In his discussion, Dr Philip Zimbardo takes us through his research on time perspective. He explains that depending on various factors, people can belong to a certain time zone. He further asserts that time perspective is the most central foundation of human thought and the paradox is that people are never conscious about it. Zimbardo continues to state that understanding time therapy can help treat a variety of trauma cases.
As regards to heroism, Dr Zimbardo stumbles upon the idea while carrying out his study on how one can resist temptation. He describes a hero as someone who takes action on behalf of others despite the risks. The time perspective according to Dr Zimbardo, is how each one of us tend to divide time depending on the time zones. He explains that time perspective contrasts with objective or clock time terming it as either subjective or psychological time. It is how minds are set regarding time; we tend to measure time using events or situations, depending on how long or short they take.
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Dr Zimbardo goes further to divide time into three major groups. These include The Past, present and future. These classes are further dichotomized into pairs. We have people whose actions are always based on the past. These are termed as past-oriented people, and their decisions are often based on nostalgic good memories or bad memories brought about failures, regrets or traumatic episodes. Present-oriented people are either present hedonistic who enjoys what life has to offer now and tend to avoid pain or present fatalistic. This category of people believes that their fate or current situation is already set, hence perceives little significance in planning for their future. The third class of individuals is the future-oriented individuals. Unlike their counterparts who are always worried, future-oriented people tend to be optimistic in life, focusing on setting and achieving their goals.
The Marshmallow experiment is an exercise that educates children on the numerous benefits of delayed gratification. The test shows that the children who resist current pleasures tend to plan well for their future. Moreover, such children tend to perform better in school, have more friends, get stable jobs and even have more successful marriages compared to their counterparts. Dr Zimbardo further explains the significance of time therapy as a technique for treating psychological trauma. Time therapy can also be used to treat conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is based on the premise that these individuals are stuck in the past, and the therapy helps them move into the present and future orientations.
Dr Zimbardo developed the ‘Heroism' during his research on how ordinary people get corrupted into doing bad things. Dr Zimbardo's works have opened my mind to a new way of doing the self assessment as well as assessing the people around me. I would categorize myself as future oriented, but I would not describe myself as a hero. In regard to time, I strongly believe that most people have a biased time perspective; they tend to overuse one perspective and underuse the others. I have also learned that most people fall under the future-oriented category since most people tend to sacrifice the pleasures at the moment for anticipated gains in the future. Moreover, the more educated a person is, the more future-oriented they become. This relates to the Theories and Measurement of Personality topic as it expounds on the discussions therein on origins of personal characteristics and shows that they are not necessarily fixed or permanent.
