2016/04/11 by Alexander Maki, Patrick C. Dwyer, Mark Snyder
Psychology · #Optimism, Hope, and Well-being #Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction #Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research
paper · doi:10.1080/00224545.2015.1090946
openalex publication_date 2016/04/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Because volunteerism is a planned activity that unfolds over time, people who more frequently focus on the future might also be more likely to initiate volunteerism and sustain it over time. Using longitudinal (Study 1) and experimental (Study 2) paradigms, we investigated whether time perspective, and in particular a person's orientation toward the future, is related to volunteers' beliefs and behavior. In Study 1, a person's dispositional level of future time perspective was closely linked to volunteer beliefs and behavior. In Study 2, people who wrote about the future reported higher intentions to volunteer, and this was particularly true for infrequent volunteers and those with lower levels of dispositional future time perspective. Across two studies, we found evidence that future time perspective, whether a chronic disposition or a pattern of thought elicited by someone else, is linked to volunteer beliefs and behavior.