Thinking about Time and the Future

At our Spring 2013 Houston Foresight Gathering, strategist Todd Gentzel gave a brilliant presentation based on Philip Zimbardo’s work on the role of time perspective: Philip Zimbardo & John Boyd, The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time that Will Change your Life, 2008. I’ve incorporated the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory into our Alternative Perspectives class. This online instrument is free and will reveal your time perspective score along five time dimensions:

• Past-negative. Someone who focuses on negative personal experiences that still have the power to upset them. This can lead to feelings of bitterness and regret. People with this time perspective are focused on a difficult past.
• Past-positive. A person who takes a nostalgic view of the past. This person usually takes a cautious, “better safe than sorry” approach, and yearns for the “good old days”.
• Present-hedonistic. These people are dominated by pleasure-seeking impulses, and are reluctant to postpone feeling good for the sake of greater gain later.  People with this time perspective want to live in the moment
• Present-fatalistic. Those with this time perspective aren’t enjoying the present but feel trapped in it, unable to change the inevitability of the future.
• Future-focused. Are highly ambitious, focused on goals, and big on making ‘to do’ lists.

As expected, the class indexed high on future focus. No surprise there. It is more useful perhaps to understand their scores in the other dimensions. Most important, is to think about how their future-oriented perspective is viewed by other perspectives and to think of ways to bridge the gap. Most of our clients are going to be present focused, so we discuss how to deal with that.

Here are some interesting nuggets from the book:

• Time perspective is one of the most powerful influences on our decisions, yet we are typically unaware of its role. [Okay, that makes sense]
• Some of these specific time-perspectives have many good features, but when one category is too heavily favored, its negatives will undercut its virtues [what we found in class that some of us had an “overly” high future perspective, which means we sometimes forget to enjoy the present]
  • [Along these lines….] Ideal time profile is a balance of being high on past-positive, moderately high on present-hedonistic and future, and low on past negative and present fatalistic.
• Time perspectives are learned, not inborn, and can be relearned and modified [in essence, Zimbardo suggests a developmental model]
• The development of a future orientation requires stability and consistency in the present [Similar to what I report on ConsumerShift , Ingelhart’s “existential security” concept suggests that postmodern values emerge when individuals basic security and belonging needs are met.]
• Beliefs and expectations of the future in part determine what happens in the present by contributing to how people think, feel, and behave. [this helps support the point futurists makes that we study the future to influence the present]
• Zimbardo reports on Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen’s finding that anything that constrains our sense of an unlimited future shifts our priorities away from future and toward present emotional satisfaction. [so, fear of the future leads to avoidance, suggesting that part of our role is dealing with fear]

 

I’d refer you to an excellent post on this topic by Houston Foresight alum Jason Swanson. Andy Hines