Doing things when others do: Temporal synchrony and subjective wellbeing

Abstract

Proposing a measure of synchrony, the level of accordance between individual and collective schedules, we examined the effects of synchrony on the two indicators of subjective wellbeing, daily mood, and life satisfaction. We argue that temporal norms underlying collective schedules are a part of social norms, the deviation from which influences an individual's wellbeing via external and internal sanctions. Analyses of time-use data showed that synchrony was effective in improving evaluative wellbeing (life satisfaction) but not affective wellbeing (daily mood). More specifically, synchrony did not predict well who was satisfied with life but did fairly well predict who was not, which implies that compliance with temporal norms is a necessary but not sufficient condition of life satisfaction.