How Do You Perceive Time? Time Perception and Personality Traits. | INFJ Forum

How Do You Perceive Time? Time Perception and Personality Traits.

sassafras

sassafras

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Jun 17, 2009
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Some researchers and personality theorists claim that how you perceive time has an impact on your personality; intersecting individual preferences on a time perception versus time urgency axis color certain personality traits. The time perception axis illustrates a range between a past, present or future orientation and is characterized by which of these most frequently occupies your head-space. The time urgency axis, meanwhile, differentiates between high time urgency and low time urgency, which is a fancy way of defining which approach you favour: the immediate action approach versus a 'wait-and-see' approach.

See: Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory.

I'd like to see how you all match up.

I'm further wondering what your own theories are regarding time perception as a psychological phenomenon. I'm also curious to see what sort of implications you think this might have on MBTI typology... What are your observations/theories regarding time perception and certain types?

EDIT:

Whoops. Sorry guys. I didn't realize the test didn't work for people. How disappointing.

This one should work. I tried it out myself and it didn't time out. Hopefully it will work for you too: http://www.thetimeparadox.com/surveys/ztpi/

Anyway, just to clarify and better explain what I meant by 'how do you perceive time?'
 
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I think there's an inverse relationship between time perception and cognitive load. In other words, the more mentally taxing a particular activity is, the longer time will appear to stretch out. Older persons would encounter fewer truly new and challenging activities than would their younger counterparts, and so time would for them appear to be moving faster.

It's hardly a universal trend, though. I also think one's tendency towards introversion vs extroversion would have an effect, as would one's basal metabolic rate (the two are probably related).
 
I don't know about personality correlation (I'll read the article in a bit), but I always noticed that I think of time as something to keep track of. I am always aware of it passing, and careful not to get too lost in it.

Now that I think about it, it could possibly an interesting aspect of people's mind frames.
 
i was really interested in what the results of the test would be and i made up a fake student ID but it didn't give me any results, it just said "Thanks for completing! Back to home." most of my answers were: don't think about the past much, i can influence my fate through hard work, i plan a lot for the future, i don't take risks or make excitement in my life, i basically try to make the most of time.
 
invisible said:
i was really interested in what the results of the test would be and i made up a fake student ID but it didn't give me any results, it just said "Thanks for completing! Back to home." most of my answers were: don't think about the past much, i can influence my fate through hard work, i plan a lot for the future, i don't take risks or make excitement in my life, i basically try to make the most of time.
Click to expand...

Happened to me too. :-\
 
Time also has cultural aspects. "Indian Time" is a cultural thing. Natives tend to have a very fluid aspect of time and timeliness. It can be difficult to pin down specific time constraints or commitments for events, meetings, and such. Most Natives will say "in a while" which could mean the next 15 minutes, tomorrow, next week, or "remind me again when it becomes important that I do it right now". There are no hard and fast rules to following schedules--It is like time values are more like "guidelines" rather than absolutes.

It is difficult to gauge my own reactions to time because they have been influenced these past years by working in a mostly Native environment. I also think your own perception of time is based on your "sense of urgency", which is directly related to your abilty to delay gratification and exercise patience. Like all things, I believe it is cyclical in nature--depending on where you are at in life and your personal "sense of urgency" will depend on how time seems to flow for you.
 
I don't think there is any correlation between perception of time and MBTI type. If you are lost in the moment you will lose track of time if not you will be aware of its movement. As you get older you acquire more responsibilities and become more aware of your mortality and both those put pressure on you to make good use of time. Your value of time thus increases and therefore your perception that it's slipping away also increases. If however, you believe in eternal life or reincarnation of some sort you are likely to feel less harried by time.

I personally am generally ignorant of the passing of time. Years, days go pass without my noticing unless someone jolts me into the present.
 
I'm obsessed with time. I must know exactly what time it is all the time. o_o
 
The older I get the more I see time for the living (and dead) like the cursive letter "e" and it continuously loops forward, sometimes the loop is so so large it overlaps previous loops. It goes on and on and on. It pretty much means there is no such thing as time.

A hypothetical theory. Take aliens for instance. No one has ever provided proof of face to face contact (except perhaps ancient peoples, but all their relics are subjective). Is it possible that present day aliens are us in the future? The evolution of the human race who has found out how to manipulate time to go back to the past and make sure human society is progressing? We never see them. Why? Could it be that if we did it may change the course of history and our survival as a species (thus alien survival). OR perhaps at one time we DID see them and they realized they had to go back in time to rectify a wrong or make a diversion (especially during volatile times, such as the Cold War or any event that centered on nuclear activity.)

Or ... for the deceased, they can loop back to when ever to make impressions that change the course of an individual's history. Could this be the meaning of what people refer to as "previous lives?"

Just food for thought.
 
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ooo i wish that quiz had worked, because i don't really know where i stand on this. i have made big decisions that were risky, hoping that what would happen would be exciting. i tend to be 5 mins late to wherever i need to be, i never ever happily show up 10 mins early anywhere, seems like SUCH a waste of time. i make lots of plans, but my well thought out decisions are generally based on how things will work out for everyone involved. there are many things about my past which haunt me and i fear have permanently effed me up and many things about my future that i think are determined and will occur regardless of if i am effed up. to me this sound like im all over the place...really do like the topic though. i think i came across this philip zimbardos lecture of TED. really interesting. really like how he thinks porn in bad for the manliness of men, but thats another topic.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/philip_zimbardo_prescribes_a_healthy_take_on_time.html

[URL]http://www.ted.com/talks/zimchallenge.html[/URL]
 
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[MENTION=1360]TheDaringHatTrick[/MENTION] Woops, I took the test and set 'student ID' to 1. I hope someone doesn't get my results and are like... ?what?

I should point out that in my view time dependency is not insofar a time dependency as a 'boredom' management routine for most people. Some people can handle waiting a while, others have a strong preference not to do so.

Of course the problem here is that everyone 'perceives' time as a series of moving images. Don't we really mean 'remember' past time, thought and emotion and also extrapolated expectations?
 
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I, too, does not get the result. Too bad.

I don't know really, what I'd noticed is just time feels faster in retrospect, but tend to feel slower in present. :| And yeah, I tend to take notice of time....or at least, I attempt to do so. :| It's quite easy to get lost in thoughts..
 
Whoops. Sorry guys. I didn't realize the test didn't work for people. How disappointing. Thanks for the heads up, @InvisibleJim .

This one should work. I tried it out myself and it didn't time out. Hopefully it will work for you too. I'm tagging the people that showed interest in the test: @Trifoilum , @lenina , @Wish , @invisible , @Odyne , @Elicity, [MENTION=3096]Sonya[/MENTION],

Anyway, just to better explain what I meant by 'how do you perceive time?' I definitely didn
 
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TheDaringHatTrick said:
To boil it down even further, are you the type of person that is future oriented? Are you constantly thinking of what might or must come next? If you are a planner, how good are you on following through? If not, why do you think that is? Do you feel like you have enough time to accomplish all you need to do? How quickly do you get from the planning stage to the action stage?
Click to expand...

Yes! Yes! Not that good at all, plans are useless but planning is invaluable. It's impossible to fully map out each problem in game theory and there are limits on my ability to take action within certain time frames. Not really, but I don't like feeling overly rushed. Depends on the level of the problem. I have a tendency to 'punt' problems into the long grass if I hit them and can't decide either way and need to think further or acquire more data.
 
[MENTION=2172]Trifoilum[/MENTION] i think time seems faster in the past because we don't remember everything. just a few memories here and there, where as in the present we experience all the moments. our brain has limited space, as such it groups together repetitive memories into one general memory rather than remembering each and every single detail of our past.

it is for this reason that we have more memories of our youth and adolescence than our adulthood. each novel experience can potentially be a lasting memory, by adulthood we have fewer novel experiences and we settle into patterns. 5 years of working full time and all that will really stick out are the things you did that were really different from work and new to you while the memory of 5 years of working will be clumped together in an image or two.
 
oh wow [MENTION=1360]TheDaringHatTrick[/MENTION], thanks for the survey, i love surveys that show me my patterns. here are my results :
Past-negative 3.90
Past-positive 4.11
Present-hedonistic 3.33
Present-fatalistic 2.56
Future
 3.62

based on their ideal i need to work on being less past negative and less present fatalistic. in the other areas im pretty close to what is ideal, enough for me not to worry. i do have this sad story of my life that replays in my head every now and then, so i gotta work on that, and i gotta take action in the present, i have to actually act out my plans, often i really feel like its pointless, so i gotta get out of that mindset.
 
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