Why It Seems to Take Longer to Go to Work Than to Go Home

The journey from home to an office or any other destination feels longer than the return trip, according to a series of studies by Priya Raghubir, Vicki G. Morwitz, and Amitav Chakravarti of New York University. In one experiment with 127 undergraduates, for example, participants estimated that it took them an average of about 22 minutes to go from home to the classroom, but just 17 minutes to get back. The reason, the researchers suggest, may be that people mentally define the destination "home" as a relatively large area and unfamiliar destinations as relatively small.