ITHACA, N.Y. — When gauging their progress toward a goal, people relied more on the enjoyment they derived from an activity and less on perceived or actual time spent on it, according to new research from Cornell University.
The findings , accepted for publication in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research , show that enjoyment consistently outweighs time investment when people judge whether they are making progress toward goals in fitness, education and careers.
“Whether you feel good or not should not influence your progress judgments as much as the influence of time spent, but we found the opposite to be true,” said Yuchen Wu, a doctoral student in marketing and a co‑author of the study. “People decide whether they are making progress or not simply based on how they feel during the pursuit.”
Kaitlin Woolley , associate professor of marketing and a senior author on the paper, said their initial expectation was that people intuitively would value time spent at a task over any perceived enjoyment.
In one of their nine studies, 250 participants recruited from campus gyms listed a planned workout; the researchers recorded participants’ workout enjoyment, time spent exercising and judgments of progress toward a fitness goal.
In another study, 121 gym-goers were assigned to spend seven minutes walking on a treadmill, in either a higher- or lower-enjoyment condition. In the higher, the treadmill was set at 2.5 miles per hour, with a music video playing; in the lower, the speed was 3.5 mph, with no video.
Those in the higher-enjoyment condition believed they made more progress toward their daily step goals, despite actually taking fewer steps.
“Walking speed can be hard to judge,” Woolley said. “It might be hard to know that I’ve made progress based on the amount of time I put into it, but I can feel like, ‘Is this fun? Or do I feel like the time is dragging?’ and that then ends up serving as a cue for progress.”
Another study attempted to turn off the effect by downplaying the enjoyment aspect and highlighting the benefits of investing time toward a goal. It proved that, in some circumstances, time can trump enjoyment.
“There are situations where the experience maybe is not enjoyable, and that you have to just show up and put in the time,” Woolley said.
“Our findings generally are saying that you’re going to feel more progress and more motivation when the activity is enjoyable. But for situations that are not enjoyable, you can strengthen the time-progress link to increase motivation from time spent.”
For additional information, read this Cornell Chronicle story .
Journal of the Association for Consumer Research
The Role of Time and Enjoyment in Consumers’ Goal Progress Perceptions
11-Dec-2025