The concept of experience efficiency is often misunderstood as a sign of impatience or introversion. However, it may reflect a preference for concentrated presence. Research in cognitive, personality, and motivational psychology suggests that some individuals extract the essence of an experience quickly and want to leave.
According to research on hedonic adaptation, the emotional ROI of an event tends to peak early, meaning that the initial dopamine buzz is often the highest point. This phenomenon can lead some people to leave early, not because they’re impatience, but because they’ve reached a cognitive shortcut: why stay for the whole opera if their emotional response plateaus in the first act?
Others display a strong temporal efficiency orientation, valuing how time is spent and feeling “worth it.” They may be highly attuned to how others evaluate time-based decisions. For experience-efficient individuals, lingering can feel like a missed opportunity, making them seek optimization.
Cognitive load theory also plays a role, as some people process information deeply or quickly, reaching cognitive saturation faster in situations with excessive sensory input. High-efficiency experiencers have a natural cutoff point beyond which they begin to disengage.
Personality traits such as openness to experience and trait autonomy may also contribute to this behavior. Openness to experience individuals derive pleasure from the transition between experiences more than any single event, while those high in trait autonomy prefer self-directed and time-limited experiences.
The peak-end rule, proposed by psychologist Daniel Kahneman, suggests we remember experiences based on their emotional peak and ending, not how long they lasted. For experience-efficient individuals, this aligns with their intuitive behavioral strategy: leave while it’s still good, avoid the slow descent into boredom, and preserve the memory at its most potent.
In conclusion, wanting to leave early is not necessarily a sign of disengagement; it may be a preference for concentrated presence. By embracing experience efficiency, we can reframe our approach to experiences as strategic rather than pathological.
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/4000-mondays/202504/get-in-get-out-the-psychology-of-wanting-to-leave-early