The Role of Future Time Perspective and Social Support in Shaping Psychological Well-Being During Emerging Adulthood

The Role of Future Time Perspective and Social Support in Shaping Psychological Well-Being During Emerging Adulthood

Alvin Sherman Library

The present study explores the associations between future time perspective and perceptions of social support and their influence on psychological well-being in emerging adulthood. The sample consisted of 334 emerging-adults between the ages of 18-25(average-age18.76years, 267women). Subjects completed self-report measures of future time perspective, perceptions of social support, and psychological well-being.

Regression-results indicate that social-support and future time perspective together predict psychological well-being. Follow up tests using the procedures recommended by Aiken and West (1991) indicate that social support moderated the links between future time perspective and psychological well-being.

Specifically, emerging-adults with low-medium family support who see their future as limited were less. Further, the results indicate that seeing the future as open is linked with increased personal growth at all levels of support from friends, family, and significant others. However low-medium –perceived support from significant-other coupled with seeing the future as ambiguous was linked with lowered positive relations in emerging-adulthood. Also, viewing the future as ambiguous was also linked with reduced purpose in life at all levels of support from friends, family, and significant others.

While these preliminary results do suggest that future-time-perspective and social-support together influence psychological-wellbeing in emerging-adulthood, one needs to be cautious with any conclusions that may be drawn given that the data are concurrent-correlational, and hence causal interpretations cannot be drawn; however, these results suggest that it is important to consider the combined effects of future orientation and perceived support to understand psychosocial development in emerging-adulthood.