Importance of present time orientation in predicting early adolescent violence

Background: Time perspective is a pervasive, powerful, and largely unrecognized influence on behaviors, including those related to health outcomes. Time perspective may help predict tendencies for early adolescent violence beyond current standard models, such as the Theory of Reasoned Action.

Methods: We used data from American inner-city middle school students (N = 607) assessed at the baseline of a youth violence prevention project. We adapted the present orientation and future orientation scales from the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory and included items on subjective norms and participants' own beliefs about violence based on the Theory of Reasoned Action. We examined the relationships among these predictors with Structural Equation Models.

Results: Both subjective norms and beliefs regarding violent behaviors and present time orientation explained 25-30% of the unique variance in violent behaviors; future time orientation was not a significant unique predictor. In addition, future time orientation moderated the influence of subjective norms and beliefs. Those with stronger present orientations were more susceptible to subjective norms and beliefs encouraging violence. We replicated this pattern of findings in a separate subsequent sample (N = 407).

Conclusions: The incorporation of time perspective measures may improve the accuracy of predictions for health promoting and health adverse behaviors. Present time orientation accounted for as much variance as the current gold standard measures.