Wirth Maria, Wettstein Markus, Rothermund Klaus
Department of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Am Steiger 3/1, Jena, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Humboldt University Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, Berlin, Germany.
Commun Psychol. 2024 Jul 20;2(1):67. doi: 10.1038/s44271-024-00118-0.
Time perspective is an important predictor of well-being. How time is represented, is itself subject to developmental change. A time perspective dominated by the future is increasingly replaced by one focused on the present and past as remaining lifetime decreases. These age-related changes supposedly are associated with higher subjective well-being. Previous studies yielded heterogeneous results. However, these studies mostly investigated one dimension of time perspective and did not include younger and/or middle-aged adults. Thus, we investigated how changes in four facets of time perspective (past-orientation, concreteness of future time, obsolescence, and attitudes towards finitude) were related to changes in life and domain-specific satisfaction and if these relations were moderated by age. We used 10-year longitudinal data from an age-diverse sample comprising 459 participants (30-80 years). Concreteness was most consistently related to satisfaction. Individuals with overall higher concreteness reported higher life satisfaction and higher life satisfaction was reported on measurement occasions with higher concreteness. An age moderation was only found for satisfaction with mental fitness. Among younger but not older adults, satisfaction with mental fitness was higher on measurement occasions with higher concreteness. Our study provides a deeper understanding of the relation between time perspective and well-being across adulthood.
时间观是幸福感的一个重要预测指标。时间的呈现方式本身会随着发展而变化。随着剩余寿命的减少，以未来为主导的时间观越来越多地被关注当下和过去的时间观所取代。这些与年龄相关的变化据推测与更高的主观幸福感相关。先前的研究得出了不同的结果。然而，这些研究大多只考察了时间观的一个维度，并且没有纳入年轻人和/或中年人。因此，我们研究了时间观的四个方面（过去取向、未来时间的具体性、过时感以及对有限性的态度）的变化如何与生活满意度和特定领域满意度的变化相关，以及这些关系是否受到年龄的调节。我们使用了来自一个年龄多样化样本（包括459名参与者，年龄在30至80岁之间）的10年纵向数据。具体性与满意度的相关性最为一致。总体具体性较高的个体报告的生活满意度更高，并且在具体性较高的测量场合报告的生活满意度也更高。仅在心理健康满意度方面发现了年龄调节作用。在年轻人而非老年人中，在具体性较高的测量场合，心理健康满意度更高。我们的研究为成年期时间观与幸福感之间的关系提供了更深入的理解。
