Relationship Of Temporal Perspective And Psychological Security Of The Personality During Adulthood

Abstract

The personality constantly exists in time and forms a subjective attitude towards the time continuum; however, the influence of the time perspective during adulthood on the components of its psychological safety has not been studied enough. This conditions the goal of our study, which was to establish the reciprocal effect of time perspectives on the psychological safety of the personality of adult working people. Recipients were employees of the Rembyttekhnika organization: 30 people aged 22 to 56 years. The attitude of the subjects to their lives was studied using the Questionnaire of the temporal perspective by F. Zimbardo and the Questionnaire of the temporal perspective of the Transcendental Future; Questionnaire “Satisfaction with life” by N.N. Melnikova. Assessing mental activation, interest, emotional tone, tension and comfort. Statistical data processing was performed using the statistical package IBM SPSS Statistiks 22.0. As a result, the following regularities were revealed: the more a person has expressed the time perspective of the “Negative Past” during adulthood, the less satisfaction he has from life; the more positively a person perceives his memories, the greater his anxiety about his future is; a person in adulthood is more focused on the present and less self-confident; the more strongly a person expresses the time perspective of the “Future”, the less complete and saturated he feels the event series of his life. The foregoing leads to the need for the development and implementation of Programs for the formation of a balanced time orientation during adulthood.

Keywords: Time perspectiveadulthoodpsychological safetymental activationinterestemotional tone

Introduction

The psychological perception of time by a person is of great interest in science, due to the fact that a person constantly exists in time and forms a subjective attitude to the time continuum throughout his life ( Cowan et al., 2019; Kowalski et al., 2017; Oshrit, 2016).

The study of time perspectives is especially relevant during adulthood ( Asadullah et al., 2017; Malo et al., 2016; Pelechano et al., 2013). It is during this period that a person experiences important events in his life, creating a family, raising children, social roles change, the range of problems and responsibilities expand significantly, and self-image changes. At the same time, this is a time of age-related crises, the collapse of youthful hopes, the end of a professional career, physical withering and preparation for the role of a pensioner ( Dolgova & Mamylina, 2017; Osman et al., 2016; Regin et al., 2016). The success of achieving a person’s goals during adulthood affects the psychological safety of a person ( Aras, 2015; Reid et al., 2018; Sutton et al., 2013). The study of personal time perspectives and life realities associated with its manifestation is rightfully central to many psychological studies ( Huang & Berenbaum, 2017; Goh et al., 2016; Delgado-Gómez et al., 2010). And yet, insufficient knowledge of this phenomenon is an urgent problem, due to the need to obtain knowledge about the features of time perspectives at each stage of adulthood and their impact on the components of psychological safety.

For our study, the discussions of scientists about the main indicators of temporal prospects are especially valuable ( Andersen & Thorpe, 2009; Hudson & Fraley, 2014; Ksendzova et al., 2015; Parks & Guay, 2009):

• The “negative past” is described as negative, pessimistic associations of events.

• “Positive past” expresses a positive attitude towards one’s own past, in which a pleasant or negative experience is perceived as conducive to development.

• The “fatalistic present” reflects the impotence of circumstances. A person is confident that he cannot influence his fate, has no hope for a positive future.

• “Hedonistic present”, which is presented in isolation from previous and subsequent events of a person’s life, the only goal is pleasure in the present.

• “Future” is characterized by the presence of a person’s plans and goals for a distant time, the ability to abandon momentary pleasures in order to achieve the planned.

• "Transcendental future" is associated with religion, spirituality, faith in the immortality of the soul.

The listed time prospects are independent of each other, and for each person, the presence of several of them is characteristic.

This allows considering time perspectives as an integral part of self-awareness and personality structure, it is a kind of prism through which a person looks at his past, present and future life unconsciously and subjectively, it affects his attitudes, values and beliefs, which ultimately affects his thoughts, feelings, and behavior ( Erez et al., 2008; McDonald & Letzring, 2016; Newman et al., 2017).

This is especially evident in all three periods of adulthood (early (18–25 years old), middle (26–46 years old), and mature (47–60 years old)).

For early adulthood (18–25 years), the prevalence of the value of the future is characteristic. A person is full of plans, he creates his own family, completes his education, masters new professional roles and builds his own lifestyle. As a result of the predominance of the value of the future during early adulthood, a sort of “pumping” of the life-time from its less valuable component to the more valuable occurs.

Middle adulthood (26–46 years) is the peak of a person’s achievements with his financial independence, high level of professionalism, and at the same time a possible “midlife crisis” ( Dolgova et al., 2017; Schlenker et al., 2012).

Late adulthood (47–60 years) is most often accompanied by the end of a professional career, the emancipation of children, and the deterioration of a person’s physical health and appearance ( Loehlin, 2012). In general, it is characteristic of late maturity that a person begins to subjectively feel a decrease in the time of the future, which leads to a shift in the time perspective and the motivational focus of the person in the direction of the ego ( Strus & Cieciuch, 2017). Experiences and new challenges of adulthood can negatively affect the sense of psychological security, a person’s self-confidence and a prosperous future ( Dolgova et al., 2016).

Psychological safety is correlated with the characteristics of the external world or impact, in others – with the psychological characteristics, conditions of the person himself.

As a result of theoretical analysis, we studied its objective and subjective indicators, including: security, satisfaction, self-confidence.

Problem Statement

The problem of the study was the insufficiently comprehensive coverage in the scientific sources of the existence of statistically significant correlation between the phenomena of the time perspective and the psychological safety of the person during adulthood. At the same time, it is on these phenomena that a person’s satisfaction with the present, confidence in the future, spiritual and moral values, and a developed level of self-awareness depend.

Research Questions

The research questions are associated with the identification of theoretical prerequisites for the study of the specifics of temporal prospects and psychological safety of the personality of adults; with the rationale for the relationships between these phenomena; with the definition of the stages, methods and techniques of work; with the experimental study of these relationships and analysis of its results.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to establish the reciprocal effect of time perspectives on the psychological safety of the personality of adult working people.

Research Methods

Recipients were employees of the Rembyttekhnika organization: 30 people aged 22 to 56 years, including 15 women (50 %) and 15 men (50 %). Test subjects work in the procurement, accounting, and advertising departments.

The study used well-known methods and techniques ( Shelekhova, 2015; Sidorenko, 2003). The attitude of the subjects to their lives was studied using the Questionnaire of the temporal perspective and the Questionnaire of the temporal perspective of the Transcendental Future; Questionnaire "Satisfaction with life";

The psychological safety of the individual was studied using the methods of Assessing mental activation, interest, emotional tone, tension and comfort and “Diagnostics of interpersonal relations”.

The following mathematical and statistical methods were used: methods of primary descriptive statistics; calculation of the Pearson correlation coefficient. The statistical data processing was performed using the statistical package IBM SPSS Statistiks 22.0.

Findings

The study of psychological time revealed that in adults, orientation to the time perspective of the future (M = 3.61), a positive past (M = 3.46) and a transcendental future (M = 3.46) are possible.

The data obtained by the method “Assessment of mental activation, interest, emotional tone, tension and comfort” are presented in Figure 1 .

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Figure 1 shows in percent that most subjects showed an increased level of interest (15 people) and emotional tone (19 people), an average level of mental activation (17 people), comfort (17 people) and tension (24 people). It follows that most of the subjects have a steady interest and have enough internal resources to achieve their goals. In general, the subjects are characterized by a sense of security.

The distribution of results obtained using the questionnaire “Satisfaction with life” are presented in Figure 2 .

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Figure 2 shows that the majority of the subjects 83 % (25 people), although they experience some degree of negative emotions, fatigue, anxiety about the future, a sense of inadequacy of reality with an ideal image, at the same time, they consider their life to be saturated, they experience positive emotions in a high degree of 11 people or an average degree of 14 people.

The distribution of the results obtained using the methodology “Diagnostics of interpersonal relationships” in subjects is shown in Figure 3 .

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As shown in Figure 3 , all subjects, taking into account each individual’s exceptional personality ( Both & Best, 2017), have a moderate level of manifestation of the type of interpersonal interaction on all scales, which indicates harmonious personalities and adaptive behavior. Extreme manifestations were not detected in any person, which indicates the absence of pathologies in behavior and difficulties of social adaptation.

Thus, most of the subjects are harmonious individuals and are characterized by adaptive behavior, since 63 % of the subjects (19 people) scored a moderate number of points on all scales. 37 % of respondents (11 people) have high scores on some scales, which indicates the accentuation of the corresponding properties.

The negative correlation of the “Negative Past” was manifested with the following indicators: “Life Inclusion” (–0.546), “Disappointment in life” (–0.530), “Fatigue from life” (–0.585), “Anxiety about the future” (–0.568), “Overall score for life satisfaction” (–0.654).

The “Negative Past” correlates with the indicators “Mental Activation” (0.350) and “Comfort” (0.367), which means that the higher the indicator of “Negative Past”, the more points in terms of “Comfort” and “Mental Activation” (which corresponds to a low level of “Comfort” and “Mental activation”).

• The negative correlation of the “Positive past” was observed with the indicator “Anxiety about the future” (–0.360).

• “Hedonistic present” correlates with indicators “Domineering – leading” (0.506), “Dependent – obedient” (0.399).

• Negative correlations of the “Future” were found with the indicator “Life Inclusion” (–0.353).

• The results obtained indicate that the relationships under discussion exist.

Subjects who emphasize on the time perspective of the “Negative Past” experience less satisfaction with life in the present than other respondents. It is typical for them to experience disappointment with the sense of instability and insecurity of the world.

At the same time, subjects with a high temporal perspective of the “Negative Past” show a low level of “Security”. For them, the psychological state of well-being, peace, and harmony is less characteristic than for the rest of the subjects. They also show great passivity and dissatisfaction in their activities.

The high temporal perspective of the “Positive Past” among the subjects influences increased anxiety about their future.

Subjects who are characterized by emphasis on the time perspective of the “Hedonistic Present” exhibit such qualities as self-doubt, obsessive fears, constant anxiety, and dependence on other people's opinions. Thus, the stronger a person is focused on receiving pleasure in the present, the less confident he is.

The higher the Subject's “Future” indicator, the less full and saturated he feels his life, experiences fewer positive states. This condition is explained by the fact that a person who is too focused on his future devotes all his time only to fulfill important goals and tasks in the future, he simply does not have time to devote time to pleasures in the present (family, hobby, friends, etc.).

Conclusion

As a result of the study of the relationship between the time perspective and the psychological safety of the individual during adulthood, several patterns were revealed:

• The more a person has expressed the time perspective of the “Negative Past” during adulthood, the less satisfaction he experiences from life. Moreover, he is characterized by a reduced perception of his “Security”.

• A positive perception of one’s past experience affects anxiety about the future. The more positively a person perceives his memories, the greater his anxiety about his future is.

• The “Self-Confidence” indicator is related to the “Hedonistic Present” time perspective. A person in adulthood is more focused on the present, less confident in himself.

• The more strongly a person expresses the time perspective of the “Future”, the less complete and saturated he feels the series of events in his life.

The foregoing leads to the need for the development and implementation of Programs for the formation of a balanced time orientation during adulthood. The implementation of such programs will allow an adult, changing his time perspective depending on the problems that arise, through consciously constructing a meaningful, flexible picture of his own future, past and present, to be able to successfully overcome critical periods of his life, change his life for the better, and optimally resolve difficulties and contradictions and at the same time preserve the harmony of their inner world. In turn, this state of personality can be considered the optimal condition for the preservation of the psychological health of a person.

Acknowledgments

The research is conducted in the framework of the Scientific and Methodological Foundations of Psychology and Management Technology of Innovative Educational Processes in the Changing World project supervised by the South Ural research center of Russian Academy of Education in the South Ural State Humanitarian Pedagogical University. Grant from the Mordovia State Pedagogical Institute named after M. E. Evsevyev (head Dolgova V.I.).

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