Good old British values aren’t always a bad thing, and our sense of discipline and fairness leads to us being fantastic queuers. This, in turn, is great news for us ordered folk. Because queuing is good for you. It’s official.
According to the University of Chicago’s recent study, standing in line leads to us having a greater aptitude for patience and able to make more considered and sensible financial decisions, benefiting from a better outcome once we have waited for something.
The Daily Mail writes that, despite living in a world where everything is at our fingertips instantly, the human race is still programmed to wait patiently in an orderly queue for things they believe is worth it.
Scientists uncovered interesting facts, including if someone has the chance to receive $50 now or $55 in a few weeks time, they would go for the lower amount without a thought. However, if they were told they would have to make that decision some time into the future, they decided to wait and take the larger amount.
The research was published in the Journal of Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes and was based on findings from three groups of volunteers. Experts says this revealed that people who had to wait for a certain length of time for something considered the eventual prize to be of greater value than if they had it at their fingertips straight away.
It claims that the results show that, as well as gaining patience over time, individuals make better decisions if they have time to wait.
Researcher Professor Ayelet Fishbach said: ‘People tend to value things more in the present and discount their worth in the future. But my research suggests that making people wait to make a decision can improve their patience because the process of waiting makes the reward for waiting seem more valuable.”
He added: “They see more value in what they are waiting for because of a process psychologists call self-perception. We learn what we want and prefer by assessing our own behaviour, much the same way we learn about others by observing how they behave.”