Our changing attitudes to time

Youngsters tend to live for the moment whilst older folks are more concerned about their futures. But when in a person's life does this change in perspective usually occur? A new study identifies a period between the ages of thirteen and sixteen as being critical. 

Laurence Steinberg and colleagues asked 935 people between the ages of ten and thirty years to answer questions regarding how much they think about the future, and to complete a time-discounting task. Briefly, this required them to make a number of hypothetical choices between less money now or more money at a later date. Choosing more money available later is a sign of being more oriented to the future.

A key difference emerged between participants who were aged thirteen and younger versus those aged sixteen and older, with the older group being more future-oriented. There were no age-related differences among participants aged thirteen or less, or among participants aged sixteen or more, whilst fourteen and fifteen-year-olds were mixed, with a time orientation that did not differ from the younger or older groups.

Another important finding was that a tendency to favour immediate rewards was associated with the participants' self-reported tendency to not think about the consequences of their actions, but was less related to their self-reported impulsivity and disinclination to plan ahead.

It's a subtle distinction, but Steinberg's team said this implies future orientation is influenced by at least two developmental trajectories: one relating to a proclivity to plan ahead, which continues to emerge well into early adulthood, and another related to a diminishing salience of immediate rewards, which as we've seen, undergoes a crucial change in mid-adolescence.