Investigating the relationship between time perspective and life satisfaction in adulthood

People can perceive the passage of time differently and experience a variety of thoughts and emotions about their past, present and future. In psychology, these time-related mental representations are collectively referred to as “time perspective.”

Time perspective is typically described as the extent to which a person emphasizes a particular period of time (i.e., past, present, or future) in their mind. Previous studies suggest that time perspective is closely linked to well-being.

In other words, mental representations of the past, present, and future appear to be related to people’s satisfaction with their lives. Specifically, the results suggest that a strong focus on one of these time frames over the others (i.e., frequently rethinking the past, present, or future) is associated with lower well-being, while a balanced time perspective is associated with higher well-being.

Researchers at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany recently conducted a longitudinal study to better understand the relationships between time perspective and life satisfaction in adulthood. Their results, published in Communication psychologyreveal new specific dimensions of time perspective that are often associated with higher or lower life satisfaction.

“The representation of time is subject to developmental changes,” write Maria Wirth, Markus Wettstein and their colleagues in their article. “As lifespan decreases, a time perspective dominated by the future is increasingly replaced by one focused on the present and the past. These age-related changes are probably associated with greater subjective well-being.”

Previous studies examining the relationship between time perspective and life satisfaction have found consistent results. However, these studies often examined only a single dimension of time perspective rather than multiple aspects simultaneously. In addition, they often included participants from only a specific segment of the adult population, such as younger, middle-aged, or older adults.

Wirth, Wettstein and their colleagues wanted to examine the relationship between time perspective and well-being over a 10-year period. Their study focused on four different dimensions of time perspective.

The first two dimensions examined are past orientation (how people interpret their past experiences) and future concreteness (how tangible the future seems to them). The other two are obsolescence (the extent to which past experiences lose relevance over time) and attitudes toward finitude (the awareness or acceptance of death).

“We examined how changes in four facets of time perspective (past orientation, future concreteness, obsolescence, and attitudes toward finitude) are related to changes in life- and domain-specific satisfaction and whether these relationships are moderated by age,” wrote Wirth, Wettstein, and their colleagues. “We used 10-year longitudinal data from a mixed-age sample of 459 participants (ages 30–80).”

When analyzing the collected data, the researchers found that the concreteness of visions of the future was most strongly related to life satisfaction. In other words, participants who perceived the future clearly and with concrete goals and plans in mind were more satisfied with their lives, while those with an uncertain vision of the future tended to be less satisfied.

“Concreteness was most consistently associated with satisfaction,” wrote Wirth, Wettstein and their colleagues. “Individuals with higher concreteness overall reported higher life satisfaction, and higher life satisfaction was reported on measurement occasions with higher concreteness. Age-related moderation was found only for satisfaction with mental fitness. In younger, but not older, adults, satisfaction with mental fitness was higher on measurement occasions with higher concreteness.”

This recent study by Wirth-Wettstein and her colleagues offers a deeper understanding of the relationship between time perspective and well-being in adulthood. In the future, it could serve as a foundation for further research examining how other specific nuances of time perspective relate to life satisfaction.

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