While conscientiousness and procrastination may be related to various types of behaviour, one measure that has been demonstrably related to both of these personality variables throughout a number of studies is that of punctuality (e.g. Ashton 1998; Back et al. 2006; Díaz-Morales et al. 2006; Roberts et al. 2004; Solomon and Rothblum 1984). For instance, in one study investigating procrastination among students, lack of punctuality was shown to be the measure of behaviour that correlated most significantly with self-reported procrastination (Solomon and Rothblum 1984). Furthermore, in another study investigating the correlations between personality factors and self-reported workplace delinquency, self-reported lateness was found to be negatively correlated with conscientiousness (Ashton 1998). In other lines of research examining the influence of personality on punctuality in a real life setting, Back et al. (2006) found that participants who reported higher conscientiousness scores tended to arrive earlier for a scheduled appointment in comparison to participants who reported lower conscientiousness scores. As such, punctuality provides an observable real life measure of procrastination and conscientiousness.
In sum, these findings provide a way to address the question of whether the relationship between metaphorical perspectives of time and self-reported procrastination and conscientiousness have force in real life using a measure of real life behaviour: it is hypothesised that there would be differences in temporal reasoning between people who are efficient time-keepers and those who are not. To test this, Study 4 investigated whether the extent to which a person was on schedule for work would influence the temporal perspective they adopted in response to the
Next Wednesday’s meeting question. It is predicted that people who are running
early would be more likely to adopt the Moving Time perspective, moving the meeting earlier in time, to Monday, whereas people who are running late would be more likely to adopt the Moving Ego perspective, moving the meeting later in time, to Friday.
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4.5.1. Study 4: Travelling to work
4.5.1.1. Participants
104 adults with an age range of 18 to 59 years and a mean age of 33 years participated in this study in exchange for a small reward.11 40 participants were male and 65 were female. All participants were native speakers of English.
4.5.1.2. Materials and procedure
People waiting for a bus were approached individually by an experimenter at Newcastle Haymarket bus station and greeted before being asked if they were travelling to work. People who responded Yes were then asked if they would be willing to participate in a short survey. To begin with, participants provided demographical information (age, gender and native language). Participants then
provided responses to two test questions and the Wednesday’s meeting. For the first
test question—Are you on time for work?—participants answered using one of the
three options: Yes, No, or Not applicable.12 For the second test question—If yes or no which applies most to you?—participants rated the extent to which they were on
schedule for work using one of five options: Very late, Late, On time, Early or Very early. The order of the options was counterbalanced across participants. Participants then answered the ambiguous temporal question: Next Wednesday’s meeting has
been moved forward two days. What day has the meeting been rescheduled to? All questions were administered orally and all responses were written down by the experimenter throughout the exchange.
4.5.1.3. Results and discussion
Responses to the two test questions were compared against the response to the Next
Wednesday’s meeting question for each participant. For the first test question,
which assessed whether each participant was on schedule for work, all participants responded either Yes or No. The results showed that, in line with the predictions, participants who were on schedule were more likely to disambiguate the meeting question in line with the Moving Time perspective (responding Monday), whereas
11 12 participants were unwilling to disclose their age; thus, the range and mean is calculated on the basis of the remaining 92 participants.
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participants who were not on schedule were more likely to disambiguate the meeting question in line with the Moving Ego perspective (responding Friday). Specifically, 62.7% of participants on schedule responded Monday in comparison to 17.2% of participants who were not. To determine whether the difference in the proportion of Monday and Friday responses was reliable, a chi-square test for independence was used, revealing a significant relationship: χ21,104 = 17.262, p <
0.0001 Cramer’s V = 0.407. For the second question, which assessed the participant’s perception of the extent to which they were on schedule for work,
responses were coded using a number from 1–5, in which 1 denoted I am very late
and 5 denoted I am very early. The results showed that, consistent with the predictions, the Moving Time perspective (indicated by a Monday response) was more frequently adopted by people who were running earlier (M = 3.279; SD = 0.760), whereas the Moving Ego perspective (indicated by a Friday response) was more prominent among people who were running later (M = 2.635; SD = 0.908),
t(102) = 3.279, p < 0.001, d = 0.643.
Building on the findings regarding the interplay between temporal disambiguation and self-reported measures of conscientiousness and procrastination observed in Study 3, Study 4 provides initial evidence that these relationships have force in real life contexts. That is, in addition to self-reported conscientiousness and procrastination, there is a relationship between conscientious and procrastinating behaviours and temporal perspective. The results, however, raise additional
questions. One shortfall is that behaviour was measured using participants’ self
perceptions of the extent to which they were on schedule for work. However, additional value can also be gained by using other methods which do not rely on the individual, such as observer ratings or experimentally derived measures for directly assessing specific behaviours (Connelly and Hülsherger 2012; Vazire 2006). Thus, to examine whether the effects have observable, real world consequences, in Study 5, a more objective measure of procrastinating and conscientious behaviour was used: the timely submission of assignments.
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4.5.2. Study 5: The assignment submission
As discussed, research shows that procrastination is especially common in the academic domain, with up to 95% of students procrastinating habitually with academic tasks, such as studying for examinations, keeping up-to-date with weekly seminar reading, as well as the submission of assignments (e.g. Ellis and Knaus 1977; Ferrari and Beck 1998; see also Solomon and Rothblum 1984; Steel et al. 2001). Many universities still use the traditional paper-based submission procedure, which requires students to submit their assignments to the school office by a designated time on deadline dates. There is a wide range of penalties for lateness across the university sector and although students are often aware that they might be penalised for the late submission of their work, this will often not deter them from submitting their assignments with little time to spare (Stoneham 2009). As such, research investing psychological explanations for procrastination among students has made use of the times taken by students to submit assignments as a method for assessing procrastinating behaviour (Beswick et al. 1988). Similarly, research investigating the relationship between professionalism and conscientiousness among medical students has assessed conscientious behaviour using the timely submission of assignments (Finn et al. 2009; McLachlan et al. 2009). As such, the timely submission of assignments provides an objectively observable means of assessing whether the relationship between temporal perspective and self-reported procrastination and conscientiousness is matched by the relationship between temporal perspective and procrastinating/conscientious behaviours. To this end, Study 5 sought to investigate whether there would be differences in temporal reasoning between students who submit their assignment further in advance of the deadline and students who submit their assignments closer to the deadline, as demonstrated by their response to the Next Wednesday’s meeting question. It is
predicted that students submitting their essay earlier would be more likely to adopt the Moving Time perspective, moving the meeting earlier in time, to Monday, whereas students submitting their essay later would be more likely to adopt the Moving Ego temporal perspective, moving the meeting later in time, to Friday.
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4.5.2.1. Participants
60 undergraduate students from Northumbria University, with an age range from 19 to 30 and a mean age of 21 years, participated in this study. 21 participants were male and 39 were female. All participants were native speakers of English.
4.5.2.2. Materials and procedure
Participants were approached individually and greeted by an experimenter at the Student Advice and Support Centre on the Northumbria University campus, where students based in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are required to submit their assignments for formal assessment. After agreeing to take part in a short survey, participants provided demographical information (age, gender and native language) before providing responses to the test question How far in advance of the deadline did you submit your assignment? and the ambiguous temporal question
Next Wednesday’s meeting has been moved forward two days. What day has the meeting been rescheduled to? All questions were administered orally and all responses were written down by the experimenter throughout the exchange.
4.5.2.3. Results and discussion
Responses to the test question were compared against the response to the Next
Wednesday’s meeting question for each participant.13 Consistent with the predictions, the results showed that the Moving Time perspective (indicated by a
Monday response) was more frequently adopted by participants who were submitting their assignment further away from the deadline (M = 208 minutes prior;
SD = 116 minutes), whereas the Moving Ego perspective was more prominent among participants who were submitting their assignment closer to the deadline (indicated by a Friday response) (M = 145 minutes prior; SD = 82 minutes), t(58) = 2.495, p = 0.015, d = 0.635. Building on the findings from Study 4, these results provide consolidating evidence that, in addition to self-reported conscientiousness and procrastination, there is a relationship between conscientious and procrastinating behaviours and temporal perspective.
13 Similarly to the findings in Experiment 2, this student population showed a preference for answering Friday (58.3%) in comparison to Monday (41.7%) (cf. Boroditsky 2000; Núñez 2007; Sullivan and Barth 2012).
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As demonstrated, despite the question consisting of a single measure, McGlone and
Harding’s (1998) ambiguous meeting question has been used extensively in
research investigating metaphorical representations of time. However, two issues that arise from using a single experimental question are that, firstly, it is not possible to assess the internal consistency of single-item measures and secondly, measures comprising of a single item are potentially unreliable (e.g. Oshagbemi 1999; Pollard 1996; but see Wanous et al. 1997). Thus, if the Next Wednesday’s
meeting question is a robust and reliable measure of temporal perspective, a similar pattern of findings should be found using other ambiguous temporal questions that make use of different temporal units, e.g. hours within the day, Tomorrow’s noon meeting has been moved forward two hours and months within the year, The October meeting has been moved forward two months (cf. Kranjec et al. 2010; Lai and Boroditsky 2013; Núñez et al. 2006).14 Indeed, other lines of research have demonstrated that people tend to be consistent in their representations of time, such that people who imagine moving forward a meeting scheduled for Wednesday by two days to Monday (as opposed to Friday) are also more likely to imagine moving forward a meeting scheduled for noon by two hours to 10am (as opposed to 2pm) (Núñez et al. 2006; cf. Richmond et al. 2012). However, as with much related research, these measures have yet to be used in the assessment of real-life behaviours.
Thus, to address the issue of whether similar effects would be observable using different dependent variables for measuring temporal perspective or whether the original effects are attributable to the specific item being used, Study 6 investigated whether people arriving earlier for a scheduled appointment would think about time differently to people arriving later for a scheduled appointment, comparing the
participant’s time of arrival (cf. Back et al. 2006) against the resolution of two
different temporal reasoning questions. Specifically, extending on from the Next
Wednesday’s meeting question, temporal perspective was measured using the Noon meeting question and the October meeting question. Building on insights from earlier findings, it is predicted that people arriving earlier for their appointment
14 Concordant with the Next Wednesday’s meeting question, the Noon meeting question and the October meeting question are ambiguous, giving rise to two possible answers: 10am or 2pm (the Noon meeting question) and August or December (the October meeting question).
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would be more likely to adopt the Moving Time perspective (indicated by 10am and
August responses), while people arriving later would be more likely to adopt the Moving Ego perspective (indicated by 2pm and December responses).
4.5.3. Study 6: The scheduled appointment
4.5.3.1. Participants
45 adults with an age range of 19 to 65 years and a mean age of 38 years participated in this study in exchange for a gift voucher. 18 participants were male and 27 were female. All participants were native speakers of English.
4.5.3.2. Materials and procedure
To recruit participants, flyers were distributed in local shops and restaurants, as well as through an online advertising website. Participants were then instructed to contact the experimenter via email to take part in the study. Each participant was allocated with an appointment time and instructed that they should arrive at a specified meeting point—namely, the entrance of the Lipman coffee shop on the Northumbria University campus—at the time allocated. As participants arrived, the experimenter recorded their arrival time. Lateness was calculated by the number of minutes between the appointment time and the arrival time of the participants and earliness was calculated by the number of minutes between the appointment time and the arrival time of the participants multiplied by -1 (cf. Back et al. 2006); hence, positive scores indicate late arrival and negative scores indicate early arrival (e.g. 5 minutes late; 0 minutes on time; -5 minutes early). Following informed consent, participants completed the study using a pen while sitting down at a table. Participants provided demographical information (age, gender and native language) before completing a study consisting of six tasks that were unrelated to the current study. The two ambiguous meeting test questions appeared on separate pages and were interspersed between the different tasks (cf. Boroditsky 2000). The first test question appeared after task 3 (a vocabulary task) and the second test question appeared after task 5 (an author recognition task). Participants read each test question before providing their responses. The order in which the two test questions were presented was counterbalanced across participants.
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4.5.3.3. Results and discussion
Participants arrived, on average, 2.89 minutes before their appointment time (SD = 9.14), with the time of arrival ranging from 22 minutes early to 25 minutes late. In particular, 30 participants were early, 0 were exactly on time, and 15 were late. Concordant with predictions, the Moving Time perspective (indicated by a 10am
and August response) was more frequently adopted by people who arrived early for their appointment, whereas the Moving Ego perspective (indicated by a 2pm and
October response) was more prominent among people who arrived late. Specifically, for the Noon meeting question, 63.3% of participants who arrived early responded 10am in comparison to 36.7% of participants who arrived late. To determine whether the difference in the proportion of 10am and 2pm responses was reliable, a chi-square test for independence was used, revealing a significant relationship: χ2
1,45 = 4.132, p = 0.042 Cramer’s V = 0.303. Similarly, for the
October meeting question, 66.7% of participants who arrived early responded
August in comparison to 33.3% of participants who arrived late. Again, a chi-square test showed a reliable difference in the proportion of August and October responses:
χ2
1,45 = 4.500, p = 0.034 Cramer’s V = 0.316. In line with earlier research findings
(Núñez et al. 2006; cf. Richmond et al. 2012), participants were also highly consistent in their representations of time, such that those who imagined moving the noon meeting forward earlier to 10am also moved the October meeting earlier to
August (88.0%) and those who imagined moving the noon meeting later to 2pm also moved the October meeting later to December (95.0%): χ21,45 = 30.633, p < 0.0001
Cramer’s V = 0.825. In addition, for the Noon meeting question, participants who adopted the Moving Time perspective arrived earlier on average (M = -6.130; SD = 8.465) compared to participants who adopted the Moving Ego perspective (M = 0.750; SD = 8.744), t(45) = 2.585, p = 0. 013, d = 0.799. Also, for the October meeting question, participants who adopted the Moving Time perspective arrived earlier on average (M = -5.800; SD = 8.367) in comparison to participants who adopted the Moving Ego perspective (M = 0.750; SD = 8.944), t(45) = 2.531, p = 0. 015, d = 0.756.
Taken together, the results provide further evidence of a relationship between naturally-occurring conscientious and procrastinating behaviours and metaphorical perspectives of time. Furthermore, by using additional measures of adopted
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temporal perspective, Study 6 extends earlier findings to temporal questions using different time scales, suggesting that the original effects were not merely attributable to the specific item being used, i.e. the Next Wednesday’s meeting question.