Difficulty: Intermediate | Prerequisites: Part 1 of these notes (Theoretical Foundations), basic research methods (correlation, regression, non-parametric tests).
This is Part 2 covering the empirical findings from Ogden et al. (2024). It walks through two studies: one conducted in the UK examining beliefs about Christmas, and one conducted in Iraq examining beliefs about Ramadan. The notes cover the methods, key results, cross-cultural comparison, and study limitations. You should be comfortable with the theoretical concepts from Part 1 (prospective memory, attentional focus, emotional wellbeing, memory storage models) before diving in.
76% of UK participants agreed Christmas comes around more quickly each year; 70% of Iraqi participants said the same about Ramadan. In both samples, the belief was predicted by attention to time, event enjoyment, and prospective memory errors. Age was not a reliable predictor, and retrospective memory was not significant in either regression model.
Ordinal logistic regression (with proportional odds)
A regression technique used when the dependent variable is ordinal (ordered categories, such as a Likert scale). It estimates the odds of being in a higher category versus a lower one for each unit increase in a predictor. Think of it as standard regression adapted for ranked but not evenly spaced outcomes.
Spearman's correlation
A non-parametric measure of the strength and direction of association between two ranked variables. Used here because the data were not normally distributed (confirmed by Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests).
Mann-Whitney U test
A non-parametric test comparing two independent groups when data are not normally distributed. Used here to compare scores between the UK and Iraqi samples.
Likert scale
A rating scale (here 7-point) where respondents indicate their degree of agreement with a statement, from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree." The POTJ question used a single Likert item.
Odds ratio
In ordinal regression, the odds ratio tells you how much the odds of being in a higher response category change for each unit increase in a predictor. An odds ratio of 1.58 for attention to time means that for each one-point increase in attention to time, the odds of stronger agreement that Christmas comes faster increase by 58%.
Volunteer sampling
Recruitment where participants self-select into the study. Study 1 used Prolific.co and university emails; Study 2 used an Iraqi university website. This introduces potential self-selection bias.
Participants
789 participants (after excluding 233 who did not complete all questions).
242 females (32%), 549 males (68%). Ages 18 to 80 (M = 41.68, SD = 16.48).
Required to be UK residents identifying as atheist, Christian, or Catholic.
Recruited via Prolific.co and university emails, December 2022.
Measures
Passage of time judgement (POTJ): single 7-point Likert item ("To what extent do you agree that Christmas comes around more quickly each year?").
Attention to time: single 7-point Likert item ("How much do you think about the passage of time on a day-to-day basis?").
Enjoyment of Christmas: single 7-point Likert item.
Quality of life: WHOQOL-BREF (four subscales: physical, psychological, social, environmental).
Memory function: PRMQ (8 prospective items, 8 retrospective items; 5-point scale; higher scores = more errors).
Key results: descriptive
10% disagreed that Christmas comes around more quickly.
14% neither agreed nor disagreed.
76% agreed that Christmas feels like it comes around more quickly each year.
Key results: correlations (Spearman's)
Significant positive correlations between POTJ-Christmas and: attention to time (.33), enjoyment of Christmas (.16), prospective memory errors (.15), retrospective memory errors (.11), social QoL (.08).
Significant negative correlations between POTJ-Christmas and: age (-.10), psychological QoL (-.07).
Key results: ordinal regression
Model was significant: chi-squared(10) = 122.59, p < .001, pseudo-R-squared = .05 to .15.
Four significant predictors:
Attention to time (Wald = 75.80, OR = 1.58, 95% CI 1.42 to 1.75) -- the strongest predictor.
Enjoyment of Christmas (Wald = 5.02, OR = 1.10, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.19).
Prospective memory errors (Wald = 3.97, OR = 1.04, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.07).
Social QoL (Wald = 4.45, OR = 1.01, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.02).
Not significant: age, gender, retrospective memory, physical QoL, psychological QoL, environmental QoL.
Participants
621 participants recruited via www.sadiq.edu.iq.
208 females (33%), 413 males (67%). Required to be Iraqi residents identifying as Muslim.
Age distribution: 22% aged 25 and under, 21% aged 26 to 35, 21% aged 36 to 45, 19% aged 46 to 55, 17% over 55.
Recruited January to February 2023 (roughly two months before Ramadan).
Measures
Same questionnaire as Study 1, translated into Arabic.
"Christmas" replaced with "Ramadan" throughout.
Validated Arabic translations used for WHOQOL-BREF and PRMQ.
Key results: descriptive
21% disagreed that Ramadan comes around more quickly.
9% neither agreed nor disagreed.
70% agreed that Ramadan feels like it comes around more quickly each year.
Key results: correlations (Spearman's)
Significant positive correlations between POTJ-Ramadan and: attention to time (.27), prospective memory errors (.20), retrospective memory errors (.13), enjoyment of Ramadan (.08).
Significant negative correlations between POTJ-Ramadan and: age (-.17), psychological QoL (-.12), physical QoL (-.10), environmental QoL (-.08).
Key results: ordinal regression
Model was significant: chi-squared(10) = 102.18, p < .001, pseudo-R-squared = .05 to .16.
Five significant predictors:
Attention to time (Wald = 37.18, OR = 1.37, 95% CI 1.24 to 1.51).
Prospective memory errors (Wald = 12.35, OR = 1.07, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.11).
Enjoyment of Ramadan (Wald = 9.45, OR = 1.33, 95% CI 1.11 to 1.60).
Age (Wald = 11.33, OR = 0.98, 95% CI 0.97 to 0.99) -- younger age predicted faster time.
Gender (Wald = 5.16, OR = 1.44, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.97) -- female gender predicted faster time.
Not significant: retrospective memory, physical QoL, psychological QoL, social QoL, environmental QoL.
Key differences from Study 1
Age was a significant predictor in Iraq (younger = faster time) but not in the UK.
Gender was significant in Iraq (female = faster time) but not in the UK.
Social QoL was significant in the UK but not in Iraq.
Overall agreement
UK participants reported significantly stronger agreement that Christmas comes around faster than Iraqi participants reported for Ramadan (U = 221992.60, p = .002).
UK mean POTJ = 5.27 (SD = 1.32); Iraq mean POTJ = 4.88 (SD = 1.69).
Quality of life
Physical, social, and environmental QoL were all significantly higher in the UK than Iraq (all p < .001).
Psychological QoL did not differ significantly (p = .52).
Memory function
Both prospective and retrospective PRMQ scores were significantly higher (worse memory) in the UK than Iraq (both p < .001).
UK prospective memory mean = 21.98; Iraq = 24.25. UK retrospective memory mean = 18.56; Iraq = 22.53.
Attention to time and enjoyment
Attention to time did not differ between countries (p = .73).
Enjoyment of Christmas was significantly greater in the UK than enjoyment of Ramadan in Iraq (p < .001). UK enjoyment mean = 5.21; Iraq = 4.44.
What was consistent across cultures
The three core predictors (attention to time, event enjoyment, prospective memory errors) were significant in both regression models.
Retrospective memory was not significant in either model.
General QoL domains (physical, psychological, environmental) were not significant in either model.
"The study proves that Christmas genuinely arrives faster each year as you age." The study measured beliefs about time, not objective time passage. The authors themselves note that responses may reflect agreement with a cultural stereotype rather than actual lived experience of time acceleration.
"The UK and Iraq results are directly comparable because the same questionnaire was used." While the measures were matched, Christmas and Ramadan differ substantially: Christmas falls on a fixed date, Ramadan follows a lunar cycle and shifts year to year. Christmas is a few days of celebration; Ramadan is a month of fasting. These structural differences may account for some variation in results.
"The regression models explain most of the variance in time perception." The pseudo-R-squared values were .05 to .16, meaning the models explain only 5 to 16% of the variance. The odds ratios were small. Other unmeasured variables likely play a large role.
⚠️ Be able to list and compare the significant predictors from each study's regression model. The three shared ones (attention to time, enjoyment, prospective memory) plus the Iraq-only ones (age, gender) are likely exam material.
⚠️ Know the headline percentages: 76% agreement (UK, Christmas) and 70% agreement (Iraq, Ramadan).
⚠️ The small pseudo-R-squared values (.05 to .16) are a limitation you should be prepared to discuss. They indicate the models capture only a fraction of what drives the belief.
⚠️ The choice of non-parametric methods (Spearman's, Mann-Whitney U, ordinal regression) was driven by the data: the outcome was a single Likert item, and all variables failed normality tests. Be able to justify why parametric alternatives would have been inappropriate.
⚠️ Understand why retrospective memory was not significant despite memory storage theory predicting it should be. The answer lies in the future-focused framing of the POTJ question.
Q: What percentage of UK participants agreed that Christmas comes around more quickly each year?
A: 76% agreed (combining "somewhat agree," "agree," and "strongly agree"). Only 10% disagreed.
Q: Name the three predictors of passage of time distortion that were significant in both the UK and Iraqi regression models.
A: Attention to time, enjoyment of the event (Christmas or Ramadan), and prospective memory errors.
Q: Why did the researchers use non-parametric statistics rather than parametric alternatives?
A: The main outcome variable was a single Likert-scale item (ordinal, not continuous), and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests confirmed that all variables were not normally distributed (p < .001 for all). Non-parametric methods (Spearman's correlations, ordinal logistic regression, Mann-Whitney U) were therefore more appropriate.
Q: The memory storage model predicts that retrospective memory function should influence long-epoch time perception. Was this supported?
A: No. Retrospective memory errors were not a significant predictor in either regression model. Prospective memory errors were significant instead. The authors suggest this is because the POTJ question was future-focused (is the next event arriving sooner?), which engages prospective rather than retrospective processing.
Q: In Study 2, two predictors were significant that were not significant in Study 1. What were they, and what did they show?
A: Age and gender. Younger age was associated with greater agreement that Ramadan comes around faster (OR = 0.98), and female gender was associated with greater agreement (OR = 1.44). Neither was significant in the UK sample.
Q: What was the strongest single predictor in the UK regression model, and what was its odds ratio?
A: Attention to time, with a Wald statistic of 75.80 and an odds ratio of 1.58 (95% CI 1.42 to 1.75). For each one-point increase on the attention-to-time scale, the odds of stronger agreement increased by 58%.
Q: Give two reasons why the UK and Iraqi findings are not directly comparable.
A: (1) Christmas falls on a fixed calendar date while Ramadan follows a lunar cycle and shifts each year, creating different temporal expectations. (2) Christmas is a few days of feasting and socialisation, while Ramadan is a month-long period of daily fasting, so the events differ in duration, content, and emotional associations.
Event comparability
Christmas and Ramadan differ in timing (fixed vs. lunar calendar), duration (days vs. a month), and nature (feasting vs. fasting). These structural differences may contribute to the different predictor patterns found in each country.
Single-item measurement
The passage of time was measured with a single Likert item. This is common in passage-of-time research, but a uni-dimensional measure may not capture the full complexity of temporal experience. Multi-item measures would improve reliability.
Small effect sizes
The regression models explained only 5 to 16% of the variance (pseudo-R-squared = .05 to .16), and the odds ratios were small. Other variables not measured in the study are likely important determinants.
Marketing confound
The widespread and increasingly early marketing for Christmas (products appearing in stores in September, for example) may contribute to the sensation that the event arrives sooner. The belief may partly reflect changing commercial practices rather than a purely psychological distortion.
Stereotype agreement vs. lived experience
The POTJ question asks whether participants agree with the statement that Christmas or Ramadan comes around more quickly each year. Responses may reflect agreement with a well-known cultural stereotype rather than genuine personal experience of time acceleration. Future research should try to separate these.
This material links to the broader time perception literature covered during COVID-19 lockdowns (Ogden, 2020; Droit-Volet et al., 2020), where similar factors (emotion, social isolation, routine) distorted temporal experience. The prospective memory findings connect to Block and Zakay's dual-process models of timing, which distinguish between prospective and retrospective temporal processing. The cross-cultural design connects to methods in cross-cultural psychology and the challenges of comparing constructs across different cultural and religious contexts.
Ogden 2024, time perception Christmas, time perception Ramadan, passage of time judgement, POTJ, prospective memory, PRMQ, WHOQOL-BREF, cross-cultural time perception, ordinal logistic regression, Spearman correlation, Mann-Whitney U, Likert scale, time pressure, event enjoyment, attention to time, temporal distortion, annual events, age and time perception, COVID-19 time perception, memory storage model, Block and Zakay, non-parametric analysis, volunteer sampling, pseudo-R-squared, odds ratio
Source: Ogden R, Alatrany SSJ, Flaiyah AM, ALi Sayyid ALdrraji H, Musa H, Alatrany ASS, et al. (2024) Distortions to the passage of time for annual events. PLoS ONE 19(7): e0304660.