Time & Society

The purpose of the paper is to present the main findings on the factor structure of time perspective measured using the Polish version of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999) in different age groups. A total of 2789 adults took part in the study. Confirmatory factor analysis of Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory items was conducted in a group of respondents aged 18–78 years to verify the original five-factor structure. Separate principal component analyses were carried out for three age groups: 18–27, 28–39, and 40–65 years old. In the group of students, a fairly clear five-factor structure of time perspective was found. In the group of the oldest respondents, a three-factor structure emerged, which can be described as follows: Past-Negative combined with Present-Fatalistic, Past-Positive combined with Future, and a separate factor corresponding to the Present-Hedonistic scale. Differences in the factor structure of time perspective were interpreted in the context of developmental change.

The present study examined the factor structure and discriminant validity of the Zimbardo time perspective inventory in a sample of 8422 Hong Kong Chinese adolescents aged between 12 and 19 (3649 boys). Participants completed the ZTPI, Beck Depression Inventory II and Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders. Principal component analysis identified six factors (37 items), five of which corresponded to the original one and a new factor, present-impulsive. T-test results indicated that compared to low depression adolescents and low anxiety adolescents, high depression adolescents and high anxiety adolescents scored higher on the past-negative, present-impulsive, and present-fatalistic subscales but lower on the past-positive, present-hedonistic, and future subscales. It is suggested that the inventory can be used to help adolescents reflect on their time perspectives and to aid the development of psycho-educational programs that can help adolescents develop a more balanced perspective on time.

The present study investigated the interaction effect of time beliefs and interests in learning on the academic performance among Japanese junior high school students. We conducted a secondary analysis of a social science study whose data was provided by the Social Science Japan Data Archive. A total of 1672 junior high school students took an achievement test and responded to questionnaires that included items about time beliefs and interest in learning. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that hedonists’ academic performance was worse than ascetics’. However, the results also showed that interests in learning had a positive influence on academic performance, and this effect was stronger for hedonists than for ascetics. These results indicate additional positive aspects of concentrating on the present time in the field of learning, and these findings may be helpful for students who do not have a future perspective.

This study examined whether the acceleration of the passage of time as people get older increases after 75 years of age. Individuals older and younger than 75 years, living either at home or in an institution, were asked to provide retrospective judgments of the passage of long periods of time, as well as judgments of the current passage of time using the Experience Sampling Methodology, in which a series of alerts are delivered everyday by mobile phone. The results showed that the retrospective judgment of the passage of time did not change with age. However, the older participants living in a retirement home, who were more negatively focused on their past, disagreed with the idea that time passes faster with increasing age. By contrast, the judgment of the current passage of time changed after 75 years. However, the perception was not one of acceleration but of slowing down. The best predictors of this slowing down of time were the negative affects, namely sadness, which were particularly high among the participants living in a retirement home. However, as their cognitive functions declined, they perceived time as passing quickly again, and this was accompanied by a greater feeling of happiness.

The purpose of studies presented in this article was to develop and validate a short version of the Future Anxiety scale. The Future Anxiety scale consists of 29 items; it measures the tendency to think about the future with anxiety and uncertainty and to anticipate disasters in the future. We developed a short form of this scale—the Dark Future scale—on a total sample of 2285 Polish adults across two studies. In Study 1, we examined the reliability and factor structure of the Future Anxiety scale. In Study 2, we cross-validated the reliability, factor structure, and validity of the Dark Future scale. The validity of the Dark Future scale was assessed based on the correlations of this instrument with the Future Negative scale, the Future Time Perspective scale, the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, and the Carpe Diem scale.

A manager’s personality has been demonstrated to have an influence on employees’ level of trust. However, it has yet to be demonstrated whether trust levels are based, in part, on a manager’s time perspective. In this study a between-subjects scenario-based experimental approach was employed, which involved administration of six different scenarios. Each described a hypothetical manager who exhibited one of six time perspectives: past positive, past negative, present hedonistic, present fatalistic, future oriented, and balanced. Participants (N = 630) rated the extent to which the manager could be trusted and what they believed their attitude would be if they were to work for the individual. Findings revealed that managers who exhibited a past positive, future oriented, or balanced time perspective were perceived to be more trustworthy and had higher ratings of trust than supervisors with a past negative or present fatalistic orientation. A path analysis model further demonstrated that employee perceptions of trustworthiness (an antecedent of trust) covary with time perspective, as did employee attitudes (a trust-linked outcome). This research contributes to the development of theory by shedding light on the way interpersonal perceptions shape employee attitudes. From an applied perspective, the findings suggest interpersonal perceptions influence workers’ attitudes toward their manager and their job.

This study examines the temporal structure of projected futures. The sociology of time is an established line of inquiry, but the existing literature lacks empirically grounded description of the cultural and cognitive dimensions of projected futures. When individuals imagine their futures, what is the qualitative nature and temporal structure of their projected futures? In order to address these questions, we used a mixed-methods strategy of interviews and surveys with 126 persons from a small college in North Carolina. We asked the participants to tell us about their futures. The resulting descriptions form a strongly chronological pattern. When asked about the immediate future (i.e., tomorrow or next week), they tersely describe the tasks that must be completed. In their descriptions of the near future (i.e., next month or next year), they begin to anticipate enjoyable experiences. When they describe the intermediate future (i.e., five to ten years from now), their responses are characterized by detailed and optimistic enthusiasm for the possibilities they envision. They pay little or no attention to the distant future.

Recent research and policy studies on the low-carbon future highlight the importance of flexible electricity demand. This might be problematic particularly for residential electricity demand, which is related to simultaneous consumers’ practices in the household. This paper analyses issues of simultaneity in residential electricity demand in Spain. It makes use of the 2011 Spanish Time Use Survey data with comparisons from the previous Spanish Time Use Survey and the Harmonised European Time Use Surveys. Findings show that media activities are associated with the highest levels of continuity and simultaneity, particularly in the early and late parts of the evening during weekdays.

The telegraph literally and figuratively electrified news by transforming reporting into a process that delivered impulses of information whose timeliness often riveted and sometimes excited newspaper audiences. The now-familiar daily news cycle—scheduled reports of recent news punctuated by even more timely breaking news—originated with telegraphic journalism. Daily papers began presenting themselves as the public’s portal to an electrified national and international newsgathering network. Looking beyond the role of telegraph firms and wire services, this study explores how the culture of journalistic timeliness was cultivated in organizational, occupational, and public settings. Organizationally, telegraph-enabled timeliness altered every stage of the news-production process, from reporter-source interactions to the delivery of stories to readers. The press reified timeliness internally through organizational rewards and occupational discourses, and externally by projecting its institutional values through marketing and the metatexts that accompanied stories. For the audience, daily papers conveyed the temporal rhythms of a networked industrial society. Audiences valued some timely news as data inputs that enhanced opportunities to participate in distant affairs or influence outcomes, though for economic intelligence private channels almost always outstripped newspapers’ public delivery of the same information. But even electrified news valued mostly for its storytelling made events common to many people simultaneously in a manner that encouraged the construction of meaning by scattered audiences. In those situations, timeliness often meant that news circulated fast enough for reactions around the nation to become part of the story itself.

Against conventional patterns of fandom loyalty, it is interesting to examine the behavioral patterns of enthusiastic fans who specifically choose to distance themselves from their favorite team and from reality during decisive matches. The present study explores the reasons and implications of such behavior, based on in-depth interviews with 19 soccer team fans in Israel who practice such purposeful avoidance. Findings show that such purposeful avoidance of games is generally motivated by a desire to avoid a source of stress or can be attributed to an illusion of influence, where purposeful avoidance is part of rituals whose irrationality is recognized by the fans themselves. Today, in the era of ubiquitous smartphones and social networks, purposeful avoidance becomes a true challenge.

The paper argues that a mathematical approach might contribute to the consolidation of time as an epistemic object, while strengthening the sociology of time as a more influential domain in social sciences. This might be accomplished due to the performative role of mathematical formalisations. Also, it means appropriating the textual reality resulted in formalising processes as a space which researchers act through and upon. Thus, mathematical formalisations should be understood not only as modelling and data processing devices but also as relevant actors in networks of knowledge production. In this context, we reassess the practice of formalisation by proposing a vocabulary through which mathematical language might be used to meaningfully approach the socio-temporal order, with positive consequences in the reinforcement of a scientific community of practice.

The Human Development Index, computed by the United Nations, has been challenged since it does not measure the real development of a country. It needs to be combined with other indexes and ratios (poverty, Gini index). Using the same data as the United Nations, an additional dimension (time) is added to create a Time Human Development Index (THDI) where the weights differ for each cluster of countries. Fisher discriminant functions classify countries in each period of time, allowing different weights of the variables for the same country each year. Results suggest that when the Literacy and gross enrolment rates decrease in the four countries occupying the lower positions in the THDI, the THDI falls. In those countries where the THDI increases, gross domestic product and life expectancy rates do not seem to be positively correlated to the THDI, while the gross enrolment rate also increases. Thus, gross enrolment and literacy rates are variables related to the evolution of THDI; while, surprisingly, gross domestic product and life expectancy has few influence in its evolution.

While researchers in social psychology often explore space and time in isolation, the relations between these dimensions are rarely considered. To address this gap, we explore a model of Time–Space Distanciation, the extent to space and time are abstracted from one another in the cultural coordination of activity. We introduce this construct with an emphasis on its interdisciplinary roots and its status as a feature of both group- and individual-level psychology. We then offer three studies providing initial evidence of the distinctiveness of this variable at both levels. We find that (1) state-level time–space distanciation is related to, but distinct from, collectivism and cultural tightness and (2) it has important implications for collective well-being. We further found that (3) individual-level time–space distanciation is associated with a wide range of trait differences. We conclude by describing the implications of this research for the study of time, space, and their connection.

This work poses difficulties in the use of the generation concept as a social research instrument, due to its complex and multidimensional nature. A complexity by which is not a concept widely used in a current Sociology that focuses more on the mathematisation. But some social processes cannot be reduced to algorithms. For the theoretical review we have used contributions from Sociology, Philosophy and History, because it is of a transversal disciplinary nature, and we have applied it to the identification of Spanish generations in the 20th century. Inspired by Ortega’s theses and Strauss and Howe empirical development implemented for American society, the resulting model presents six generations with different collective identities that reflect the social changes in the history of Spain during the last century. A model that, after being tested in sectorial investigations, may constitute a useful new tool for the analysis of social change.

Some time and temporarily scholars suggest that separation is one of the most arduous of human experiences. Given what is often a long history of unpleasant relationship endings, the clients of therapy themselves may be particularly susceptible to painful ruptures. Informed by a qualitative approach, I describe and explain how 10 Canadian children living with cystic fibrosis and their caregivers felt at the end of a research-based counselling support programme. At the programmes’ end, the participants reluctantly but unquestioningly accepted the decision. However, they expressed their desire for ongoing and continuous therapeutic opportunities to help them manage weighty emotional issues, such as living with grief and loss. I theorize the findings using time and temporality scholarship. Although academics and clinicians regard them as separate pillars, I suggest that participants experience considerable overlap between “research” and practice”. Further, I propose that researchers and clinicians pay attention to therapeutic endings as an important issue in research. Finally, using a time and temporality lens, I use the findings to discuss how therapeutic work might better be regarded as occurring in the space of psychological time, rather than linear time. In so doing, it is evident that time and temporality are critical to how young people with CF and their families experience therapeutic endings.

Territoriality has primarily been seen as a spatial rather than temporal phenomenon. In this paper, we want to investigate how time functions in territorialising processes. In particular, we are attracted by the multi-temporality that is co-present in each process of territorialisation (i.e. processes in which time and space are used as means of measure, control and expression). The article is divided into two main parts. In the first part, we draw inspiration from Gilles Deleuze’s book Logic of Sense, as well as from authors such as Simmel, Whitehead, Benjamin and Jesi, in order to articulate three different types of the present (Aion, Kronos and Chronos). In the second part, we move to a short case study of the collector John Soane and the establishment of his house-museum. The case is used to exemplify how these three presents can be used to discuss and temporal aspects of territorialisation in general, and the production of a specific sort of territory – the house-museum as a new building type in particular.

China’s economic and political reforms since 1978 represent one of the biggest institutional changes in the last century. Because most research has focused on the economics of institutional change rather than the evolution of political institutions, a theoretical framework to explain China’s rapid economic development is lacking. To understand the successes and failures of China’s institutional change, we reviewed China’s innovative political and economic practices during the past 30 years. We found that the country’s political and economic institutions combine to form a dynamic equilibrium that can explain the impressive economic results. China’s leaders dream of new institutions that will improve upon traditional Western capitalism, based on a combination of central planning with traditional capitalist approaches that increase the system’s flexibility. If China’s leaders can combine this approach with decreased social costs compared with previous socioeconomic systems, this will represent a new era and a model that other nations can follow.

The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the widely used general procrastination, decisional procrastination, and adult inventory of procrastination scales in both undergraduate and adult Polish populations. Polish versions of these scales were filled out by 390 student and 513 adult participants. Principal component analysis indicated one-factor structure for each scale. The pattern of loadings was congruent between student and adult samples. The item-total correlation coefficients were adequate in each sample, with higher Cronbach's alpha values in adults compared to students, who reported higher procrastination scores in general procrastination and decisional procrastination scales. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the unidimensional model emerged as the best fit when the three scales were considered together. The results of the study suggest that Polish versions of the three procrastination scales are effective and reliable and contribute to the international debate about the dimensionality of procrastination.

Disorder seems inevitable when a social system changes. The Soviet Union’s collapse provided a recent example, and China is now providing a new example. During China’s transformation from a communist society with a centrally planned economy to a market-based socialist society, “ethical decline” has become an increasingly serious issue, and one that has high social and economic costs. Historical experience from many cultures shows that this ethical decline is not inherent to Chinese culture. Chinese ethics are being compromised by partnerships between government officials and businessmen who benefit at the expense of society because of a lack of monitoring of such relationships during China’s radical institutional change. This growing problem poses serious risks to China’s social stability and economic development. To solve the problem, it will be necessary to establish a sound legal framework and more effective monitoring and enforcement, rather than hoping for spontaneous evolution of stronger individual ethics.