Future Perspective and Healthy Lifestyle Choices in Adulthood

Regardless of age, making healthy lifestyle choices is prudent. Despite that, individuals of all ages sometimes have difficulty choosing the healthy option. We argue that individuals' view of the future and position in the life span affects their current lifestyle choices. We capture the multid...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 2016-09, Vol.31 (6), p.618-630
Main Authors: Tasdemir-Ozdes, Aylin, Strickland-Hughes, Carla M., Bluck, Susan, Ebner, Natalie C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adults
Affect
Age Differences
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging - psychology
Choice Behavior
Cognition
Decision Making
Female
Forecasting
Future
Health Behavior
Health Status
Healthy Lifestyle
Human
Humans
Life Span
Life Style
Lifestyle
Lifestyles
Male
Middle age
Middle Aged
Older men
Older people
Older women
Preferences
Time
Time Perspective
Young Adult
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Summary:Regardless of age, making healthy lifestyle choices is prudent. Despite that, individuals of all ages sometimes have difficulty choosing the healthy option. We argue that individuals' view of the future and position in the life span affects their current lifestyle choices. We capture the multidimensionality of future thinking by assessing 3 types of future perspective. Younger and older men and women (N = 127) reported global future time perspective, future health perspective, and perceived importance of future health-related events. They also rated their likelihood of making healthy lifestyle choices. As predicted, older participants indicated greater intention to make healthy choices in their current life than did younger participants. Compared to younger participants, older participants reported shorter global future time perspective and anticipated worse future health but perceived future health-related events as more important. Having a positive view of one's future health and seeing future health-related events as important were related to greater intention to make healthy lifestyle choices, but greater global future time perspective was not directly related to healthy choices. However, follow-up analyses suggested that greater global future time perspective indirectly affected healthy choices via a more positive view of future health. None of these relations were moderated by age. Individuals' perspective on the future is shown to be an important multidimensional construct affecting everyday healthy lifestyle choices for both younger and older adults. Implications for encouraging healthy choices across the adult life span are discussed.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/pag0000089