| September
8, 2008
Your Time Bias & What It Means
Interview
with Dr. Philip Zimbardo, author of
The Time Paradox
| Mike
Carruthers:
Each of us has our own time bias. That is, some
of us are more oriented to the past, some to the present and some to the future.
And that helps to shape our personality.
Dr.
Philip Zimbardo:
If you're future-oriented you always take account
of the future consequences but you don't have much fun in life because you never
take time out to enjoy the moment. Philip
Zimbardo, author of the book The
Time Paradox… If
you're past-positive it's wonderful because you're hooked up to family, you're
patriotic, you're loyal, you're wise, but you won't want change. Your
time bias is unconscious and shaped by many things: like religion, culture, where
you live, even your gender. Female
students now significantly do better in school than males. And what we have found
is females are more likely to be future-oriented and guys are more likely to be
present-oriented. Guys will spend ten hours on Saturday playing video games. Women
don't do that. And if you're playing video games it's fun but you know what? You're
not doing your homework assignment and you're going to get a lower grade. Philip
says it's important to understand this because it helps explain a lot about relationships.
It opens a wonderful
dialog to say, "Oh now I understand why you never sent me birthday cards
because you know you don't plan the future the way I do. I lay out our whole family's
birthdays, I buy the card a week ahead." So instead of attributing it to
indifference or arrogance you see that they have a very different time perspective
than you do. At
somethingyoushouldknow.net
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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