Could promises of quick results undermine the patience needed to achieve them?

​Organisations often promise rapid results to motivate people. But those promises may also shape when people expect the payoff – potentially making slower, more realistic progress feel like an unwelcome delay.

New research from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), co-authored by Associate Professor Elif Incekara-Hafalir, challenges the idea that patience simply reflects how strongly someone values the future. In a pre-registered experiment, participants who expected to be paid in eight weeks were significantly more willing to wait for a larger reward than those expecting payment that day – despite facing the same choices.

In this online Bescy session, Elif, Deputy Director of the UTS Behavioural Lab, will unpack the finding and the theory that expected timing can shape whether waiting feels like a loss.

She’ll be joined by Mike Daniels, Founder of The Behavioural Architects, who will bring a practitioner perspective to the discussion, drawing on case studies from his work in areas ranging from financial wellbeing to bushfire preparedness.

They’ll also consider some of the wider implications:

• ​Could promises of rapid health and fitness results inadvertently discourage patience?

• ​Can Australia’s under-16 social media restrictions influence behaviour by changing when social media use feels normal – even if enforcement is imperfect?

• ​Might retirement settings encourage patience not only through incentives and restrictions, but by making future access the expected norm?

​Together, they’ll explore how expectations about timing could become a practical behavioural lever – and what remains to be tested beyond the laboratory.