Time Orientation

Introduction

Time perspective (TP) is the often non-conscious process whereby the continual flow of personal and social experiences are parcelled into temporal categories, or time frames, that help to give order, coherence, and meaning to those life events. These cognitive frames may reflect cyclical, repetitive temporal patterns or unique, non-recurring linear events in our lives. They are used in encoding, storing, and recalling experienced events, as well as in forming expectations, goals, contingencies, and imaginative scenarios. Between the abstract, psychological constructions of prior past and anticipated future events lies the concrete, empirically centred representation of the present action moment.

When a tendency develops to habitually overemphasize past, future, or present temporal frames when making decisions, it serves as a cognitive temporal ‘bias’ toward being past, future, or present-oriented. When chronically elicited, this bias becomes a dispositional style, or individual difference variable, that is characteristic and predictive of how the individual will respond across a host of daily life choice situations. Of course, there are variations in the degree to which a person utilizes these temporal orientations, and there may be situations in which each of these orientations will lead to an optimal decision. Temporal bias may include either habitual over or under use of one or more of these temporal frames. Such limiting biases are in contrast with a ‘balanced time orientation’, an idealized mental framework that allows individuals to flexibly switch temporal frames between past, future, and present depending on situational demands, resource assessments, or personal and social appraisals.

Previous Research on Time Perspective

One possible reason why this intriguing, seemingly central aspect of the human experience – time – has not been incorporated into the current domain of psychological science may be due to the disjointed, non-cumulative nature of past research, the lack of adequate theory, and the absence of a standard, reliable, and valid measure for assessing TP. Given the complexity of this construct, it is no wonder that time perspective has been measured and operationally defined in a variety of different ways by independent investigators. Most research has tried to relate either future or present orientations to other psychological constructs and to their effects on selected outcome behaviours, with relatively little attention to past orientations. In general, future orientation has been shown to be related to many positive consequences for the individual in Western society, such as higher SES, superior academic achievement, less sensation seeking, and fewer health-risk behaviours. The opposite holds for those with a dominant present-orientation, who are seen as at risk for many negative life consequences, among them mental health problems, juvenile delinquency, crime, and addictions, when they function in a predominant future-oriented society (see, for example, DeVolder & Lens, 1982; Fraisse, 1963; Levine, 1997; Nuttin, 1985; Strathman, Gleicher, Boninger & Edwards, 1994; Zaleski, 1994).

Previous attempts to capture the complexity of TP in a single index have used: Thematic Apperception Test; Experiential Inventory (Cottle, 1968); Circles Test (Cottle, 1976); Motivational Induction Method (Nuttin, 1985); questionnaires (Bond & Feather, 1988); and Time Lines (Rappaport, 1990), among others. However, none of these methods has been widely accepted because of their low reliability or scoring difficulties. Because the meaning of TP must be closely linked to the standardized operations used to assess it effectively, such disparate definitions and methods have hindered the fuller development of this domain of psychological inquiry.

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