Melanie Rudd

• PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Houston

In this conceptual paper, we review three decades of research on time and meaning in consumer research and psychology to identify key themes that have emerged, build frameworks that integrate past research, and reveal areas of potential for future empirical exploration. We begin by carving out a conceptual understanding of meaning in life and ident...

Automated fabrication, home services, and premade goods pervade the modern consumer landscape. Against this backdrop, this research explores how the emotion of awe might motivate a consumer to partake instead in experiential creation (i.e., activities in which they actively produce an outcome) by enhancing their willingness to learn. Across eight e...

This review highlights recent research on time shortage, which has been broadly classified into three streams. Building upon decades of time use survey and diary findings, the trends and demographics stream document the latest longitudinal changes in perceptions of time shortage (including a recent decline) and provides an increasingly clear pictur...

Research shows that optimism can positively impact health, but when and why people feel optimistic when confronting health challenges is less clear. Findings from six studies show that the frames people adopt when thinking about health challenges influence their optimism about overcoming those challenges, and that their culture moderates this effec...

Across six field and laboratory experiments, participants assigned a more concretely-framed prosocial goal (e.g., making someone smile or increasing recycling) felt happier and reported creating greater personal happiness after performing a goal-directed act of kindness than did those who were assigned a functionally similar, but more abstractly-fr...

Across six field and laboratory experiments, participants given a concretely-framed prosocial goal (e.g., making someone smile, increasing recycling) felt happier after performing a goal-directed act of kindness than did those who were assigned a functionally similar, but more abstractly-framed, prosocial goal (e.g., making someone happy, saving th...

When do people feel as if they are rich in time? Not often, research and daily experience suggest. However, three experiments showed that participants who felt awe, relative to other emotions, felt they had more time available (Experiments 1 and 3) and were less impatient (Experiment 2). Participants who experienced awe also were more willing to vo...

Although a substantial amount of research has examined the link between money and happiness, far less has examined the link between time and happiness. This paper argues, however, that time plays a critical role in understanding happiness, and it complements the money-spending happiness principles in Dunn, Gilbert, and Wilson (2011) by offering fiv...

Although a substantial amount of research has examined the link between money and happiness, far less has examined the link between time and happiness. This paper argues, however, that time plays a critical role in understanding happiness, and it complements the money-spending happiness principles in Dunn, Gilbert, and Wilson (2010) by offering fiv...