Time perspective, internal vs. external control, and severity of psychological disturbance

Abstract

PROBLEM Although much has been written about man's interest in time dimensions, only recently there has been an upsurge of studies investigating the relationship between temporal experience and various aspects of personality. There is an increasing tendency for investigators (I3) to be concerned with the relatively molar concept of temporal experience and connect it with the sequence of events involving persons past, present, and future. Time perspective or time orientation are the terms used in referring to this niolar temporal dimension.Studying the effects of psychological disturbance on time perspective is becoming a focal point of investigation. Significantly poorer performance by schizophrenics as compared with normals on time-orientation tasks and a shorter future time perspective for schizophrenics than normals (12, have been reported. Poorer performance by delinquents in contrast with normals on measures of future time perspective has been cited('. l l ) . More recently, a constricted future time perspective has been obtained with alcoholics('), and marked distortions of time sense have been reported for patients with poor reality testingc6).Although the above-mentioned studies report significant differences in time perspective for various diagnostic groups as compared with normals, the relationship between time perspective and severity of psychological disturbance is far from being clear. This study investigated further the implied relationship between future time perspective and severity of psychological disturbance. An hypothesis is tested that in coniparison with the moderately disturbed and normals, severely disturbed Ss will have the shortest future time perspective. Furthermore, to obtain data concerning the influence of severity of psychological disturbance on other cognitive variables, a comparison between severity of disturbance and Internal versus External control (I-E) is made.Internal versus External control may be defined as "the extent to which an individual feels that his own actions determine what happens to him or that what happens to him is deterinined by fate, luck, chance, or powerful forces outside his control"(10). The belief in Internal or External control has been described as a major personality variable (s), and relationships with social action (I), snioking(S), achievement (9), and resistance to subtle suggestion C2) have been reported. METHODSubjects. Our Ss were selected from the total population of a medium size (750 beds) VA neuropsychiatric hospital. Three groups of Ss were selected: A "normal" (non-hospitalized) group (N = 30), a moderately disturbed group (N = 45), and a severely disturbed group. All three groups were closely matched with respect to age, sex, and education, so that only males, within the ages of 20 to 54, with at least an 8th grade education, were included in the sample.The "nonna1" (non-hospitalized) group. The Ss in this group were selected from a roster of nursing, dietetics, and housekeeping personnel. These Ss are residents of sniall local rural ...

The Cognitive Foundations of Personality Traits

“…The first is highly plausible because of the presumable low concern of externals with the structure of institutions and phenomena (where there is no concern with affecting changes, there may be no concern about the structure). The second is important because it is fully and directly confirmed by independent findings: externals, compared to internals, are less accurate in judging the lapse of a minute (Walls & Smith, 1970), report shorter future-time perspectives (Cross & Tracy, 1971;Platt & Eisenman, 1968;Shybut, 1968), are less capable of "delaying'' in tests like Kagan's Matching of Familiar Figures and the Porteus Mazes (Shipe, 1971), and tend less to delay gratification on the classical Mischel task (Mischel, Zeiss, & Zeiss, 1974;Strickland, 1973;Walls & Smith, 1970) and in life situations that involve planning one's future (Erikson & Roberts, 1971). These results demonstrated that the meaning profile indicates domains in which an individual has abilities of particular high or low salience.…”

Differentiating Among Internality, Powerful Others, and Chance

“…Although some investigators have corroborated this hypothesis (e.g., Cromwell, Rosenthal, Shakow, & Zahn, 1961;Shybut, 1968), others have found inconsistent or nonexistent relationships between internality and adjustment (Fontana & Gessner, 1969;Harrow & Ferrante, 1969). However, he did theorize that there might be a curvilinear relationship between adjustment and the I-E dimension such that individuals at either end of the dimension might be more maladjusted than those in the middle range.…”

Future Time Orientation and Temperament: Exploration of Their Relationship to Primary and Secondary Psychopathy

“…Lessing's empirical study (1968) indicated that children with a more extended temporal horizon have a greater willingness to postpone gratification than those low in future orientation. One study found that individuals high in internal control were more future oriented than those low in internal control (Shybut, 1968). Hence, the stronger the future orientation of an individual, the more influence potential future consequences may have on present behavior.…”