Flaherty's cross-cultural theory purports to account for variation in the perceived passage of time. Recent events in Argentina provide an opportunity to assess the applicability of this theory to a Latin American nation. We conducted interviews with 198 persons who participated in various kinds of political activism. The respondents who felt that time had passed “quickly” emphasized an increase in governmental and personal activity. For those who said “slowly,” the focus was on suffering, unpleasant emotions, and waiting. Those who were unable to specify reported a mixture of factors associated with “quickly” or “slowly,” while those who said “synchronically” were unaffected by the turmoil in their country. These findings offer strong support for the theory in question, and they suggest that variation in the experience of time occurs not because there are different kinds of people but because people find themselves in different kinds of circumstances.
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