TY - JOUR
T1 - Living in the Past, Present, and Future
T2 - Measuring Temporal Orientation With Language
AU - Park, Gregory
AU - Schwartz, H. Andrew
AU - Sap, Maarten
AU - Kern, Margaret L.
AU - Weingarten, Evan
AU - Eichstaedt, Johannes C.
AU - Berger, Jonah
AU - Stillwell, David J.
AU - Kosinski, Michal
AU - Ungar, Lyle H.
AU - Seligman, Martin E.P.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PY - 2017/4/1
Y1 - 2017/4/1
N2 - Temporal orientation refers to individual differences in the relative emphasis one places on the past, present, or future, and it is related to academic, financial, and health outcomes. We propose and evaluate a method for automatically measuring temporal orientation through language expressed on social media. Judges rated the temporal orientation of 4,302 social media messages. We trained a classifier based on these ratings, which could accurately predict the temporal orientation of new messages in a separate validation set (accuracy/mean sensitivity =.72; mean specificity =.77). We used the classifier to automatically classify 1.3 million messages written by 5,372 participants (50% female; ages 13–48). Finally, we tested whether individual differences in past, present, and future orientation differentially related to gender, age, Big Five personality, satisfaction with life, and depressive symptoms. Temporal orientations exhibit several expected correlations with age, gender, and Big Five personality. More future-oriented people were older, more likely to be female, more conscientious, less impulsive, less depressed, and more satisfied with life; present orientation showed the opposite pattern. Language-based assessments can complement and extend existing measures of temporal orientation, providing an alternative approach and additional insights into language and personality relationships.
AB - Temporal orientation refers to individual differences in the relative emphasis one places on the past, present, or future, and it is related to academic, financial, and health outcomes. We propose and evaluate a method for automatically measuring temporal orientation through language expressed on social media. Judges rated the temporal orientation of 4,302 social media messages. We trained a classifier based on these ratings, which could accurately predict the temporal orientation of new messages in a separate validation set (accuracy/mean sensitivity =.72; mean specificity =.77). We used the classifier to automatically classify 1.3 million messages written by 5,372 participants (50% female; ages 13–48). Finally, we tested whether individual differences in past, present, and future orientation differentially related to gender, age, Big Five personality, satisfaction with life, and depressive symptoms. Temporal orientations exhibit several expected correlations with age, gender, and Big Five personality. More future-oriented people were older, more likely to be female, more conscientious, less impulsive, less depressed, and more satisfied with life; present orientation showed the opposite pattern. Language-based assessments can complement and extend existing measures of temporal orientation, providing an alternative approach and additional insights into language and personality relationships.
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U2 - 10.1111/jopy.12239
DO - 10.1111/jopy.12239
M3 - Article
C2 - 26710321
AN - SCOPUS:84959312513
SN - 0022-3506
VL - 85
SP - 270
EP - 280
JO - Journal of personality
JF - Journal of personality
IS - 2
ER -