The Impact Of Time Perspective On Adolescent Health Behavior

Health promotion behaviors in adolescence,such as physical exercise and healthy eating are not only expected positive behaviors and adaptive behaviors,but also important guarantees for physical health in adulthood.Health-compromising behaviors such as unsafe diet and smoking are risk factors for obesity and chronic diseases in adulthood.Exploring the influencing factors of adolescents’ healthy behaviors will help adolescents to establish healthy behavior patterns.Once formed,this pattern will continue to exist into adulthood and old age,and will benefit adolescents throughout their lives.The choice of healthy behavior is a trade-off between immediate satisfaction(such as eating high calorie food)and future greater benefits(enjoying future health)or immediate payment(such as exercise or routine medical examination)and greater delay in payment(suffering from lifestyle related diseases such as obesity and sugar urine disease),and time perspective,as a variable of individual differences in time attitudes when individuals think and act on themselves,can stimulate and influence health decisions and behaviors.Researchers have carried out a series of studies on the relationship between time perspective and adolescents’ health behaviors,and found that different dimensions of time perspective have different effects on health behavior.Usually,the past-negative,present-hedonistic,and present-fatalistic dimensions are risk factors for adolescent health behavior,while future time perspective is a protective factor for adolescent health behavior.However,there are still some inconsistent results in the influence patterns of different dimensions of time perspective on different type of health behaviors,and there are few researches on the mechanism of the impact of time perspective on adolescents’ health behaviors.The latest theory of health behavior,temporal self-regulation theory,believes that intention is an important variable for inducing behavior,and points out that people’s ability to act for remote benefits comes from various complex factors,including connectedness beliefs about behavioral outcomes,Temporal valuations,behavioral prepotency and self-regulation capacity.Connectedness beliefs(the consistent idea that a certain behavior leads to the corresponding behavior result)and temporal valuations(the behavior value generated by the time proximity of a certain behavior result)predict the intention of participating in the behavior.Their strength can enhance the intention and promote the execution of the behavior,or weaken the intention and hinder the execution of the behavior.In addition,the actual participation of behavior is predicted by intention,individual behavioral prepotency(habits,environmental clues and individual initiative)and self-regulation ability(behavior regulation and control ability).Both behavioral prepotency and self-regulation capacity can regulate the transformation from intention to behavior.Temporal self-regulation theory describes the important role of the time factor of behavioral events,and the immediacy is the role of prompting people to make decisions between hedonistic gratification behaviors and healthy behaviors that require self-control.Time perspective,as an individual’s personality tendency in the time dimension,can guide him to choose health behaviors related to short-term or long-term goals.What causes the differences between individuals to make consistent tendencies toward long-term interest events?The theory of temporal self-regulation provides a partial answer to this question,that is,the stable aspect of the observed indicators in the model may correspond to the personality tendency measured by time perspective.For example,an individual with "future time perspective" may have strong biological penetrating self-regulation ability,and tends to attach great importance to non-immediate gratification events across multiple domains,and therefore exhibit behavioral tendencies consistent with long-term interest events.The theory of temporal self-regulation provides a theoretical basis for explaining the mechanism of the influence of time perspective on healthy behavior.Therefore,in this study,based on the new theory of health behavior-Temporal Self-regulation Theory,combined with the existing research status,using implicit association test and questionnaire surveys,taking adolescents as the research object,systemically explored the basic characteristics and relationships between time perspective and adolescents’ health-promoting behaviors which food choices behaviors,exercise behaviors and health-compromising behaviors.In particular,it explores the influence mechanism of time perspective on healthy food choices behaviors,exercise behaviors and smoking behaviors of adolescents.The results and conclusions of this study are as follows:In Study 1,(1)a questionnaire survey were conducted on 1126 adolescents for examine the characteristics of adolescent health behavior and time perspective and the relationship between adolescent time perspective and explicit health behavior.The results indicated that: 1)Adolescent health-compromising behavior decreases with the increase of age;Boys’ healthy food selection and exercise behaviors are higher than girls’,and girls’ participation in health-compromising behaviors is lower than boys’.Obese adolescents whose healthy food selections and exercise behaviors are below the standard of body mass index;Adolescents with less educated parents are more involved in health-compromising behaviors than adolescents with more educated parents.2)Adolescents’ time perspective have developmental characteristics in terms of age,from the age of 11 to 19,the past-positive time perspective showed a downward trend,now the presents-fatalistic time perspective showed an upward trend,and from the age of 16,the future time perspective showed an upward trend.3)Explicit health behavior show a close relationship with time perspective.Specifically,past-negative time perspective is negatively correlated with explicit health food selection behavior,but positively correlated with explicit health-compromising behavior;Past positive time perspective was positively correlated with explicit healthy food selection behavior,explicit exercise behavior,but negatively correlated with explicit health-compromising behavior;At present-hedonistic time perspective is negatively correlated with explicit health food selection behavior,but positively correlated with explicit health-compromising behavior;Present-fatalistic time perspective is negatively correlated with explicit health food selection behavior,but positively correlated with explicit health-compromising behavior;Future time perspective is positively correlated with explicit health food selection and exercise behavior,and negatively correlated with explicit health-compromising behavior.(2)Implicit association test(IAT)were conducted on 120 adolescents for examine the relationship between adolescent time perspective and implicit health behavior.The results indicated that: Implicit health behavior show a close relationship with time perspective.Specifically,past-negative time perspective is positively correlated with implicit health-compromising behavior;Past positive time perspective was positively correlated with implicit exercise behavior,but negatively correlated with implicit health-compromising behavior;At present-hedonistic time perspective is negatively correlated with implicit health food selection behavior,but positively correlated with implicit health-compromising behavior;Present-fatalistic time perspective is negatively correlated with implicit health food selection behavior and implicit exercise behavior,but positively correlated with implicit health-compromising behavior;Future time perspective is positively correlated with implicit health food selection and exercise behavior,and negatively correlated with implicit health-compromising behavior.Study 2 was conducted by using questionnaire investigation in a sample of 985 adolescents,and explored the motivational mechanism of the influence of adolescents’ time perspective on adolescents’ health behaviors.The results showed that: 1)Healthy eating consistency beliefs and healthy eating intentions play a chain mediation role between the past-positive/present hedonistic/present-fatalistic time perspectives and healthy food selections;healthy eating consistency beliefs,healthy eating temporal valence,and healthy eating intentions play a multi-chain mediation role between future time perspective and healthy food selections.2)Exercise behavior consistency belief,exercise behavior temporal valence,and exercise behavior intention play a multi-chain mediating role between past-positive/ future time perspectives and exercise behavior.3)Smoking behavior consistency beliefs and smoking behavior intentions play a chain mediating role between past-positive/present hedonistic/future time perspectives and smoking behavior.Study 3 used questionnaires to explore the intention-behavior mechanism of the impact of time perspective on health-related behaviors with 625 adolescents.The results show that 1)Healthy eating intention plays a mediating role between time perspective and healthy food selection behavior;exercise behavior intention is mediated between time perspective and exercise behavior;smoking behavior intention is mediated between time perspective and smoking behavior;2)Healthy eating habits and executive function regulate the intensity of the relationship between healthy eating intention and healthy food selection behavior;exercise habits regulate the intensity of the relationship between exercise intention and exercise behavior;executive function regulates the intensity of the relationship between smoking intention and smoking behavior.3)Healthy eating habits and executive function negatively regulate past-negative,present-hedonistic,and present-fatalistic time perspective into the mediation path of healthy food selection behavior through healthy eating intentions;healthy eating habits and executive function positively regulate past-positive and future time perspective into the mediation path of healthy food selection through healthy eating intentions.3)Exercise habit negatively regulates the mediation path of exercise behavior intention in the influence of past-positive and future time perspectives on exercise behavior;4)Executive function negatively regulates the mediating path of smoking intention in the influence of present-hedonistic and past-positive time perspectives on smoking behavior;executive function positively regulates the mediating path of smoking intention in the influence of future time perspective on smoking behavior.In short,time perspective is a powerful and stable personality factor that affects adolescents’ healthy food selection behavior,exercise behavior,and smoking behavior.Adolescents’ healthy behavior intentions play a mediating role between time perspective and healthy behaviors;consistent beliefs and temporal valence of healthy behaviors positively predict healthy behavior intentions;adolescents’ healthy behavior habits and executive functions regulate healthy behavior intentions and healthy behaviors.Specifically,the strength of the connection between high-health behavior habits and high-executive function intention-behavior is stronger than that between low-health behavior habits and low-executive function intention-behavior.The mechanism of different time perspective dimensions influence on same healthy behavior and the mechanism of time perspective of the same dimension influence on different health behaviors have certain universality and differences.The results of this research provide a certain practical and theoretical basis for prevention and intervention of adolescents’ healthy behaviors.