the man agement of services are discussed.