時間の使用に対する心理会計理論の適用可能性に関する実証研究

抄録

Mental accounting has been studied as a theory of financial decision making. According to it, people categorize their financial resources into various account items in their minds and assign a budget to each of them. They also categorize the same amount of money by source of income and decide where to spend it. In this study, we tested whether the theory of mental accounting can also be applied to time resources through a between-subjects design experiment. The results showed that no behavior in accordance with mental accounting was observed when time consumption was targeted. We also found conditions that needed to be met when applying the mental accounting theory to time. In addition, when a questionnaire was used to examine mental accounting tendencies for money and time, the tendency was weaker for time. Throughout the experiment, we found psychological differences in people's attitudes toward time and money. It was suggested that people have a more ambiguous view of time and may not account for time as numerically and quantitatively as they do for money.