Temporal focus: Thinking about the past, present, and future

Temporal Distance, Message Framing, and Consideration of Future Consequences: Parents' Willingness to Vaccinate Children Aged 5-11 Against COVID-19

Based on the construal level theory (CLT), this experiment employed a 2 (message framing: gain vs. loss) × 2 (temporal framing: proximal vs. distal) × 2 (consideration of future consequences: low vs. high) between-subjects factorial design. Parents (N = 409) of 5- to 11-year-old children in the United States from a pool of candidates pre-screened by Qualtrics participated in this study. Results indicated that parents with high CFC-Future were more receptive to messages advocating getting their children vaccinated against COVID-19. Parents with high CFC-Future reported higher risk perception in response to the proximal messages compared to the distal messages. For parents focusing on more distant outcomes, proximal messages generated more positive attitude and greater intention compared to distal messages in the loss-framed condition. The difference was not significant in the gain-framed condition. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed. Limitations and directions for future research were outlined.

A cross-cultural examination of temporal orientation through everyday language on social media

Past research has shown that culture can form and shape our temporal orientation-the relative emphasis on the past, present, or future. However, there are mixed findings on how temporal orientations vary between North American and East Asian cultures due to the limitations of survey methodology and sampling. In this study, we applied an inductive approach and leveraged big data and natural language processing between two popular social media platforms-Twitter and Weibo-to assess the similarities and differences in temporal orientation in the United States of America and China, respectively. We first established predictive models from annotation data and used them to classify a larger set of English Twitter sentences (NTW = 1,549,136) and a larger set of Chinese Weibo sentences (NWB = 95,181) into four temporal catetories-past, future, atemporal present, and temporal present. Results show that there is no significant difference between Twitter and Weibo on past or future orientations; the large temporal orientation difference between North Americans and Chinese derives from their different prevailing focus on atemporal (e.g., facts, ideas) present (Twitter) or temporal present (e.g., the "here" and "now") (Weibo). Our findings contribute to the debate on cultural differences in temporal orientations with new perspectives following a new methodological approach. The study's implications call for a reevaluation of how temporal orientation is measured in cross-cultural studies, emphasizing the use of large-scale language data and acknowledging the atemporal present category. Understanding temporal orientations can guide effective cross-cultural communication strategies to tailor approaches for different audience based on temporal orientations, enhancing intercultural understanding and engagement.

Using Ecological Momentary Assessments to Study How Daily Fluctuations in Psychological States Impact Stress, Well-Being, and Health

Despite great interest in how dynamic fluctuations in psychological states such as mood, social safety, energy, present-focused attention, and burnout impact stress, well-being, and health, most studies examining these constructs use retrospective assessments with relatively long time-lags. Here, we discuss how ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) address methodological issues associated with retrospective reports to help reveal dynamic associations between psychological states at small timescales that are often missed in stress and health research. In addition to helping researchers characterize daily and within-day fluctuations and temporal dynamics between different health-relevant processes, EMAs can elucidate mechanisms through which interventions reduce stress and enhance well-being. EMAs can also be used to identify changes that precede critical health events, which can in turn be used to deliver ecological momentary interventions, or just-in-time interventions, to help prevent such events from occurring. To enable this work, we provide examples of scales and single-item questions used in EMA studies, recommend study designs and statistical approaches that capitalize on EMA data, and discuss limitations of EMA methods. In doing so, we aim to demonstrate how, when used carefully, EMA methods are well poised to greatly advance our understanding of how intrapersonal dynamics affect stress levels, well-being, and human health.

The challenge of clinical reasoning in chronic multimorbidity: time and interactions in the Health Issues Network model

The increasing prevalence of multimorbidity requires new theoretical models and educational approaches to develop physicians' ability to manage multimorbidity patients. The Health Issues Network (HIN) is an educational approach based on a graphical depiction of the evolutions over time of the concurrent health issues of a patient and of their interactions. From a theoretical point of view, the HIN approach is rooted in Prigogine's vision of the "becoming" of the events and in the concept of knowledge organization, intended as the process of storing and structuring of information in a learner's mind. The HIN approach allows to design clinical exercises to foster learners' ability to detect evolutionary paths and interactions among health issues. Recent findings of neuroscience support the expectation that interpreting, completing, and creating diagrams depicting complex clinical cases improves the "sense of time", as a fundamental competence in the management of multimorbidity. The application of the HIN approach is expected to decrease the risk of errors in the management of multimorbidity patients. The approach is still under validation, both for undergraduate students and for the continuous professional development of physicians.

Temporal frames, temporal focus, and behavioral expectations: The persuasive impact of near and distant threats

BACKGROUND

Ultraviolet (UV) photography and photoaging visuals make hidden sun damage visible to the naked eye, granting the potential to create messages that vary in temporal dimensionality. As UV photos depict immediate skin damage, the photo communicated that exposure in sun causes invisible damage to the young truck driver (near temporal frame) and visible damage (e.g., wrinkles) to the old truck driver (distant temporal frame).

OBJECTIVE

The current study examines the moderating effects of loss/gain frames and temporality variables on the relationship between temporal framing and sun safe behavioral expectations.

METHOD

U.S. adults (N = 897) were assigned to a 2 (near/distant temporal frame) × 2 (gain/loss frame) between-participants experiment.

RESULTS

The loss frame triggered greater fear compared to the gain frame, this fear forms an indirect path where loss frames increase fear and fear increases changes in sun safe behavioral expectations. Participants exposed to the distant frame had increased behavior expectations if either of the two temporality variables (CFC - future or current focus) were low. Participants with low temporality indicators (i.e., CFC - future, current focus, or future focus) exposed to the gain frame had increased behavior expectations.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings demonstrate the potential utility of temporal frames as a tool for designing strategic health messages.

The Temporal Focus of Mind-Wandering and Chinese Adolescents' Well-Being

The relationships between the temporal focus of mind-wandering (i.e., past-oriented and future-oriented mind-wandering) and well-being are important issues for adolescents, which may have significant implications on their well-being and self-identity development. However, few studies tested the temporal focus of mind-wandering and its emotional consequences in adolescents. In the present study, we conducted two studies using self-reported questionnaires from large sample sets to examine the relationships between the temporal focus of mind-wandering and hedonic (pleasure attainment) and eudaimonic (meaning pursuing) well-being among Chinese adolescents. Study 1 preliminarily tested the relationships between the temporal focus of mind-wandering and hedonic well-being among adolescents (n = 1273) suggesting that both past-oriented mind-wandering (PMW) and future-oriented mind-wandering (FMW) were positively correlated with hedonic well-being. Study 2 used a new sample (n = 986) and included another aspect of well-being (i.e., eudaimonic well-being), showing that PMW and FMW were both positively correlated with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Moreover, self-reflection mediated the relationships between FMW and hedonic/eudaimonic well-being, whereas self-reflection did not act as a mediator in the relationships between PMW and well-being. The present findings indicated that both PMW and FMW are beneficial for Chinese adolescents' well-being, and emphasized the mediating role of self-reflection in the relationships between FMW and well-being.

View of Times and Temporal Focus under the Pace of Life on the Impact of Intertemporal Decision Making

Previous studies have explored the effects of time poverty and money worship on intertemporal decision making based on a resource scarcity perspective. However, how the pace of life affects intertemporal decision making has not been examined. Furthermore, manipulating time perceptions can influence intertemporal decision-making preferences. Based on the perspective of time perception differences, it remains unknown how views of time or temporal focus affect the intertemporal decision making of individuals with different pace of life. To address these issues, study 1 adopted a correlational study to initially explore the relationship between the pace of life and intertemporal decision making. Studies 2 and 3 used manipulation experiments to examine the effects of the pace of life and view of time and temporal focus and pace of life on intertemporal decision making. The results suggest that the faster the life pace, the more recent rewards are preferred. Views of time and temporal focus manipulations can influence the intertemporal decision making of faster-paced individuals, making them prefer smaller-sooner (SS) payoffs under a linear view of time or future temporal focus and larger-later (LL) payoffs under a circular view of time or past temporal focus. However, the manipulation does not affect the intertemporal decision of slower-paced individuals. Our study examined the effect of the pace of life on intertemporal decision making based on a resource scarcity perspective, and found boundary conditions for the influence of the view of time and temporal focus on intertemporal decision making based on the perspective of differences in people's perception of time.

Comparing time focus with time importance for measuring future time perspectives in the context of pro-environmental values and outcomes

Introduction

In the area of environmental psychology, time and the temporal perspective have often been used as an overarching framework to explain or predict environmental outcomes. This study aims to introduce a new Time Importance Scale (TIS) based on the attitude strength theory and to assess its nomological validity in comparison with the more established Temporal Focus Scale (TFS) in the context of consumers’ willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly products. The new TIS scale is short and simple to manage.

Method

The study proposes competing plausible structural models testing alternative relationships between future time perspective (FTP) and environmental values using a nationwide representative survey sample of 633 Norwegians.

Results

The results confirm the convergent and discriminant validity of the new TIS scale. However, the direct association between the TIS scale and willingness to pay for environmentally friendly products is weak or non-significant depending on the alternative models used to validate the nomological validity.

Discussion

The new TIS scale provides evidence of a possible causal chain, FTP → environmental values → willingness to pay, with strong associations between the present TIS and hedonic values and between the future TIS and biospheric values. Environmental values are activated by FTP. In most cases, the new TIS outperforms the established TFS in nomological validity. Future research should validate our findings in experimental trials to demonstrate more substantial causal relationships.

Parenting Styles Predict Future-Oriented Cognition in Children: A Cross-Sectional Study

Parenting is a crucial environmental factor in children’s social and cognitive development. This study investigated the association between parenting styles and future-oriented cognition skills in elementary school-aged children. Cross-sectional data were collected from parents of 200 Iranian elementary school aged children (6–13 years), 139 boys and 61 girls. Baumrind’s Parenting Styles Questionnaire and Children’s Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ) were administered to parents. There was a significant positive association between authoritative parenting and children’s abilities in prospective memory, episodic foresight, planning, delay of gratification, and future-oriented cognition total score. In contrast, authoritarian parenting was negatively correlated with children’s abilities in planning, delay of gratification, and future-oriented cognition. Increases in authoritative parenting scores predicted better future-oriented cognition abilities in children.

CEO career horizon influence strategic novelty of a firm: A study under the boundary condition of CEO's temporal focus

The paper examines the relationship between CEO career horizon and strategic novelty under boundary conditions of CEOs' temporal focus for firms in one of the emerging markets. Upper echelons theory predicts that CEOs' risk aggressiveness decreases with diminishing career horizons. Therefore, CEOs nearing retirement are less likely to make novel strategic investments. We assert that CEOs' career horizon influences strategic outcomes, especially risk aggressive strategic novelty outcomes contingent on the CEOs' temporal perspective, i.e., past and future temporal focus. We test the hypotheses using archival data from 285 listed firms in India. The findings support the hypotheses by showing that CEOs' carrier horizon positively influences strategic dynamism and distinctiveness, the two dimensions of strategic novelty. The results also suggest that past temporal focus enhances the negative influence of decreasing CEOs' career horizons on strategic dynamism and distinctiveness. Future temporal focus, on the contrary, diminishes the negative influence of decreasing CEOs' career horizons on strategic dynamism and distinctiveness. The findings contribute to understanding the joint role of the time static trait of CEOs, i.e., temporal focus, and time-varying trait, i.e., career horizon on strategic novelty.

Linguistic predictors from Facebook postings of substance use disorder treatment retention versus discontinuation

Background: Early indicators of who will remain in - or leave - treatment for substance use disorder (SUD) can drive targeted interventions to support long-term recovery.Objectives: To conduct a comprehensive study of linguistic markers of SUD treatment outcomes, the current study integrated features produced by machine learning models known to have social-psychology relevance.Methods: We extracted and analyzed linguistic features from participants' Facebook posts (N = 206, 39.32% female; 55,415 postings) over the two years before they entered a SUD treatment program. Exploratory features produced by both Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling and the features from theoretical domains of religiosity, affect, and temporal orientation via established AI-based linguistic models were utilized.Results: Patients who stayed in the SUD treatment for over 90 days used more words associated with religion, positive emotions, family, affiliations, and the present, and used more first-person singular pronouns (Cohen's d values: [-0.39, -0.57]). Patients who discontinued their treatment before 90 days discussed more diverse topics, focused on the past, and used more articles (Cohen's d values: [0.44, 0.57]). All ps < .05 with Benjamini-Hochberg False Discovery Rate correction.Conclusions: We confirmed the literature on protective and risk social-psychological factors linking to SUD treatment in language analysis, showing that Facebook language before treatment entry could be used to identify the markers of SUD treatment outcomes. This reflects the importance of taking these linguistic features and markers into consideration when designing and recommending SUD treatment plans.

Clarifying dynamics for organizational research and interventions: A diversity example

Interventions backfire for many reasons, one being that the dynamics governing a system are not well-understood. To better explain organizational phenomena, and to intervene in ways that yield desired consequences, an appreciation of the core insights from dynamics may be necessary to include into a researcher's toolkit. Although substantial buzz surrounds the term dynamics in organizational science, conceptual missteps are present in the literature, ultimately limiting its application. We provide a coherent description of what dynamics encompasses by (1) advancing a definition and of dynamics and comparing it to other longitudinal concepts, (2) proposing theoretical principles to help researchers apply dynamics concepts to their own research, and (3) demonstrating how dynamics may refine our ability to explain organizational phenomena and devise practical implications. Plain Language Summary Organizational researchers and practitioners are faced with many complex issues and understanding how they unfold over time is difficult. Those difficulties often lead to unexpected results when we try to address those issues. Viewing organizations from a more dynamic lens can shed light on how phenomena evolve over time as governed by the iterative application of mathematical rules. Illumination of dynamics can assist with better targeting interventions and understanding their potential effects. A dynamics lens also emphasizes continuing needs to improve research methods, such as collecting longitudinal data and engaging in computational modeling. To illustrate these points, we discuss how diversity interventions in organizations may be better understood once dynamics are applied. For example, organizations wishing to improve the diversity of their work forces must focus both on why underrepresented groups enter the organization and why they might leave. Focus on only one or the other is unlikely to generate the desired effect. Once identifying the drivers of both entering and leaving and how those factors might reinforce each other, interventions to improve diversity might be better targeted.

Time will tell: psychological ownership, temporal focus and attitudes toward women as managers in Ethiopia

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the individual factors that directly and indirectly favor (or hinder) employees’ attitudes toward women in management. Two sides of psychological ownership (PO), promotion-focused and prevention-focused PO, are studied as having a direct effect on employees’ attitudes toward women in management. Past and future temporal focuses are examined as possible antecedents to the sides of PO, and as indirectly affecting employees’ attitudes toward women in management.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey questionnaires were collected from 230 MBA and related program students who were currently working and enrolled in one of six different universities in Ethiopia. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to validate all measurement scales, and structural equation modeling was used to test the study hypotheses using Mplus software.

Findings

Employees with promotion-focused PO and employees with prevention-focused PO had a favorable and unfavorable attitude, respectively, toward women in management. In addition, a future temporal focus had a significant positive effect on promotion-focused PO, and a past temporal focus had a significant positive effect on prevention-focused PO. Overall, this mediation model showed that promotion-focused PO partially mediates the relationship between future temporal focus and attitudes toward equal opportunity for women managers, whereas prevention-focused PO fully mediates the negative relationship between past temporal focus and attitudes toward women in management.

Practical implications

This study provides new insight for organizations by showing how employees’ temporal focus explains their side of PO and how that affects their reaction toward women in management.

Originality/value

A new mechanism for revealing gender inequality in organizations is introduced. Moreover, the relationship between temporal focus and PO is discovered. This study is novel in providing an understanding of the antecedent to and effect of prevention-focused PO, which are largely overlooked in extant research.

Disrupting times in the wake of the pandemic: Dispositional time attitudes, time perception and temporal focus

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has majorly disrupted many aspects of people's lives, provoking psychosocial distress among students. People's positive and negative attitudes towards the past, present and future were a dispositional pre-COVID-19 reality. Faced with a pandemic, people have reported disruptions in the speed of passing time. People can shift their attention more towards the past, present or future when major changes in society occur. These aspects of psychological time would be key to understanding the quality of psychosocial adjustment to the pandemic. We hypothesized that dispositional time attitudes impact psychosocial distress because they would trigger situational changes in our time perception and temporal focus.

Methods

One hundred and forty-four university students in Uruguay responded to self-report questionnaires online while in-person classes were cancelled. Students reported on shifts in temporal focus, changes in time awareness and dispositional time attitudes. Reactive psychological, social and learning environment distress were reported.

Results

Students reported substantial changes in time perception and temporal focus. A correlation matrix showed significant relationships between time attitudes, focus and awareness. For example, psychological distress was correlated with negative time attitudes, slower passage of time, boredom, blurred sense of time and shifting focus to the past. Mediation models were derived. The indirect effect of time attitudes on psychological distress was significant through past focus.

Discussion

Dispositional time attitudes would impact students' capacity to cope with the pandemic. Situational shifts in temporal focus and perception were prevalent and can be viewed as temporal coping mechanisms in the wake of powerful societal change. Our mediation models showed that those with negative time attitudes experienced more psychological distress because they shifted their attention to the past. Future directions for research and practical implications are discussed.

Finding meaning from the present and future: The mediating role of meaning in life between temporal focus and mental health

Literature has shown that temporal focus (TF) is closely related to mental health, and both of them are associated with meaning in life (MIL). Nevertheless, few studies have investigated the functional role of MIL in the relationship between TF and mental health, especially in the context of COVID-19. The present study aims to explore the mediating role of MIL between different categories of TF (i.e., past, present, and future TF) and mental health. A two-wave longitudinal survey was conducted among 538 Chinese participants aged between 22 and 70 (M ± SD  = 35.07 ± 8.82). TF was assessed at Time 1, while MIL, anxiety, and life satisfaction were measured at Time 2. The results of SEM showed that past TF negatively predicted MIL, while present and future TF positively predicted MIL. In addition, MIL mediated the relationship between TF and mental health indicators (anxiety and life satisfaction). Specifically, past TF demonstrated a negative indirect effect on life satisfaction by reducing MIL, while present and future TF had a positive indirect effect on life satisfaction by strengthening MIL. In contrast, past TF demonstrated a positive indirect effect on anxiety by reducing MIL, while present and future TF had a negative indirect effect on anxiety by strengthening MIL. Therefore, the present results supported the positive roles of present and future TF in promoting MIL and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the MIL intervention during the pandemic, the present findings suggested that compared to recalling the past, more attention should be paid to living in the present and hoping for the future.

I Left Venus and Came Back to Mars: Temporal Focus Congruence in Dyadic Relationships Following Maternity Leave

Temporal focus on past, present, and future of contributions to work is critical to understanding how employees and their line managers navigate career disruptions and minimize their potential for negative impact. This paper reframes temporal focus using a dyadic, relational perspective to explore how temporal focus (in)congruence shapes resocialization experiences for returners and their line managers following maternity leave disruption. Our qualitative study draws on 54 interviews across 27 organizations and demonstrates that a congruent, broader temporal focus—that embraces the past, present, and future—is associated with more positive relational and career outcomes than an incongruent focus, where one dyadic partner holds a narrow temporal focus. Our findings explicate how the adoption of a broad versus narrow temporal focus creates a perception of maternity leave as either a brief interlude or a major disruption. A congruent, broader temporal focus allows returners and their line managers to reduce their reliance on typical motherhood biases and instead, consider the woman’s past, present, and potential future contributions over the course of her career. We highlight the importance of temporal focus congruence at a dyadic level and the value of adopting a broader temporal focus on careers while offering new insights regarding the temporal dynamics inherent to maternity leave transitions for both returners and their managers.

Understanding how family demands impair health behaviors in working sole mothers: The role of perceived control over leisure time

Working sole mothers (i.e., nonpartnered women who work) may experience elevated family demands that impose barriers to pursuing health behaviors during their daily leisure time. We aimed to map the process through which evening family demands influence leisure-time health behaviors in this priority population of employees, in an effort to identify targets for intervention development and health disparity reduction. Conducting a 7-day daily survey study in a sample of 102 working sole mothers, we supported perceptions of control over leisure time as a key mechanism linking evening family demands to leisure-time exercise. Furthermore, we identified the individual difference of present focus (i.e., a tendency to focus on current experiences) as a key factor that alters how evening family demands affect control over leisure time, which ultimately mitigates the detrimental influence of these demands on evening exercise engagement. In contrast, we did not find evidence to support relationships of evening family demands with the health behaviors of leisure time consumption of alcohol or high sugar, high fat foods via control over leisure time. We discuss how our findings advance theory regarding how family demands influence health and inform practical efforts to reduce health disparities that working sole mothers face.

The "Self" under COVID-19: Social role disruptions, self-authenticity and present-focused coping

Social role disruption is a state involving upheaval of social identities, routines and responsibilities. Such disruption is presently occurring at a global scale due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which poses a threat not only to health and security but also to the social roles that underlie people’s daily lives. Our collective response to combat the virus entails, for example, parents homeschooling children, friends socializing online, and employees working from home. While these collective efforts serve the greater good, people’s social roles now lack continuity from what was authentic to the roles before the pandemic began. This, we argue, takes a psychological toll. Individuals feel inauthentic, or alienated and out-of-touch from their “true” selves, to the extent their social roles undergo change. As evidence, we report survey (Studies 1 & 4) and experimental (Studies 2 & 3) evidence that COVID-19-related role changes indeed increase inauthenticity. This effect occurs independent of (a) how positively/negatively people feel about COVID-19 (Study 2) and (b) how positively/negatively people feel about the role change itself (Studies 3 & 4). Moreover, we identify two moderators of this effect. First, this effect occurs when (and ostensibly because) the social roles undergoing change are central to an individual’s sense of self (Study 2). Second, this effect depends on an individual’s temporal perspective. People can safeguard their self-authenticity in the face of changing social roles if they stay focused on the here-and-now (the present and immediate future), rather than focusing on the past (pre-COVID-19) or future (post-COVID-19) (Studies 3 & 4). This advantage for present-focused coping is observed in both the U.S.A. (Study 3) and Hong Kong (Study 4). We suggest that the reason people feel more authentically themselves when they maintain a present focus is because doing so makes the discontinuity of their social roles less salient.

One Hundred and Sixty-One Days in the Life of the Homopandemicus in Serbia: The Contribution of Information Credibility and Alertness in Predicting Engagement in Protective Behaviors

COVID-19 pandemic is a long-lasting process associated with dynamic changes within society and in individual psychological responses. Effective communication of measures by credible sources throughout the epidemic is one of the crucial factors for the containment of the disease, and the official communication about pandemics is straightforwardly directed toward changes in behavior via engagement in (self-)protective measures. Calls for the adherence to these measures are aimed at the general population, but people's reactions to these calls vary depending on, for example, their individual differences in cognitive and emotional responses to the situation. The focus of our study was the general narrative about the epidemic as conveyed by both state officials and media outlets in times of decreased social contacts due to the quarantine, in which relying on these sources of information is even more pivotal. Our aim was to explore the stability of the proposed mediational model during the course of the epidemic in Serbia. In the model, we tested the relationship between perceived credibility of information (PCI) and two types of protective behavior-the actual self-protective behavior (ASPB) and the hypothetical protective behavior (HPB), as well as the potential mediating role of alertness in these relationships time-wise. A cross-sectional study (N = 10,782, female = 79.1%) was being administered daily during the first epidemic wave and in three more 2-week time frames during the second wave. Based on the variability of these measures during the first epidemic wave, three stages of psychological responses were mapped (acute, adaptation, and relaxation stage), which were observed, with some deviations, also in the second wave. The mediational model was relatively robust after the initial few weeks, but the strength of pairwise relationships was more changeable. With both types of protective behaviors, the predictive power of PCI was partially mediated through alertness. This suggests that, while individual differences in cognitive and affective responses are important, so is coherent, focused, and credible communication in all stages of the epidemic, which emphasizes the communality aspect of the social containment of the infection. Our findings can thus be valuable in informing the planning of effective future communication.

Stuck in the past or living in the present? Temporal focus and the spread of COVID-19

Research has shown that the temporal focus of individuals can have a real effect on behavior. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study posits that temporal focus will affect adherence behavior regarding health control measures, such as social distancing, hand washing and mask wearing, which will be manifested through the degree of spread of COVID-19. It is suggested that social media can provide an indicator of the general temporal focus of the population at a particular time. In this study, we examine the temporal focus of Twitter text data and the number of COVID-19 cases in the US over a 317-day period from the inception of the pandemic, using text analytics to classify the temporal content of 0.76 million tweets. The data is then analyzed using dynamic regression via advanced ARIMA modelling, differencing the data, removing weekly seasonality and creating a stationary time series. The result of the dynamic regression finds that past orientation does indeed have an effect on the growth of COVID-19 cases in the US. However, a present focus tends to reduce the spread of COVID cases. Future focus had no effect in the model. Overall, the research suggests that detecting and managing temporal focus could be an important tool in managing public health during a pandemic.

In times of illness: Covid-19 threat influences temporal focus and implicit space-time mappings

According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, people's front-back mental space-time mappings are associated with their attention to the time frames of past and/or future. Based upon the findings that pathogen threats elicit preferences for social conservatism and traditions, we theorize that activating thinking about COVID-19, an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019, will promote people's past-oriented thinking and increase their responses of past-in-front mapping. By manipulating saliency of coronavirus threat, our results showed that exposure to information about coronavirus created changes in a stronger past focus and caused a significant increase in the rate of past-in-front responses, which provides supporting evidence for the Temporal Focus Hypothesis. These findings suggest that the unprecedented pandemic not only harms people's health, but also can influence the way they construe the world.

Validation study of the Italian version of Temporal Focus Scale: psychometric properties and convergent validity

Background

Over the last decade, international research has produced a large number of studies that have stressed the importance of temporal focus in various aspects of the lives of individuals, groups and organizations. This first Italian validation study of the Temporal Focus Scale (TFS) has shown a reliable measurement to assess the tendency of individuals to characteristically think about different periods of their lives.

Methods

TFS/I was administered to a sample of 1458 participants, while three other convenience samples (N₁ = 453; N₂ = 544; N₃ = 168) were used for convergent validity testing.

Results

Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a three-factor solution (including 10 items) with good indices of fit to data, e.g., χ² = 49.533, CFI = 0.992, TLI = 0.986, RMSEA = 0.034, RMSEA 90% CI .018–.048. Convergent validity assessment confirmed predictive indications with variables such as life satisfaction, optimistic/pessimistic orientation, perceived general self-efficacy, self-regulatory modes, anxiety, depression.

Conclusion

The temporal focus has proven to be a significant feature associated with various aspects of both well-being and personal discomfort. By virtue of its good psychometric properties, the TFS can be an integrative tool along with others for a better evaluation of the person’s profile in different contexts such as education, coaching, psychotherapy, counseling and career guidance.

Individual differences in functional food consumption: The role of time perspective and the Big Five personality traits

Prior research suggests inconsistent relationships between individuals' personality traits, time perspective, and specific behavior. In a large representative sample of Norwegian consumers (N = 810), we investigated the relationships between the Big Five personality traits, domain-specific consideration of future consequences (CFC), and consumption of functional foods. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized associations. Both CFC-Future and CFC-Immediate were positively related to the consumption of functional foods, whereas personality traits exerted no direct influence on consumption. Several significant associations between personality traits and CFC-Future and CFC-Immediate were found, and three of the five personality traits-Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism-exerted indirect effects on consumption frequency via CFC-Future. Results support an integrative and hierarchical understanding of how personality traits and time perspective interact in explaining variation in functional food consumption. The findings support the notion that (domain-specific) CFC is better conceptualized as two distinct-albeit related constructs-that are shaped, in part, by broader personality traits.

Future temporal focus in resilience research: when leader resilience provides a role model

Purpose

Despite more and more researchers recommend that time-related issues should be considered into the resilience research, temporal issue is still largely neglected in empirical domain. The purpose of this study is to introduce the concept of future temporal focus, while investigating whether and when leader resilience contributes to subordinates' level of conveyed resilience.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey responses from a two-source field study involving 222 supervisor–subordinate dyads were collected. Regression-based moderation and bootstrapping analyses were adapted to analyze data and test hypotheses by using the PROCESS syntax in SPSS software.

Findings

Results showed that there is no significant effect of leader resilience on subordinate resilience. However, consistent with hypotheses, leader's future temporal focus and resilience had a significant interactive effect on subordinate's resilience. That is, when leaders had higher level of future temporal focus, their resilience would be positively correlated with subordinate resilience.

Practical implications

The findings of the study provide important practical insights into developing relevant training and intervention programs in organizations to cultivate employee resilience. These can also be strengthened by encouraging leaders' future-oriented cognition on work-related domains and leader–member exchange relationship.

Originality/value

Overall, this study introduced temporal focus into resilience theory by providing evidence of its impacts on employee behaviors, and emphasized the important role of future temporal focus of leader.

Children's future-oriented cognition

Children's future-oriented cognition has become a well-established area of research over the last decade. Future-oriented cognition encompasses a range of processes, including those involved in conceiving the future, imagining and preparing for future events, and making decisions that will affect how the future unfolds. We consider recent empirical advances in the study of such processes by outlining key findings that have yielded a clearer picture of how future thinking emerges and changes over childhood. Our interest in future thinking stems from a broader interest in temporal cognition, and we argue that a consideration of developmental changes in how children understand and represent time itself provides a valuable framework in which to study future-oriented cognition.

Do ultraviolet photos increase sun safe behavior expectations via fear? A randomized controlled trial in a sample of U.S. adults

Ultraviolet (UV) photos reveal the world in a different light spectrum, including damage that is caused by UV light. In the context of skin cancer control, UV photos have the potential to communicate fear because they reveal underlying skin damage. U.S. adults (N = 2219) were assigned to a 5 (visual: UV skin damage, sun exposure, sunburn, photoaging, and mole removal) × 3 (replication: three examples of each visual condition) × 4 (efficacy: no efficacy, text only, visual, visual + text) randomized controlled trial. Compared to all other visual conditions combined, UV skin damage visuals generated greater fear which triggered increased sun safe behavior expectations. Compared with other visual conditions separately, only mole removal visuals produced equivalent fear as UV skin damage visuals. Visual efficacy conditions appeared to nullify rather than magnify the indirect path through fear. The results suggest one way UV images impact sun safe behavioral expectations is via fear and that researchers should continue to examine the position of fear in fear appeal theories.