I've just finished Philip Zimbardo & John Boyd's The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life. My dad sent me a link to a video of Dr. Zimbardo giving a lecture on time and I was sucked right in. If Philip Zimbardo is an unfamiliar name, he was the psychologist behind the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. In this study, twenty-four healthy and well-balanced Stanford undergrads were split into two groups: mock prison guards and mock prisoners. The students were specifically chosen because they were seemingly without emotional problems and had a healthy outlook on life. The prison guards were told that they had to maintain order and get the prisoners to perform certain menial tasks, things that life in a prison would necessitate. Within 36 hours a mock prisoner had an emotional breakdown and physical abuse by the prison guards was rampant. According to Wikipedia: "Experimenters said that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Most of the guards were upset when the experiment concluded early." The mock prison guards refused to let some of the mock prisoners go to the bathroom, they refused to let the prisoners empty their sanitation buckets, they removed mattresses from some prisoners' cells as punishment, and "some prisoners were forced to go nude as a method of degradation, and some were subjected to sexual humiliation, including simulated sodomy." Without any irony, Philip Zimbardo said in 1971 that the study was a success because the students had internalized their roles, roles assigned at random in the beginning of the experiment (that just made me think of the movie Dark City). Zimbardo was actually called in by the Bush administration to interview the prison guards of Abu Ghraib and provide expert testimony on how "evil" can happen. His conclusion: the creation of "evil" is easy when the conditions are right, and the administration created ideal conditions at Abu Ghraib by allowing everyone to operate without feeling personally responsible, by making sure no one there was in charge, and then by not keeping an eye on things.
So, zoom forward about 30 years, and Philip Zimbardo is working on time perspectives. Another researcher's Marshmallow Study serves as a good introduction:
If you just watched the clip above, the kids who were able to delay gratification by not eating the first marshmallow have what Dr. Zimbardo calls a "future time perspective." The kids who ate the marshmallows as soon as they had the chance are present-oriented. In his work, Dr. Zimbardo has identified six time perspectives (no one is any one time perspective -- we tend to have characteristics of each time perspective, but when measured, we "spike" around just a few): past-positive, past-negative, present-hedonist, present-fatalist, future, and transcendental future. Past-positives remember the past fondly and past-negatives brood over bad decisions that were made. Present-hedonists like to spend their money, do drugs, and give little thought to future consequences. Present-hedonists are more likely to be overweight and probably got pregnant in high school. Present-fatalists are depressed and feel that they have no control over the future. Future-oriented people invest their money, work hard toward future goals, score higher on standardized tests, and generally run the world. Transcendentalists work toward a spiritual future; suicide-bombers and Christians who believe in the book of Revelation jump to mind.
The Time Paradox expounds on this basic philosophy. It also claims that someone with a well-balanced time perspective is someoneone who is past-positive, present-hedonistic, and future oriented, but at the right times. Duh. So, when you're at work, it's future time. When you leave work, present-hedonism should take over. When you think about the past, focus on the good times and stop having old arguments in your head or thinking about how different your life would be if you hadn't made very specific mistakes.
I thought that the ideas in the book were interesting, but the writing wasn't very good. The chapters were arranged around broad themes but lacked conclusions. This book wasn't building toward any profound thing, it was just presenting lots of interesting facts with a similar theme. I'll also have to assume that there aren't many more time-perspectives that they've missed. I wasn't under the impression that these guys were actively looking for other time perspectives to add to their theory or trying to come up with arguments to refute their own thesis. The Time Paradox as a book is just a step above airport literature, but the ideas it presents are profound and potentially life-altering. That is, life-altering if I wasn't already a future, who (unless I missed something) are the clear winners. Futures have to look out for being too future-oriented, but if they can avoid that, they've got it made.
Take Dr. Zimbardo's ZTPI test and find out your time perspective here.
