Perspectiva temporal y estilos de personalidad en estudiantes Argentinos

Abstract

The time notion has a central place both in the philosophical reflection and in Psychology, indicating a systematical position with regard to the man's mode of existence in the world. In Psychology, the time perspective concept was introduced by Lewin (1935), and defined as the totality of the individual's views of his psychological future and psychol ogical past existing at a given time, a more or less stable trait of the personality, which influences the motivation, thinking, and various aspects of their behaviour. Zimbardo is the author that more has been busy of the operationalization of this concept, which he defined as a non conscious process through which the flow of personal and social experiences is assigned to temporal categories that help give order, coherence and meaning to those experiences. The relative weight of the time frames introduce considerable differences in the decisions and behaviours and this preference for any of the dimensions can function as a static personality trait that can be non-adaptive. Hence, the authors introduce the concept of balanced time perspective (BTP) according to which the present, past and future are combined in a flexible manner, in response to the demands of the times and tasks in the life of the people, as well as to their dominant values. In this work we present the results of data collected in a sample of 329 students of secondary, tertiary and university levels, from which explored the possible relationship between profiles of temporal perspective and personality styles in Argentinean students and evaluate the role of balanc ed temporal perspective in that relationship. The ZTPI (Inventory of Temporal PerspectiveZimbardo & Boyd, 1999), the Questionnaire of Transcendental Future Time Perspective (PTFTBoyd & Zimbardo, 1997), and the MIPS adaptation to Argentina (Casullo & Castro Solano, 2000) are applied. For the data analysis was used the following statistical: analysis of correlations, analysis of variance (ANOVA one way), tests of significance of the proportional differences and KMeans Cluster Analysis. We used the SPSS.20. Using cluster analysis, three profiles of time perspective and three personality styles are obtained. It is also estimated the deviation of balanced temporal perspective (DBTP) for each subject and three conglomerates were determ inated. The correla tions and variance analysis show empirical evidence about the meaningful relationships between profiles of temporal perspective and person ality styles. It was verified, in particular, that there is a profile of temporal perspective more adaptive than the rest. In fact, 55% of the subjects who are identified with a profile of equilibratetranscendent PT are within the group with open, active, strong and sociable personality stile, while 40% of subjects with conflicting PT are located in the style of conflicted personality. The inclusion of the future transcendental time scale, unified with the ZTPI allows us to see this perspective influences, in particular in the profiles of PT and its relationship with the personality styles. Some of these relationships and their difference with those found by the authors of both scales of PT are interpreted as a result of cultural differences. All the links found are confirmed on the basis of the determination of the balanced time perspective (BTP), which in our sample corresponds to the 28 per cent of the total number of subjects. There would be a two-way relationship, a mutual influence; on the one hand, certain personality traits would glances spreads to the temporal dimensions of the lived and living life and, on the other hand, the profile of temporal perspective that is being consolidated as personality trait refluxes on the rest of the traits, to contribute to the achievement of a identity with greater or lesser degree of adaptation and completeness.