Analysis of Time Perspective Theory & Impact on Human Behaviour

This essay delves into Philip G. Zimbardo's time perspective theory, exploring how individuals' orientations toward the past, present, and future significantly influence their behavior, decisions, and overall attitudes toward life. It categorizes individuals into past-oriented (both positive and negative), present-oriented (hedonistic and fatalistic), and future-oriented types, detailing how each perspective shapes their choices, relationships, and approaches to challenges. The essay highlights the impact of past experiences, immediate gratification, and future goals on individuals' actions, emphasizing the complex interplay between psychological time and human existence. It also addresses the potential psychological issues associated with certain time orientations, such as depression and addiction, while underscoring the importance of understanding time perspective for personal and social well-being.

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Timing Perspective
The term time perspective is coined by Professor Philip G. Zimbardo, who has
emphasized continuously that the time perspective has been one of the most impactful influences
on human behaviour. According to Zimbardo, people have a different psychological time, and
they make major and minor decisions based on that temporal boundary. The psychological time
is the time that has the most impact on people’s mind (Nuttin). The influence of the time
perspective could result in any aspect of life such as choice of life partner, judgment of people to
interact, the career one chooses, the religious beliefs, leisure activities, nurturing children with
cultural values, choosing friends, way of interaction with other people and much more (Sircova).
Zimbardo presents categories of time orientation on the basis of that people are found making the
decisions of life. Most of the decisions made by people are on the basis of their past experience
and future prediction. People are responsible for their actions and reactions, however, these
actions and reactions are influenced by their time perspective that is one particular dominant time
zone of their life. When the past experience is unpleasant people tend to become pessimistic
regarding life and when the experience is pleasant people tend to become an optimistic person.
The life events that are pleasant or unpleasant have a vital role to play in people’s life. The three
time zones of past, present and future is always present in the unconscious mind which influence
the decisions making and perception of life. This essay is to discuss the different effects of time

perception on people’s lifestyle and attitude to life. The major three categories are past-oriented,
present oriented and future oriented, which are further sub-divided in the positive and negative
category. Also, this essay will focus on the way their life becomes different with each choice
they make.
BACKGROUND
In psychology time perspective is a critical dimension that is evolved from the cognitive
processes that divide the human experiences into three time zones, past, present and future. Often
the influence on human behaviour by the time perspective is unrecognized. According to Philip
Zimbardo, every person’s action, as well as decision, is influenced by the person’s perspective of
time, however, this does not necessarily mean that the person is aware of the time perspective
impact (Orosz and Gábor). Consciously and unconsciously, people are consistently being
affected by the past, present and future which is shaping their emotions, perceptions and actions.
People make decisions based on his or her past experiences, and they act in the present according
to the plans or future expectations based on the previous experiences. However, there is also a
type of people who live in the present and do not think about things that have happened before
and things that could happen in the future. Time perspective differs among different individuals
where some people are motivated, and some are found demotivated. Some people understand
how their engagement in the present action will help them in achieving future goals and some
would rather live in the present not having any strong anticipation for the future.
People have their own concept of time, and they live in different time zones of life.
People make decisions that are framed by the time zones that are learned through childhood,
through education, culture, social class, relationships with friends and family, social norms, and

experience with economic (Birkás et al.). With all the accumulated experiences people develop a
temporal orientation that favours only a particular time frame of life over the other times which
dominates while thinking about past, present and future. Therefore, in times of making decision
one gets influenced by the factors of the immediate situation. People relate their present
experience to the past experiences when a situation arises and based on what was done and its
effect the decision is made by them. There is another kind of decision maker who ignores the
past and present, focuses primarily on the future consequences of the current actions, calculating
only the costs in comparison to the gains. There are sub domains of these each primary time
zones segregated into different sections. In type of people are divided into Past-negative, past-
positive, present-positive, present-negative and future-oriented people.
Past-Oriented Person
A past oriented person is dominated by its past thoughts, which can either be good or bad.
Sometimes it is the good memories that help making good memories. People who are oriented to
past make decisions based on their past experiences. When a current situation is familiar to past
situation, these people will make decisions based on previous results. They are often found doing
things that have proven to be successful in the past. There are two kinds of past-oriented people,
past-positive and past-negative.
These sections of the past-oriented people tend to think about the positive events of life
that have happened to them. These people focus on the good days, gratitude, success and
nostalgia. They are the people who are found smiling remembering the past (Milfont, Taciano
and Schwarzenthal). This behaviour is a positive side of the past-oriented people, who possess a
sense of personal continuity or a stable sense of self over time. These kinds of people have a

sense of rootedness that is usually not found in the future and present-oriented persons. Since
their past experiences are positive and cheerful, they enjoy remembering past even when the
present is ill for them. They enjoy nostalgic memories of their past experiences which build a
positive attitude toward the future. These kinds of people are adventurous and open to new
experiences. They experiment with new methods and ways of dealing with any familiar situation
that appears in the present (Zimbardo and Boyd).
Some of the past-oriented people tend to focus mainly on the negative experiences that
have occurred in their life. They recall the regret, failure, abuse, trauma and other unpleasant
experiences. The actions and decisions of these people are mainly constrained by remembering
the familiar situations that did not work according to them in the past. They are capable of
keeping themselves afar from the reality and immediate situation. Most of their behaviour is
influenced by the guilt of past over current thoughts and actions. This section of people tends to
be more conservative, reserved, concerned for the maintenance of the status quo that could be
good or bad for them. They restrain themselves from new experiences and do not take risks.
They do not appreciate new ways of doing familiar things even though it could be a more
efficient way. Rituals and myths play vital roles in their lives as well as the traditional and
fundamental values in religion and politics. For the past experiences of unfavourable situations,
they are suspicious of the new and different experiences. In the social gatherings, they prefer
cooperating rather than competing since maintaining good social relation is significant for them
along and not perceives cooperation as a method of personal gain. It is not easy for them to be
adventurous and travel far from their home since it is the comfortable zone.

Present Oriented Person
These kinds of people mainly focus on the immediate and sensory present without recalling past
experiences or thinking about the future expectation. This kind of people tends to be narrowly
focused on the current situation rather than what might be or what used to be. They have more
concrete thinking rather than abstract thinking, and mentally their presence is in the present
(Mello, Zena, and Worrell. They use more of present tense verbs, refers to events and things in
the present precisely. They often find it difficult to delay any tasks, plans or experiences, and
also it is difficult when they need to delay gratification which is significant and meaningful. This
people give in quickly to temptation and are distracted easily by their surrounding host or social
stimuli. They work less on the activities that are future-oriented designed to achieve long-term
goals since their primary focus is the present. Neither they get influenced by educational nor
persuasive messages which can drive them to build future aspirations. There are two kinds of
present oriented people, the present negative people and the present positive people. The present
positive people are the who have a positive attitude toward the he or she is living whereas the
present negative people are the one who are moving with the time irrespective of positive
attitude. They believe, they posses unfortunate luck and therefore they are in the present
situation.
The people who are self-indulgent and enjoy all the things that can make them happy
immediately. They tend to avoid activities that require effort, work, planning and targeting future
goals. The psychological state of mind is always in present consuming the excellent life. Unlike
past-negative people, the present-hedonistic people seek for adventure and willing to take risks
in the parts where other may have a negative feeling (Langer). They are prone to addiction of any
sort with the full knowledge of its potential for negative consequences. They are vulnerable to

getting in the social taps where the short-term goals are the attraction. Short-terms pleasures are
the major attraction for them which make them take high risks. Although they do poorly on the
academics, they perform well on activities with immediate results and creative tasks. Since
creative fields are joyous and cheerful activity, the present hedonistic are often attracted to this
area. They enjoy playing games, family gatherings, sports with energy activities, parties and
intimacy. These people are excessively emotional and intense as friends who tend to get
emotional, easily upset and volatile (Sailer).
The people that are present-oriented by default and not by their choice are the present-
fatalistic people. They believe that the present is not according to their plan. They believe that
others control their lives and not themselves. Their self-image is filled with low, and internally
they lack the confidence of making decisions. For a few people, fatalism is a part of religious
beliefs and value system in which individual initiative is given lesser importance to the power of
a deity. For a few other people, it is a byproduct of economic failure where one belongs to the
lower class or stigmatized caste with minimal opportunity. The fatalism has a positive side that is
the belief in luck for changing current circumstances however it does not mean that hard work
would be their priority. This character of people is also prone to accepting blames and holding
the bad luck responsible for the act. They are likely to experience severe psychological issue than
the other persons who are mentally in different time zones. Few of the problems that can occur to
this sort of people are sleeping disorder, eating disorder, depression, drug addictions and suicide
(Rönnlund, Michael, and Carelli). The fatalistic people are the people doing poorly in school and
university. They believe that there cannot be a good thing happening to them and it is their luck
that they have a miserable situation.

Future-Oriented People
The future-oriented people make decisions evaluating the pros and cons of the decisions in the
future aspect. The decision making of this kind of people is based less on the concrete and
empirical aspects of the present behaviour setting. The decision is relatively more on the
person’s anticipated imagining of future consequences. The primary focus is on the reasoning the
probabilistic thought, and the reasoning is done on the logical analysis of start till the end
(Stolarski). There is a severe concern for the consequences for people’s actions, attention to
responsibility, optimizing outcomes and liability. They are able to accept delays of immediate
gratitude to achieve long-term better goals. These people are willing to invest resources and
effort in the present activities only when it has a distant payoff. They are able to work hard n the
current situation when it has some long-term profits. They are goal oriented with the competitive
nature or cooperating that works strategically depending on the situation. These people avoid
taking physical risks and takes keen attention to the long-term negative consequences. These
people also tend to be health conscious, keeping the dental chart, eating healthy foods, taking
vitamin tablets are few habits of a future-oriented person (Zhang et al.). These people are master
at problem solving, getting good grades in class and good at abstract reasoning task. Unlike the
present-oriented people, they can avoid temptation and distraction knowing well about the
consequences in the long run. Wasting of time is not much preferred by the future-oriented
people, therefore, the activities that involve pleasure such as sports, Facebook and other leisure
activities are avoided by these people. Much of their behaviour is career related which makes
their works instrumental to goal attainment.
Often the future-oriented people are considered as a time-wasting person. Although they
do not waste time in literal meaning, it is considered a waste since this sort of people do not

enjoy the present. They fail to enjoy the present and consume most of their time in targeting
future objectives. They are faced with difficulty than other people from different time
perspective when comes to an intimate relationship (McKay). These people tend to control its
surrounding by constructing plans that would fetch them future goals. They are easily irked by
things not working in their predicted way as it is necessary for them to work according to their
long term plans. They buy time saving machines to perform time management efficiently. When
confronted with negativity these people act with anxiety, manic behaviour, workaholism and
sometimes failure to achieve their perception of the ideal state. If the goals of their lives are not
fulfilled, they are faced with a sense of existential meaningless of their life’s worth, and when
they are met with their goals, they believe that he or she has obtained the achievement only on
the basis of his lifelong hard works and compromises of short-term pleasure (Dunkel, Curtis, and
Kruger).
CONCLUSION
Everyone has a different time perspective of time, and that is what makes each person different
from each other. All humans are same when seen in the physical aspect, however, each one is
different from one another when seen by the behaviour. Every person has a past, present and
future, however, having a single time zone impact on behaviour is not considered ideal. An
impactful experience ought to bring change in the behaviour of human. Few people having good
times in past and ills in present makes them a past-oriented person, in the same way, a person
having high goals will be a future-oriented person. Different perspective works for different
people, however, it is the correct proportion of each time perspective that will make a person
attain equilibrium in a psychological aspect. A person will be able to find the complete view of

the time when he or she will combine all of the three time zones rationally. When the balance of
the time perspective is found, people can use imagination in beautiful ways. There is a strong
need to make peace with the past to have a peaceful time in future. People can reconnect and
enjoy the time when in present with the close ones only when they are able to make peace with
their past. Spending time with family and friends and enjoying the moment will be comfortably
easy. Also, people can have positive and brighter future vision. However, it is not every time an
easy task to make peace with oneself, many people become aggressive and vulnerable. The
anxiety, trauma and depression leads to take abrupt decision. The theory of time perspective has
been adapted in many professional areas to provide help, the war veterans, school bullies, sexual
abusers and many more critical cases where the victims look for a safe space have been able to
find themselves again. Human mind is a complex thing which is affected hugely by the
experiences that one goes through the life events. To achieve a peaceful life a well mixed blend
of five time factors that are the future, past positive, past negative, present hedonism, and present
fatalism is needed. In the proper ratio this is an achievable task and indeed it has been found in
many who have struggled decades in pain to finally find them make peace with their past and
with themselves.

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