Are We There Yet? An Anticipation Account of the Return Trip Effect

Research has documented the psychological phenomenon in which the trip back from a destination is experienced as shorter than the trip to the destination. Deemed the “return trip effect” (RTE), prior work explained this phenomenon in terms of differential familiarity between home and outbound destination or an underestimation of initial travel time. The present article posits an anticipation account for the RTE: Outbound trips to a destination...