Motivation and emotion/Tutorials/Time perspective
Tutorial 10: Time perspective
This is the tenth tutorial for the motivation and emotion unit of study.
 | The 2024 tutorial is complete. |
Overview
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This tutorial is about:
- the psychology of time and, more specifically,
- Zimbardo's model of time perspective and how it relates to motivation and emotion
Would you like to time travel?
It turns out, you already a time traveller simply do by adopting different cognitions about time—or time perspectives (e.g., past, present, future).
Time perspectives relate to cognitive psychology, personality, motivation, and emotion.
Humans are unconsciously influenced by their cognitions about time. By understanding this, we can optimise our time perspective to live better lives.
Take-home messages:
- Time perspective unconsciously influences our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour
- The ideal profile involves balanced and flexible use of past, present, and future time perspectives
What is time perspective?
[edit | edit source]Did you know that we can travel through time (see Figure 1)?
Time travel is very simple to do and we do it "all the time".
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For example, close your eyes and think about what happened:
- 10 minutes ago
- yesterday
- many years ago
Similarly, you imagine various futures for yourself e.g., in:
- 1 hour
- 1 year
- 30 years
Or you could focus all your thought and attention could be focused on what is happening in the present.
Time perspective (TP) refers to how we think about time. It can be broadly divided into (see Figure 2):
- Past
- Present
- Future
ZTPI
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Activity: ZTPI 
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Theory
[edit | edit source]Time perspective theory considers:
- the types of time perspective
- time perspective principles
Types
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Time perspective can be conceptualised in terms of whether it focuses on past, present, and future, but also by the valence of that focus (e.g., positive or negative). This leads to the five time perspectives suggested by Zimbardo (2009; see Figure 3):
- Past Negative
- Past Positive
- Present Hedonistic
- Present Fatalistic
- Future
It is unclear whether future should be separated into future negative and future positive (there is mixed evidence).
Zimbardo also suggests another time perspective:
- Transcendental (TFTPI)
which is about focusing on time beyond one's lifetime.
For more information, see an overview of time perspective types (thetimeparadox.com)
Principles
[edit | edit source]- Time perspective influences thoughts, feelings, and behaviour unconsciously
- Each time perspective has benefits, but excesses create negative consequences
- Time perspectives are learned through personal experience
- We can learn to change our time perspectives
Results
[edit | edit source]Compare your ZTPI scores with the:
- Norms:
- Past Negative (Mdn = 3.0)
- Past Positive (Mdn = 3.2)
- Present Hedonism (Mdn = 3.9)
- Present Fatalism (Mdn = 2.3)
- Future (Mdn = 3.4)
- Ideal profile
- Past Positive - High (like your past)
- Present Hedonism - Moderate (choose when to select pleasure in the present) [1]
- Future - Moderately high (work for the future)
- Worst profile:
- Past Negative - High
- Present Fatalism - High
- = living in a negative past and believing you can do nothing to change it[2]
Multimedia
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Does the name, Philip Zimbardo ring a bell (see Figure 4)?
It should for psychology students!
Maybe something about a prison experiment?
In the early 1970s Zimbardo tackled a fundamental question that had plagued psychologists since World War II – are humans fundamentally evil – or do extreme circumstances mean that normal people can be made to act inhumanely?
Fast forward a few decades and Zimbardo has worked on many other areas of psychology including, more recently, time perspective.
Watch: Philip Zimbardo prescribes a healthy take on time (Philip Zimbardo, 5:36 min, TED talk, 2009)
Discussion
[edit | edit source]- How could your time perspective be improved?
- How could time perspective be applied?
Books
[edit | edit source]Zimbardo's two books on this topic are:
Recording
[edit | edit source]- Tutorial 10 (2024)
See also
[edit | edit source]- Admin
- Book chapters
- Lectures and tutorials
- 20 emotions (Previous tutorial)
- Positive psychology (Next tutorial)
- Unconscious motivation (Lecture)
- Wikipedia
References
[edit | edit source]Zimbardo, P. G. & Boyd, J. N. (2009). The time paradox: Using the new psychology of time to your advantage. Free Press.
Zimbardo, P. G., Sword, R. M., & Sword, R. K. M. (2012). The time cure: Overcoming PTSD with the new psychology of time perspective therapy. Jossey-Bass.