Longitudinal associations between time perspective and life satisfaction across adulthood

Abstract

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. Across occasions and individuals, perceiving the future more concretely was associated with greater life satisfaction for adults aged 30 to 80 years. Age moderated this association in the domain of mental fitness with stronger associations for younger adults.