Time Perspective and Sustainable Behavior Evidence for the Distinction Between Consideration of Immediate and Future Consequences

The authors examined the efficacy of a two-factor model of consideration of future consequences (CFC) in understanding environmentally sustainable behaviors. In Study 1, individual differences in CFC-Immediate and CFC-Future were examined as predictors of environmental concern (EC) and behavior motivation (EB), controlling for values and sociodemographic variables. Results showed that low scores on the CFC-Immediate predicted EC and EB, with nonsignificant effects for CFC-Future. A prospect-concept priming task was used in Study 2 to implicitly activate future thinking which resulted in increases in ECs and behaviors, and these links were partially mediated by CFC-Immediate but not CFC-Future. The findings show that the associations between future time perspective and sustainable behaviors are driven by reduced immediate concerns. Implications for the role of time perspective in understanding and affecting sustainability efforts are discussed.