If your appointment book runneth over, it could mean one of two things: Either you are enviably popular or you make the same faulty assumptions about the future as everyone else. Psychological research points to the latter explanation. Research by two business-school professors reveals that people over-commit because we expect to have more time in the future than we have in the present. Of course, when tomorrow turns into today, we discover that we are too busy to do everything we promised.
The study appears in the February issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology (JEP): General, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.Like this author?
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 11 Feb 2005
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
Grohol, J. (2005). Why Do We Overcommit?. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 13, 2012, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2005/02/11/why-do-we-overcommit/
