Contrasting the Effects of Mortality Salience and Future Time Limitation on Goal Prioritization in Older and Younger Adults

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (10) ◽  
pp. 2112-2121
Author(s):  
Helene H Fung ◽  
Steven Tsun-Wai Chu ◽  
Da Jiang ◽  
Amber Xuqian Chen ◽  
Carson Chuen Ng
Keyword(s):  
Time Perspective ◽  
Mortality Salience ◽  
Future Time Perspective ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Socioemotional Selectivity ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cultural Worldviews ◽  
Study Participants

Abstract Objectives This study aims at contrasting the effects of limited future time perspective and mortality salience on goal prioritization across adulthood. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) argues that people increasingly prioritize emotionally meaningful goals when they perceive future time as more limited. Terror management theory (TMT) suggests that mortality salience (i.e., the awareness of one’s mortality) drives people to prioritize the goal of perpetuating own existence through affirming cultural worldview. Method In this study, participants (N = 438) were randomly assigned to six conditions that primed (a) limited future time, (b) mortality salience, (c) death reflection, (d) both limited future time and mortality salience, (e) both limited future time, and death reflection, or (f) none. Results Results showed that older adults allocated significantly more resources to emotionally close recipients who supported their cultural worldviews in conditions involving future time limitation and death reflection. They also allocated less resources to emotionally not close recipients who did not support their cultural worldviews in conditions involving future time limitation. Younger adults did not show these differences. Nor did mortality salience have any effect. Discussion These results suggest that future time perspective and death reflection shift age-related goals more than mortality salience.

scholarly journals Future Time Perspective

GeroPsych ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsiao-Wen Liao ◽  
Laura L. Carstensen
Keyword(s):  
Time Perspective ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Time Perspective ◽  
Subjective Time ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Socioemotional Selectivity ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Time Horizons ◽  
Antecedents And Consequences

Abstract. The articles in the present volume enhance the understanding of the role of perceived time in human development. Together, they point to the multifaceted nature of perceived future time and the associations different aspects of time have with goals, preferences, and well-being. Specifically, the articles showcase antecedents and consequences of perceived time left in life, consider ways to optimize measurement of future time horizons, and advance novel questions about the neural correlates of domain-specific aspects of subjective time. Findings are considered within the framework of socioemotional selectivity theory. Future directions for research on time horizons are discussed.

Extension of Future Time Perspective in Motivational Goals of Different Age Groups

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy Lens ◽  
Antoine Gailly
Keyword(s):  
Time Perspective ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Life Time ◽  
Future Time Perspective ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Future Extension ◽  
The Mean

Age related differences in extension of future time perspective in motivational goals are studied at three socio-economic levels in a representative sample of the French speaking adult population in Belgium. The hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relationship between age and extension of future time perspective is tested statistically. It cannot be maintained when using two indices of future extension that are borrowed from earlier studies in this field: (a) the proportion of number of references to the near future to the number of references to the distant future, and (b) the mean future extension score in number of years. The proportion of the mean future extension score to the statistically calculated expected life time is proposed as a new and better index of future extension for comparing different age groups. With this new index the hypothesis is confirmed at the three socioeconomic levels. The limits of the cross-sectional method that is used and the relative value of the new index of extension of future time perspective are discussed.

Future Time Perspective as an Operationalization of Existential Concerns Related to Time

2020 ◽  
pp. 002216782094506
Author(s):  
David E. Reed
Keyword(s):  
Time Perspective ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Time Perspective ◽  
Existential Psychology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Socioemotional Selectivity ◽  
Existential Perspective ◽  
Existential Concerns

Psychologists and other clinical therapists often focus on the psychological processes that result from the fact that human beings will one day die, not death anxiety/afterlife anxiety itself. Nevertheless, existential concerns are death concerns, and any anxiety associated with death should be understood through that lens—as resulting from concerns about death. Understanding how one views the amount of time left to live, and how this perception influences motives, goal cognitions, mood, and well-being, is of great importance from a humanistic–existential perspective. Socioemotional selectivity theory and the concept of future time perspective (FTP) capture these phenomena and have the potential to operationalize perspectives of time constraints within existential psychology. The present work attempts to show how FTP may be used to operationalize the problem of time from an existential perspective, specifically targeting the existential themes of death, meaning, isolation, and freedom. Clinical implications of considering FTP as an existential construct are discussed, as are limitations and future directions.

Future Time Perspective Moderates Consumer Responses to Nostalgic Advertising

GeroPsych ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 137-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilyoung Ju ◽  
Susan Bluck ◽  
Hsiao-Wen Liao
Keyword(s):  
Time Perspective ◽  
Positive Response ◽  
Consumer Preferences ◽  
Consumer Response ◽  
Future Time Perspective ◽  
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Consumer Responses ◽  
Socioemotional Selectivity ◽  
The Past

Abstract. Humans remember their past and consider their future. Nostalgic advertising, focused on the personal past, increases positive consumer response to products. This research examines how future time perspective (FTP) moderates that effect. Based on socioemotional selectivity theory, the products studied represent goals individuals have when time feels limited (i.e., camera: familiar, socially focused, emotionally meaningful) or open-ended (i.e., VR-One: novel, information-focused, entertaining). As expected, ad-evoked nostalgia heightens positive consumer response to the camera, increasingly so when FTP feels limited (Study 1; N = 288). For the VR-One, ad-evoked nostalgia again increases positive response but less so when time feels limited (Study 2; N = 283). Thinking about how the past and the future interact to influence consumer preferences in adulthood is discussed.

On the Social Life and Motivational Changes of Aging Monkeys

Gerontology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
pp. 572-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Time Perspective ◽  
Future Time Perspective ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Barbary Macaques ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Motivational Changes

Although nonhuman primates have been used in biomedical research to develop a better understanding of physiological aging processes, their value as models for studying age-related differences in motivation, cognition, and decision-making has only recently been appreciated. This paper reviews the state of the art, with a focus on a recent study on Barbary macaques. A number of studies reported that with increasing age, Old World monkeys spend more time resting, have fewer social partners, and/or spend less time in social interactions, though other studies found no such effects. Less was known about changes in cognitive performance and shifts in interest in the physical and social environment across age. A recent comprehensive study of motivational changes in a large age-heterogeneous population of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) living at “La Forêt des Singes” in Rocamadour explicitly tested predictions from social selectivity theory, which posits that in light of a shrinking future time perspective, humans become increasingly selective in terms of their social interactions. Given that nonhuman primates most likely have no conception of their limited lifetime, this allowed disentangling the effects of cognitive insights and basal physiological processes that contribute to changes in the valuation of different activities. The Barbary macaques under study revealed marked and differential motivational shifts with age: while they interacted with fewer social partners, they continued to attend to social information. In contrast, they revealed a marked loss of interest in novel objects in early adulthood, unless these were baited with a food reward. Some of the motivational changes observed during human aging may thus be shared with our closest living relatives. The awareness of a limited future time perspective in humans may enhance the effects of these ancestral processes, but it does not appear to be the only explanation. Future studies should employ a broader array of different cognitive tests to delineate the trajectories of different cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and behavioral flexibility more clearly. Taken together, an evolutionary developmental psychology perspective that combines life span psychology with evolutionary biology appears to be a promising avenue for investigations of age-related changes in motivation and cognition.

scholarly journals Future time perspective and awareness of age-related change: Examining their role in predicting psychological well-being.

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 605-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allyson Brothers ◽  
Martina Gabrian ◽  
Hans-Werner Wahl ◽  
Manfred Diehl
Keyword(s):  
Time Perspective ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Time Perspective ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Age Related
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