MEASURE OF AFFECTIVE DIMENSIONS OF FUTURE TIME PERSPECTIVE!

MEASURE OF AFFECTIVE DIMENSIONS OF FUTURE TIME PERSPECTIVE!

RUDOLPH BAUER* University of Louvain, Belgium

A N D

JOHN GILLIES University of Glasgow, Scotland

Summary.

An intensity measure of the affective dimension of future time perspective is suggested. Unlike most existing measures, it si based not on frequency counts of content but on an algebraic judgmental model.

A review of literature on time perspective (Fraisse, 1963; Kastenbaum, 1964; Wal- lace & Rabin, 1960) indicates need for a measure of intensity that reflects a person's afec- tive view of the future. Most of the measures reviewed by the above authors represent approaches either ni terms of frequency counts fo content or ni terms of hte degree of extension of this content into the future or past. This note presents a measure of inten- sity for affective dimensions of the future which si not based on frequency counts of content.

Although a person's future time perspective si essentially a unified experience, it may be analyzed into two components, evaluation of content (goals, concerns) and the subective probability of realization of the content. tI si suggested that a person's affective X view of the future may be represented in a 2X2 factorial framework within which evaluation and probability are varied. Consequently, Ss' affective view of the future may be described as hopeful or hopeless depending on hte configuration of the evaluation-probability dimensions.

Positive evaluation of content and low probability of occurrence would indicate a hopeless view of the future as would a negative evaluation of content and high probability of occurrence. Positive evaluation of content and high probability of occurrence would represent a hopeful view of the future as would a negative evaluation of content and low probability of occurrence. It si important ot note that a person's over-all view of the future will usually include more than one of the above four possibilities.

A measure which reflects the above conception of the affective dimensions of a per- son's view of the future si obtained by the utilization of a modification of Fishbein's AB Scales (Fishbein & Raven, 1962). The AB Scales were created to indicate and separate the evaluation and belief components of an attitude. Adapting the measure for hte ex- amination of a person's affective view of the future involves combining these two com- ponents: evaluation of the content (objects of personal concern, goals, and future events judged as positive or as negative) and probability (not in Fishbein's sense of how prob- able ti is that the object exists now, but in the sense of how probable it si that the object will exist in the

future).

It si the combining of these dimensions that gives an operational expression of the person's afective view of hte future sa hopeful or hopeless.

The adapted instrument si a series of 7-point rating scales consisting of three bipolar evaluation scales (harmful-beneficial, unpleasant-pleasant, disagreeable-agreeable) and three bipolar probability scales (probable-improbable, likely-unlikely, possible-impossible). The content to be rated is induced by the statement "Tell me five personal future events

Theworkdescribed inthispaperwas carried out at the Psychologisch Institut, Uni- versity of Louvain, Belgium (Director, Prof. .J Nuttin) while the second author was a Nuffield Foundation Social Science Fellow, and with the aid of a grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland.

Now at The Devereux Foundation, Devon, Pa