Introduction. - One of the major life goals is to pursue and to boost happiness (e.g., life satisfaction). Thus, exploring how people proceed to maintain an optimal level of happiness throughout their life course, and exploring which are the specific personal and social processes that contribute to this feeling of well-being within various stages of life, remain central topics for contemporary psychological science. Objective. - The objective of this cross-sectional research was to study the relationships between time perspective as defined by Zimbardo and Boyd (1999) and life satisfaction among a sample of aged people (n = 188). We hypothesized that these relationships were mediated by the generalized self-efficacy. Method. - To do this, a path model using a Bootstrap procedure was tested. Age, sex, self-perceived health and depressive mood were entered into the model as control variables. Results. - Our findings showed that: only present hedonistic has a positive indirect effect on life satisfaction through self-efficacy; the past negative seems to have a negative effect both directly and indirectly on life satisfaction; the present fatalistic exerts exclusively a direct negative effect on life satisfaction; and neither the past positive nor the future exert any effect on life satisfaction. Conclusion. - The results emphasize the adaptive as well as maladaptive roles of different dimensions of time perspective in older people. These roles were discussed in light of some theoretical models, such as functions of reminiscence model and the socioemotional selectivity model. (c) 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
