The sense of time passing is an important variable in time psychology and a direction worthy of attention in the field of time psychology. For centuries, it has been popular to describe time as "the passage of time," just as one would describe a stream.
Such descriptions indicate that the time we experience seems to have a "dynamic" nature. The concept of "dynamic" time has become ingrained in modern thought and language as per Psychology: Can Time Insight Predict the Sense of Time Passing? Any healthy, conscious person can clearly feel the "passage" of time.
It can be believed that even if the passage of time is not visible and tangible like some other objective things, it still exists objectively. Of course, the passage of time is a psychological feeling, a subjective state, and this important feeling will also affect one's psychology and behavior.
The sense of time passage is an important content in the field of time psychology research and an element that cannot be ignored in many psychological time research fields. Although research on the sense of time passage is gradually deepening in Western countries, relevant research in China is very sparse.
Therefore, it is very necessary to enrich the research on the sense of time passage in China and explore the factors that affect this important variable. On the basis of previous research, the relationship between time insight and the sense of time passage is further explored, and mindfulness and anxiety are proposed as a chain mediating mechanism, in order to enrich related research.
1. The relationship between time insight and the sense of passage of time
The study used regression analysis to explore the impact of the five dimensions of time insight on the two dimensions of the revised sense of passage of time scale. The results showed that the future can significantly and negatively predict the emotional dimension of the sense of time passing, and present impulsivity and past negativity can significantly and positively predict the emotional dimension of the sense of time passing.
Past negativity and present impulsivity significantly and positively predicted the physiological susceptibility dimension to the sense of passage of time. Past negativity and present impulsivity significantly and positively predicted total time passage sense score. The results found in this study are partially similar to those of previous studies.
For example, Yu Xide and others used a sample of college students to test the relationship between time insight and the sense of time passing. As a result, they found that past negativity, present fate, and future power can predict the total score of the sense of time passing in turn. The results of the
study are partially different from those of Yu Xide et al. The difference is that research by Yu Xide et al. found that the future is positively related to the sense of time passing, while this study found that the future can negatively predict the emotional dimension of the sense of time passing, but has no significant relationship with physiological susceptibility. Such results are related to the analytical methods of both studies.
The research of Yu Xide and others used the time passage sense scale with three dimensions (emotional emotion, physiological susceptibility and behavioral reaction tendency) as a whole to explore the relationship between time insight and time passage sense. However, this approach ignored the relationship between each dimension of the time passage sense scale itself and the various dimensions of time insight.
Because from the perspective of the connotation of the three dimensions of the sense of time passing, the three are dimensions with different meanings and are independent of each other. There is even a negative correlation between the behavioral response tendency dimension and the emotional and emotional dimension.
The behavioral response tendency dimension reflects more of an individual's behavior or way of actively coping with the passage of time, while the emotional dimension reflects an individual's negative emotions towards the passage of time. Therefore, it is normal for the two to have an opposite relationship.
So the relationship between aggregation of emotional affect, physiological susceptibility and behavioral response tendencies and future time insights can be messy.
Because the essence of future orientation is that individuals are better prepared and adopt more active coping methods, connotatively speaking, future time insight should be positively correlated with the behavioral response tendency dimension, and negatively correlated with the emotional and emotional dimension.
The negative correlation between future time insight and the emotional dimension of time passage can be explained by the essential characteristics of future time insight.Future time insight reflects an individual's ability to plan for the future, persist in long-term goals, and resist current temptations. Individuals with such abilities are more likely to succeed.
Previous research has also found that future time insight is significantly related to many adaptive behaviors, such as academic achievement, risk aversion, healthy exercise and retirement planning.
Therefore, individuals with a high level of future time insight may be more likely to adopt positive coping methods to deal with difficulties and setbacks in life, and have strong emotional regulation capabilities, so there will not be too many negative emotions in the relationship between the sense of time passing, so the future is negatively related to the emotional dimension of the sense of time passing.
However, there is no significant correlation between future time insight and physiological susceptibility dimensions, which is different from previous studies. Wittmann et al. found that future time insight is positively correlated with the sense of time passing. This may be because future-oriented people are more focused on their goals and thus feel that time is passing quickly.
However, in the research, it was not found that people with future orientation show physiological susceptibility to the passage of time. This may be caused by the different measurement methods used. Previous studies mostly measured the sense of time passage from short-term time perception tasks, but this study mainly used the scale method to measure.
In addition to future time insight, the time insight dimensions that also have a significant impact on the sense of time passage in this study are present impulsivity and past negativity. The relationship between these two dimensions of time insight and the sense of time passing is relatively clear. Individuals with present impulsiveness and past negative orientation both show negative emotional experiences with the sense of time passing.
Impulsive individuals often cannot wait for a task for a long period of time and tend to overestimate the passage of time because they act more on impulse. Therefore, individuals with a current impulsive orientation are often associated with many non-adaptive variables, such as procrastination, aggression, substance abuse, and lower life satisfaction.
Therefore, impulsive individuals are prone to face setbacks in life. As time goes by, they will overestimate the length of time, feel that time passes very quickly, and have negative emotional experiences.
Therefore, impulsivity is now positively correlated with emotions and physiological susceptibility.
Past negativity is a negative perception of past time, which is often related to more time pressure, leading to the perception of faster time passage, and is accompanied by negative emotional experiences. Therefore, past negativity is positively correlated with emotions and physiological susceptibility in the sense of time passage.
2. The mediating role of mindfulness
Research suggests that the level of mindfulness may be one of the mechanisms between time insight and the sense of time passage. The results of the study found that mindfulness mediates the relationship between future, present impulsiveness, past negativity, and the sense of time passing.
This result provides an empirical basis for clarifying the relationship between time insight and the sense of time passing. There are relatively few previous studies on the relationship between mindfulness and the sense of time passing, and most of them were explored from the perspective of mindfulness intervention training and time perception in waiting tasks.
Weiner et al.’s research found that mindfulness is related to a faster sense of time passing in a short period of time. This study started from two aspects of the sense of time passing (emotional emotion and physiological susceptibility), and examined the connection between mindfulness and emotional experience and physiological susceptibility to the sense of time passing.
The results found that mindfulness was negatively related to the painful emotion of time passing, but there was no significant relationship with physiological susceptibility. Mindfulness is negatively related to the painful emotional experience of the passage of time.
Individuals with a high level of mindfulness focus more on the self-experience reflected in the moment and accept their own experience without judgment. This is often related to many positive mental states and emotions, such as emotional regulation ability, subjective well-being, positive emotions, etc. Therefore, they can better experience the beauty of life and have no negative emotional experience when facing the passage of time.
Individuals with higher levels of mindfulness are also more focused when completing tasks, and thus may obtain good results related to positive emotions. Then the emotional response to their own sense of time passing may receive more positive feedback, and therefore are positively related to the emotional dimension of the sense of time passing.
Physiological susceptibility reflects an individual’s perception of the passage of time in the past. Previous research has found that mindfulness is related to the perception of faster passage of time in a short period of time.
However, studies have found that mindfulness is not significantly related to the long past-oriented sense of time passing. These inconsistent results may indicate that there may be a more complex relationship between mindfulness and physiological susceptibility to the sense of time passing.
There may be some moderating variables, such as the measurement method of the sense of time passing, the difference between the sense of time passing in the short term and the characteristic sense of time passing, etc. Future research can further explore this.
In short, receiving mindfulness training can well regulate one's attention resource allocation, body awareness and emotional regulation. Individuals with high levels of mindfulness can have stronger physical and conscious feelings, which may help individuals have a more positive emotional experience of the passage of time.
On the other hand, because high levels of mindfulness can help individuals effectively regulate attention and form stronger memories, leading to subjective extension of the past duration, it may be related to a faster sense of time passing.
Regarding the relationship between time insight and mindfulness, the study used structural equation modeling and found that the future can significantly and positively predict mindfulness, and present impulsivity and past negativity can significantly and negatively predict mindfulness.
Future time insight reflects an individual's emphasis on future long-term goals and the ability to plan for the future. It is related to many successful traits, such as self-control, emotional regulation capabilities, etc. These are all traits needed to improve the level of mindfulness. A more important point is that mindfulness requires individuals to focus on the current experience.
Mindfulness focuses directly on what is happening in the present moment, so it should be most closely related to present time insight. In Zimbardo's Time Perspective Scale, the present dimension includes present hedonic and present destiny. Relatively speaking, the two dimensions of
tend to have a negative time orientation, while mindfulness is about investing in the present moment, taking active actions, and focusing on beautiful experiences but not impulse and enjoyment.
