Time Perspective
A person's habitual orientation toward the past, present and future, including how far ahead they look.
What it is
It is a framework for describing how people relate to time. Göllner and colleagues found that future time perspective was strongly related both to delay of gratification and to delay discounting in participants aged from 9 to older adulthood, while episodic future thinking was not.
In effect
In the article on delayed gratification, it is the trait-like background that relates to waiting.
What it does not say
It describes an orientation, not a fixed type, and the 2018 study reports associations rather than causes.
Sources
- Göllner, L. M., Ballhausen, N., Kliegel, M., & Forstmeier, S. (2018). Delay of gratification, delay discounting and their associations with age, episodic future thinking, and future time perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 2304.