Future Orientation Developmental and Ecological Perspectives
Where am I going? What do I want to do with my life? Such questions are typical of—even essential to—adolescence and continue to influence individuals throughout their lifetimes. And although human beings are capable of anticipating future events even as
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Series Editors Donald H. Saklofske University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada Moshe Zeidner University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Israel
For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/6450
Rachel Seginer
Future Orientation Developmental and Ecological Perspectives
123
Prof. Rachel Seginer University of Haifa Faculty of Education 31905 Haifa Israel [email protected]
ISSN 1572-5642 ISBN 978-0-387-88640-4 DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-88641-1
e-ISBN 978-0-387-88641-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008939946 c Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper springer.com
Strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (A. Tennyson, 1861, Ulysses)
Preface
By contemporary I mean a present with an anticipated future, for we must do our best to overcome clinical habits which make us assume that we have done our part if we have clarified the past. (Erikson, 1968, pp. 30–31). The scope of time ahead which influences present behavior, and is therefore to be regarded as part of the present life-space, increases during development. This change in time perspective is one of the most fundamental facts of development. Adolescence seems to be a period of particularly deep change in respect to time perspective. (Lewin, 1939, p. 879).
I chose to open this book with two excerpts from Erikson’s and Lewin’s writings because they indicate that future orientation has had its deep roots in psychological thinking, and call readers’ attention to the long standing interest in two fundamental issues: the motivational power of constructed future images and their development across age. More specifically, Erikson and Lewin’s writings underscore the importance of future thinking for influencing present behavior tendencies, and point out that the ability to think about the future and realize the “scope of time ahead” increase with age, and reach a special developmental significance in adolescence. Accordingly, this book is on how individuals across the life span construct the subjective images of their future and how researchers drawing on different approaches define, conceptualize and examine the formation of these images, their inter- and intrapersonal antecedents, personality correlates, and effects on behavioral and developmental outcomes. However, while multiple appro
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