YourMorals.Org

The scale you completed is the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory developed by Zimbardo and Boyd (1999).

The scale is a measure of your relationship to time, and measures 5 possible perspectives. Future perspective concerns a focus on the future, often meaning that you are willing to put off present reward for future gain. Present Hedonistic perspective concerns a focus on pleasure and living in the moment, while Present Fatalism perspective concerns the idea that life's path is predetermined such that one might as well not plan ahead. Past Positive concerns a focus on nostalgia and positive moments in the past, while Past Negative concerns a focus on negative things that could have gone better in the past.

The reason why we are interested in this is that these time perspectives have been linked to a wide variety of human behaviors and it therefore follows that they would be linked to moral and ideological variables. For example, previous research has linked approach tendencies to liberalism and avoidance motivations to conservativism, which would naturally map onto Present Hedonistic and Future perspectives. One can also see these different time perspectives at play in budget and deficit negotiations as present well-being concerns are measured against future debt obligations.

This video gives a wonderful and entertaining overview of time perspective.

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