The Role of Time Perspective in the General Tendency to Disengage and Reengage from Problematic Goal Striving

Abstract

Both time and goals are ubiquitous in our everyday lives. The main aim of the present set of studies was to corroborate if time perspective, as conceptualized by Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, is related to goal disengagement and reengagement during problematic goal striving. Over three studies, with more than 600 participants varying in age and cultural background, it was found that future time perspective is related to goal disengagement from a problematic goal striving. A pilot study with 103 university students showed that the future positive scale was negatively related to the general capacity to disengage. In a second study with 356 high-school students, it was shown that the future positive, past positive and present hedonistic scales were negatively correlated to goal disengagement, while the present fatalistic and future negative scales were positively correlated to goal disengagement. However, when accounting for the Big-five, only the future negative and (possibly) present hedonistic scales remained statistically significant predictors of the capacity to disengage from a goal. In the third study, the role of the future time perspective was replicated among 169 people suffering from chronic pain disease. It was shown that the future time perspective (in its general form) negatively predicted the general capacity to disengage. Moreover, focusing on more process-oriented aspects, this further predicted the action crisis during goal pursuit. This set of studies not only provides novel findings but also encourages further investigation of the time perspective in goal striving.