Perceptions of the Future and Health Behavior in Adulthood

Abstract

Engagement in healthier lifestyle behaviors often is motivated by a focus on the future. However, there is limited research on the associations between health behavior and future time perspective, defined as people's tendency to perceive their future as expansive or as limited. Data came from a survey of U.S. adults (N = 805, 49.3% female; M = 50 years, range: 19 to 85 years). Participants completed measures of perceptions of future opportunities and time and health behavior. Opportunities and time factors were uniquely associated with health behavior. While the perceived opportunities factor was strongly associated with better health behavior, the time factor was associated with poorer health behavior. However, this latter association was dependent on individual demographic and health status differences. These findings suggest that perceptions of future opportunities can play an important role in health behavior engagement and thus represent an important target for health promotion.

Keywords: adulthood; bifactor models; future time perspective; health behavior; opportunities and time.

Figure 1.

Correlated factor model (model 2) and bifactor S-1 models of future time perspective (models 3 and 4) as predictor of health behavior. Note. O1 to O3 represent remaining opportunities items (FTP-O: “I feel that many opportunities await me in the future”, “I expect that I will set many new goals in the future”, and “My future is filled with possibilities”); T1 to T3 represent remaining time items (FTP-T: “Most of my life lies ahead of me”, “My future seems infinite to me”, and “I begin to experience time as limited” [reverse coded]); H1 to H4 represent health behavior parcels (H1 parcel consists of the Good Health Practice scale (GHP) items 2, 10, 11, 13; H2 parcel consists of the GHP items 1, 7, 12, 15; H3 parcel consists of the GHP items 4, 5, 9, 16; H4 parcel consists of the GHP items 3, 6, 8, 14). General factor FTP includes variance shared between all items; specific factor opportunities/time includes variance shared between subsets of items to examine the uniqueness of the specific factor. Values represent standardized factor loadings or correlations. In Models 2a, 3a, and 4a, we controlled for subjective health, age, gender, education, income; for simplicity, we did not include the covariates in the figures. Values to the right of the slashes represent standardized factor loadings or correlations after controlling for the covariates. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.