为何排队是种折磨?

Everyone hates to wait in lines. We get that gnawing feeling that our precious life is slipping away while we’re doing something so meaningless. But it’s not always the length of the wait we find so unbearable. Some people camp outside Apple stores for an entire night just to get their hands on the latest product. But waiting 10 minutes in a grocery store just to buy a drink? Forget it.
人人都讨厌排队。我们为宝贵生命浪费在这些毫无意义的事情上而苦恼。但是漫长的等待并非总是那么让人无法忍受。一些人在苹果店外支起帐篷，用一整晚的时间换来最新的苹果产品。而在杂货店里等上十分钟，只为买瓶饮料？还是算了吧。

Our behavior when waiting is only partly defined by the length of the wait. “Often the psychology of queuing is more important than the statistics of the wait itself,” notes the MIT researcher Richard Larson. Larson, also known as Dr Queue, is an expert on waiting lines.
我们等待时的行为在一定程度上取决于等待时间的长短。“等待时的心理状态通常比等待时长本身更为重要，”麻省理工学院的研究员理查德•拉尔森说。拉森是知名的排队研究专家，被称为“排队博士”。

One apparent aspect of queuing psychology is that we get bored when we wait in line. This issue is tackled in many ways, from magazines in hospital waiting rooms to mirrors in elevators so that we can check our appearance.
排队心理学的一个显著方面是我们排队时会感到无聊。有很多方法可以解决这一问题，比如从医院候诊室里的杂志到电梯里供我们整理仪容的镜子。

We really hate it when we expect a short wait and then get a long one. But studies show that we are much more patient when we are given an idea of how long we’ll be waiting.
我们非常讨厌以为只等一会儿但却等了很长时间。但是研究表明，我们在知道明确的等待时间时会更加耐心。

Walt Disney Co knows this better than anyone else. It posts estimated waiting times for attractions in its theme parks. But according to Larson, these times are overestimated so that visitors get to the front of the queue more quickly than they expect. It keeps them happy.
迪士尼公司比任何人都深谙其中之道。它在主题公园的景点前公布预计的等待时间。但是按照拉尔森的说法，这些预计时间会比实际等待时间长一些，因此游客比预期排队要快，这让他们非常高兴。