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In a situation with a limited common resource, cooperation between individuals sharing the resource is essential. However, people often act upon self-interest in irrational ways that threaten the long-term survival of the whole group. A lack of sustainable or environmentally responsible behavior is often observed. In this study, we examine how the maximization of benefits principle works in a wider social interactive context of personality preferences in order to gain a more realistic insight into the evolution of cooperation. We used time perspective (TP), a concept reflecting individual differences in orientation towards past, present, or future, and relevant for making sustainable choices. We developed a personality-driven agent-based model that explores the role of personality in the outcomes of social dilemmas and includes multiple facets of diversity: (1) The agents have different behavior strategies: individual differences derived by applying cluster analysis to survey data from 22 countries (N = 10,940) and resulting in 7 cross-cultural profiles of TP; (2) The non-uniform distribution of the types of agents across countries; (3) The diverse interactions between the agents; and (4) diverse responses to those interactions in a well-mixed population. As one of the results, we introduced an index of overall cooperation for each of the 22 countries, which was validated against cultural, economic, and sustainability indicators (HDI, dimensions of national culture, and Environment Performance Index). It was associated with higher human development, higher individualism, lower power distance, and better environmental performance. The findings illustrate how individual differences in TP can be simulated to predict the ways people in different countries solve the personal vs. common gain dilemma in the global limited-resource situation. This interdisciplinary approach to social simulation can be adopted to explain the possible causes of global environmental issues and

This chapter summarises some results of the International Time Perspective Research Project, which is a collaborative cross-cultural study of time perspective carried out in 24 countries. The highlights of structural equivalence assessment study are presented, showing the cross-cultural invariance of 36 items of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) scale. The associations between country-level ZTPI scores and other culture-level indicators, including the Human Development Index and Hofstede cultural dimensions, are presented and discussed. Using hierarchical cluster analysis, five distinct profiles of time perspective were found (future-oriented, present-oriented, balanced, moderately fatalistic, and negative), and significant differences in the prevalence of these profiles across cultures were found. Implications and perspectives for future research are discussed.

Background: It is well-recognized that emotions and emotional disorders may alter the experience of time. Yet relatively little is known about different aspects of psychological time in relation to anxiety. The purpose of the present study was to explore several aspects of temporal processing, including time perspective, prospective and retrospective time estimation, in persons with anxiety symptoms. Methods: A total of 110 individuals with varying degrees of anxiety participated in two studies. They were assigned to two groups (anxiety–control) based on their scores on anxiety measurements. Participants also completed an inventory of time perspective and several time estimation tasks which were analyzed on a group-level. Depressive symptoms were assessed and used as a covariate in the second study. Results: Anxiety was significantly associated with Past Negative and Future Negative time perspectives as measured by the Swedish Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (S-ZTPI), even when controlling for the effect of depressive symptoms. No other significant differences were found. Conclusion: Exploring time perspective in persons with anxious symptoms may provide important insights into features of anxiety. These findings may offer new ways of conceptualizing anxiety and provide suggestions for treatment strategies.

In this article, we assess the structural equivalence of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) across 26 samples from 24 countries (N = 12,200). The ZTPI is proven to be a valid and reliable index of individual differences in time perspective across five temporal categories: Past Negative, Past Positive, Present Fatalistic, Present Hedonistic, and Future. We obtained evidence for invariance of 36 items (out of 56) and also the five-factor structure of ZTPI across 23 countries. The short ZTPI scales are reliable for country-level analysis, whereas we recommend the use of the full scales for individual-level analysis. The short version of ZTPI will further promote integration of research in the time perspective domain in relation to many different psycho-social processes.

This article assesses whether the second version of the Transcendental-future Time Perspective Inventory (TTPI; Zimbardo and Boyd 2008) measures a time perspective or a belief and how it is related to mental health in a highly secular country. The TTPI adapted into the Estonian language is described. Study 1 reports the results of validation performed on a large sample of adult students at different levels of education. Study 2 was carried out in a clinical sample with people turning to psychotherapy. Females scored significantly higher on TTPI than males, other demographic variables (age, level of education) were not related. TTPI scores were not related to mindfulness, self-esteem, well-being and depression. The TTPI is a reliable scale measuring belief in an afterlife, but not a time perspective. The TTPI items should ask how often people imagine themselves in a transcendental future context and if these thoughts are positive or negative.

Past research suggests that biases in temporal orientation may have systematic effects ongoal-directed behavior and that physical and mental well-being is associated with balanced time perspective (BTP, Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999). The aim of this study was to examine different operationalizations of the BTP, and to present an alternative proposal in which BTP is measured as a multidimensional, rather than a binary, construct. Two versions of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) were administered to a sample of 502 individuals. The proposed operationalization shows important advantages in terms of ecological validity of the multidimensional definition, sample independency and possibility to adjust for country differences. Our proposal may also have practical implications both for individuals and groups, e.g. in working teams, psychological counseling, psychotherapy and when recruiting personal forleading positions.