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The Five Subscales Of Time Were Then Separately Calculated.

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The five subscales of time were then separately calculated. The past negative subscale is where an individual embodies a pessimistic attitude towards the past. This subscale was measured by ten items (‘I often think about bad things that have happened to me in the past’) which are recoded to calculate a mean from the ten items. Internal consistency within the present study’s past negative subscale was highly acceptable (Cronbach’s Alpha=.83).

The present hedonistic subscale, where individuals have an orientation to make sacrifices in the present, to enjoy rewards tomorrow, is measured by fifteen items (‘I take risks to put excitement in my life’). It was calculated by taking the fifteen items related to present hedonistic …show more content…

Deviation from a Balanced Time Perspective (DBTP) A BTP was originally based on Zimbardo and Boyd’s (1999) cross-cultural data and can be calculated from the five time subscales. A BTP is characterised by high scores on the past positive (4.60), moderately high scores on the future (4.00) and present hedonistic (3.90) and finally low scores in past negative (1.95) and present fatalistic (1.50). Stolarski et al.’s (2011) Deviation from a Balanced Time Perspective (DBTP) measure was used to operationalise a BTP, as it was found to be the most valid method for calculating it (Zhang, Howell & Stolarski, 2013). DBTP is an empirical measure of how far participant’s values, across the five time dimensions are from an ideal BTP value (0). This results in a score for how ill-balanced an individual is. Empirical time perspectives were taken away from optimal time values and the closer to 0 the DBTP value was, the more a BTP an individual had. Each scale deviation can be squared to examine any biases to a particular time orientation. A strength of this measure is that each person received a score for their distance from the optimal time perspective profile. The following formula was used to calculate the DBTP:

DBTP=√(oPN−ePN) 2 +(oPP−ePP) 2 +(oPF−ePF) 2 +(oPH−ePH) 2 +(oF−eF) 2

Wellness Behaviour Inventory (WBI) The practice of positive health behaviours was assessed by participants

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