In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes. It is tempting to call this irrational. It is more useful to ask what it is for. None of this is new. Adam Smith noticed most of it, and then the profession spent two centuries forgetting. The strange thing about the shortcut is not that it exists but that it works, most of the time, for most people.
A better question
Economists have spent decades modelling patience as a quantity. It behaves more like a weather system. The lesson is modest. Build for the person who exists, not the one in the model. In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes. Every one of us runs the same shortcut, and every one of us believes we are the exception.
