Waiting is one of those things that have always been part of everyone's lives, though this does not certainly mean that we all want to do it. Most of the time, we are forced to do it, that's why.
Unsurprisingly, this is one of those activities that I personally loathe. I cannot express how much spite I have for the people who make me wait in line and spend precious minutes standing for no other useful reason but to wait for my turn.
I'm sure the all of us can already imagine the long lines waiting for us once Thanksgiving ends and we officially enter the Christmas shopping season. Thousands of cash registers will render themselves hardly useful to the millions of angry people waiting for their own items to be paid.
Interestingly, this phenomenon of waiting in line has been the subject of much psychological research on queueing psychology and the limits of human patience. This may seem to be a mundane topic (NOT!) but it's actually a high-profile field in psychology. The subject of most researches in the area is pretty simple: how can we make sure that waiting times are turned into positive experiences rather than negative? Businesses will find this kind of research useful to their operations.
The first principle behind queueing psychology is that reducing empty time--or that time when we do nothing at all--makes the wait time shorter. I've witnessed this first-hand, when I get to fall in line with a friend whom I can talk to. With someone to talk to, the waiting time becomes shorter.
Another idea emerging is that of fair play. This is the reason why most businesses now turn from multiple lines that allow a user to choose which one he/she thinks to run faster to a very long serpentine line that divides itself in the end, assuring that those who come first gets served first.
Finally, as far as this article from CNN.com is concerned, information also plays a vital key to customer satisfaction while in lines. Research shows that those who know beforehand how long they have to wait get less anxious while waiting than those who do not. It all makes sense, right?
