Time Perspective, Health Behaviors, and Wellbeing in Adults

Abstract

An important component of health behavior engagement is time perspective. Previous research has demonstrated that individuals with a more expansive temporal perspective tend to engage in more positive and fewer negative health behaviors. Depression, the leading mood disorder, has diverse symptomatology and is associated with reduced positive future thinking. This study seeks to identify whether positive or negative health behaviors differentially effect the association between time perspective and depressive symptomatology. Participants (n = 106; Mage = 35.2, SD = 12.7, range 18-65; 71.7% female; 87.7% white) were drawn from a community sample recruited via digital message boards. The study took place over 8-days using experience sampling methodology to survey demographic variables, time perspective, and depressive symptomatology (i.e., CES-D total score). Daily health behaviors were assessed in the early evening for the past day. Results indicated CES-D total score was significantly, positively associated with positive future time perspective and negatively associated with positive health behavior engagement. An initial mediation was conducted to examine whether positive future time perspective influenced depression via health behaviors. Consistent with the correlation results, the a-path was not significant, thus there was not mediation. A moderation based on these initial correlations was completed to test the interaction between positive future time perspective and positive health behaviors. Results indicated a significant interaction such that, those with low positive future time perspective and low positive health behaviors endorsed the highest CES-D total score. Overall, as time perspective increased, depressive symptomatology decreased. The data suggest that positive health behavior engagement and time perspective are important to consider when developing or implementing treatments for depression. Future directions include fuller characterization of negative health behaviors, as well as investigation in clinically diagnosed populations.