The Effects Of Accounting For Time On Prosocial Behaviors And Their Psychological Mechanism

Given the need of companies to increase efficiency among their employees and the availability of technology to track employee productivity, an increasing number of companies have adopted timesheets to bill their employees’ working time. In addition, the development of economic globalization has spurred many Chinese companies to adopt Western corporate governance policies and practices. These policies encourage the economic evaluation of time. While billing time and hourly payment are effective management tools, they can have be negative psychological effects on employees: putting a price on time decreases happiness. Given that there are demonstrated links between prosocial behavior and happiness, organizational researchers have begun to focus on ways to maximize prosocial behavior. Accounting for time affects individuals’ engagement in altruistic acts. Billing time, which fosters a cognitive connection between time and money, appears to encourage a narrow, economic evaluation of time and can lead to the perception that time is wasted when its economic value is not maximized. Consequently, it is likely that individuals who bill their time are less likely to spend time helping others since it is a less-quantifiable benefit of time’s expenditure. The existing literature in this area of study has only focused on the relation between billing time and time allocation. However, the influence of accounting for time on prosocial behaviors likely comprises more than spending time volunteering or helping others. Indeed, it is plausible that accounting for time could affect the amount of money an individual opts to donate to charity. Specifically, accounting for time promotes individuals to view time as money, so it is likely that putting a price on time activates the concept of money and primes individuals to think of money. There is increasing evidence that suggests that a mindset associated with money can affect prosocial behaviors. Research has shown that individuals primed with the concept of money chose to spend less time and money for others. Therefore, we hypothesized that accounting for time may activate a utility mindset that would affect one’s allocation of time and money. We defined economic utility mindset here as a preparative state that features the goal of maximizing the economic utility of one’s resources. Individuals who engage in the mindset would pursue the direct profitable return and emphasize the external usefulness of activities. Money, like time, is one of the most important resources and spending money on others promotes happiness. Therefore, in this study we not only investigated the effect of billing time on the level one is willing to spend time for others, but also the effect on donating personal income to charity. However, the relation between billing time and prosocial acts is not one-to-one and may be affected by other factors. Therefore, our primary aim was to examine the influence of accounting for time on prosocial behaviors and their psychological mechanism.Study one investigated the influence of accounting for time on prosocial behaviors. Experiment1examined the effect of billing time on time spent helping to text the accuracy of DeVoe’s results. Experiment2a and experiment2b examined the effect of accounting for time on money spent helping of college students and individuals who had worked for over one year. The results showed that accounting for time reduced participants’time spent helping and willingness to donate money. These finding may indicate that accounting may activate an economic utility maximization mindset.Study two examined the mediating factor of time pricing affecting prosocial behaviors. Firstly, experiment3a,3b, and3c investigated the indicators of economic utility mindsets. The results indicated that accounting for time urged students spend more time on work and study which possess high economic utility mindsets; individuals who had billed time were inclined to choose utilitarian goods rather than hedonic goods; compared with control condition, experimental condition subjects showed lower alpha power, faster heart rate, and larger galvanic skin response which indicate higher impatience. Secondly, experiment4examined the mediating effect of economic utility mindsets. The results showed that accounting for time affects prosocial behaviors through economic utility mindsets.Study three examined the moderating factors of time pricing affecting prosocial behaviors. Mterialism moderated the effect of accounting for time on prosocial behavior. Specifically, for individuals who scored in the mid-range of materialism, participants assigned to a non-billing condition volunteered more time and donated more money than those in a billing-time condition. However, for individuals who scored the highest or lowest on materialism, no significant differences were observed. Self-transcendence moderated the relation between accounting for time and prosocial behaviors. Specifically, for individuals who scored the lowest on self-transcendence meaning of life scale, participants assigned to a non-billing condition were more inclined to prove help for other. Howerer, for those who scored the highest on the scale, no significant differences were observed.To sum up, these studies explored the effect of accounting for time on prosocial behaviors and their psychological mechanism which expanded DeVoe’s research. We provided a complete definition of economic utility mindsets. Adopting time allocation, the selection between utilitarian goods and hedonic ones, and Electrophysiological indicators, we examined the meaning of economic utility mindsets. This research results are of great value in business management and individual happiness. Employers should avoid adopting hourly payment systems and should not require employees to bill their time.At present, the research of time pricing affecting prosocial behaviors has just begun; there are still a lot of questions to resolve. Future research should examine other types of pro-social behaviors; propose a more complete model of the psychological mechanisms to explain the effect of accounting for time on prosocial behaviors.