Research On Undergraduate Time Allocation Based On Mental Accounting

Mental accounting theory has been advanced for many years, but so far mostresearch focused on the aspect of money mental account, rarely have the research ontime. While both of time and money are precious resources for people and they areplay very important role in our competitive activities. Therefore this paper willthrough scenario simulation method to investigate college student’s time allocationfrom the mental accounting perspective.This study including a pretest and four sets of simulation experiments. Thepretest is mainly in order to understand the student’s usually time arrangement. Fourscenario simulation experiment as follows:1? The effects of different scenarios on thefeeling of student’s loss the same length time;2. Source and length of time influenceits assignment on different activities;3. The effects of different contexts on the freetime arrangement:4. The effects of sunk-time cost to individual time decision.The study got such conclusions:1.Under different scenarios, college students will have different feelings whenlost same length of time. Lost time at work context will make them fell even moredepressed.2.College students will allocate time to different activities according to differentsources and length of time. Students will match the source account and the destinationaccount. Compared with non-work condition, the time obtained from work conditionwill more allotted in work activities; compared with work condition, the time obtainedfrom non-work condition will more allotted to non-work activities*3.In different conditions, there are no differences between students free timearrangement, namely, college students will not use mental budget in the time mentalaccount. 4. College student’s time related behavior decision is not affected by thesunk-time cost.