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Knowing What to Do in Life: The Effect of Past Negative Time Perspective and a Life Design Intervention
Type
conference speech
Date Issued
2021-07-13
Author(s)
Abstract
Knowing What to Do in Life: The Effect of Past Negative Time Perspective and a Life Design Intervention
Life design is a challenging and pervasive task. Everyone designs his or her own life – more or less consciously. The relevance of the concept of time is intrinsic in life design, which is indeed a design of our own future (Ferrari, Nota & Soresi, 2010). How does Time Perspective (Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999) affect life design? Can a life design intervention change the effect of time perspective on life design?
Departing from traditional one-on-one coaching sessions, we investigate the effectiveness of a life design intervention (28 hours) based on Design Thinking and conducted in large groups (partially based on: Burnett & Evans, 2016). We conduct a pilot study with 26 master students, enrolled in a Swiss Business School, and evaluate their Time Perspective (ZTPI) and series of pre- and post-intervention measures. We find that Past Negative Time Perspective had a significant negative impact on subjects’ ability to define what to do in their life (R2=.206; p=.030). However, after the intervention, career decidedness significantly increased for all participants (t=2.87; p=.008), and the effect of Past Negative Time Perspective was not anymore significant (p=.124).
The promising initial results seem to indicate that students with a highly Negative Past Time Perspective have more difficulties in career decidedness, however, after the life design group intervention, they did not differ from other participants.
Life design is a challenging and pervasive task. Everyone designs his or her own life – more or less consciously. The relevance of the concept of time is intrinsic in life design, which is indeed a design of our own future (Ferrari, Nota & Soresi, 2010). How does Time Perspective (Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999) affect life design? Can a life design intervention change the effect of time perspective on life design?
Departing from traditional one-on-one coaching sessions, we investigate the effectiveness of a life design intervention (28 hours) based on Design Thinking and conducted in large groups (partially based on: Burnett & Evans, 2016). We conduct a pilot study with 26 master students, enrolled in a Swiss Business School, and evaluate their Time Perspective (ZTPI) and series of pre- and post-intervention measures. We find that Past Negative Time Perspective had a significant negative impact on subjects’ ability to define what to do in their life (R2=.206; p=.030). However, after the intervention, career decidedness significantly increased for all participants (t=2.87; p=.008), and the effect of Past Negative Time Perspective was not anymore significant (p=.124).
The promising initial results seem to indicate that students with a highly Negative Past Time Perspective have more difficulties in career decidedness, however, after the life design group intervention, they did not differ from other participants.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Event Title
International Conference on Time Perspectives
Event Location
Vilnius, Lithuania
Event Date
2021 (Postponed due to Covid-19)
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
260452