Exploratory Study of the Portuguese - Victor EC Ortuño

Exploratory Study of the Portuguese TranscendentalFuture Time Perspective Scale
Victor E.C. Ortuño1,3, Maria Paula Paixão1 & Isabel Janeiro2
1
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal
2 Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon, Portugal
3 [email protected] // www.victortuno.netii.net
Beliefs about a possible life after death can strongly influence individuals thoughts and behaviors. Thus, Boyd and Zimbardo (1997)
developed the Transcendental-Future Time Perspective Scale, which intends to evaluate the individual and subjective notion of
Future after death. This study main goal is to present the preliminary results of the cultural Portuguese adaptation of this scale.
The sample is composed by 345 subjects with ages between 17 and 54 years old (M = 19.87). 90.7% (313) are female and all of the
subjects are college students. The Portuguese TFTPS shows a unique factor structure (44.93% explained variance), as well a high
internal consistency (Cronbach´s Alpha = .856) and high test/re-test validity (r = .87). Significant differences were found in the TF
between religious and non-religious participants, as between gender.
Method
Sample: Composed by 345 psychology college students, with ages
between 17 and 54 years old (M = 19.87, S.D. = 4.27). 313 (90.7%)
are female and 32 (9.3%) are male.
Instruments: All the data were collected using 3 instruments: the
Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory – ZTPI (Zimbardo & Boyd,
1999; Ortuño & Gamboa, 2009), the Transcendental-Future Time
Perspective Scale – TFTPS (Boyd & Zimbardo, 1997) and the
Inventory of Time Perspective – ITP (Janeiro, 2006).
Test/Re-Test: 4 weeks after the 1st wave of data collection, 89 of the
participants answered the TFTPS a second time (80 female and 9
male), with ages between 17 and 30 years old (M = 18.85, S.D. =
1.77). The correlation between the two waves of data collection was
.87 (p < .01).
Table 1
TFTPS Exploratory Factor Analysis (Factor Loading, Extraction, Mean, Standard Deviation and Cronbach´s Alpha)
Sub-scale
(Cronbach´s α)
Item
Nº
03
01
Results
Religious vs. non-Religious Differences: The religious participants
present a Transcendental Future mean of 3.09 (S.D. = .64), while the
non-religious participants have a TF mean of 2.25 (S.D. = .75), these
differences are statistical significant (t = -7.92, p < .000).
Male vs. Female Differences: We found significant (t = -2.4, p < .05)
differences between male (M = 2.54, S.D. = .64) and female
participants (M = 2.88, S.D. = .77).
02
06
04
Transcendental
Future
(α = .856)
10
09
Exploratory Factor Analysis: Using Principal Component Analysis
with Varimax Rotation, we found a model constituted by a unique
factor (confirmed also with a Scree Plot analysis), which explains
44.93% of the variance (M = 2.84, S.D. = .76, Min. = 1, Max. = 4.8, α =
.856, N = 10) with a .854 value in the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin – KMO
measure. All the factor loadings are higher than .50 except for Item
No. 5 (see Table 1).
Internal Consistency: The scale shows a .856 value in the Cronbach´s
Alpha. Only the elimination of Item No. 5 would improve it´s internal
consistency.
Correlations: The Transcendental-Future Time Perspective shows a
small although significant positive correlation with Past Negative (r =
.148, p < .01), Past Positive (r = .163, p < .01), Present Fatalist (r =
.213, p < .01), Present Hedonist (r = .130, p < .05) and Future (r =
.132, p < .05) and only negative and non significant correlation with
Negative Future (r = -.057).
08
07
05
Item (Original Item)
A morte não é mais do que um novo começo
(Death is just a new beginning)
Só o meu corpo físico irá alguma vez morrer
(Only my physical body will ever die)
O meu corpo é apenas uma habitação temporária
para o meu verdadeiro eu
(My body is just a temporary home for the real me)
Os seres humanos possuem uma alma
(Humans possess a soul)
Acredito em milagres
(I believe in miracles)
Serei responsabilizado pelas minhas acções na terra
quando morrer
(I will be held accountable for my actions on earth
when I die)
Acredito em espíritos
(I believe in spirits)
Há leis divinas pelas quais os seres humanos
deveriam guiar a sua vida
(There are divine laws by which humans should live)
As leis científicas não conseguem explicar tudo
(Scientific laws cannot explain everything)
A teoria da evolução explica adequadamente como é
que a espécie humana apareceu
(The theory of evolution adequately explains how
humans came to be)
Factor 1 Extraction M
α without
S.D.
item
.826
.683
2.71 1.23
.826
.771
.594
3.09 1.25
.832
.767
.589
2.71 1.21
.833
.731
.534
3.68 1.15
.836
.694
.482
2.45 1.16
.839
.675
.456
2.50 1.19
.840
.669
.448
2.60 1.26
.843
.660
.436
2.38 1.16
.841
.501
.251
3.92
.97
.853
.148
.022
2.38
.92
.872
Discussion
The psychometrics results obtained with the TFTPS are in general
good; the AFE shows a one-dimension scale with good internal
consistency, a clear factor structure with high loadings for all items
(except No. 5). A high test/re-test validity was found. The presented
correlations with other temporal dimensions demonstrate the
uniqueness of Transcendental Future. As expected, religious subjects
show higher values ​in the Transcendental Future Time Perspective.
Regarding gender, female participants had higher levels of TF than
males, as also found in the study of Boyd and Zimbardo (1997).
References
Boyd, J.N. & Zimbardo, P.G. (1997).Constructing Time After Death: The Transcendental-Future Time Perspective. Time & Society, 6, 35-54.
Janeiro, I. (2006). A Perspectiva Temporal, as Crenças Atribucionais, a Auto-Estima e as Atitudes de Planeamento e de Exploração da Carreira: Estudo sobre os Determinantes da Maturidade na Carreira em
Estudantes dos 9º e12º Anos. Dissertação de Doutoramento (não publicada). Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, Universidade de Lisboa.
Ortuño, V. & Gamboa, V. (2009). Estrutura factorial do Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory – ZTPI numa amostra de estudantes universitários portugueses. Avances en Psicología Latinoamericana, 27(1), 21-32.
Zimbardo, P.G. & Boyd, J.N. (1999). Putting time in perspective: a valid, reliable, individual-differences metric. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1271-1288.
Project supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia – FCT (Project Nº SFRH/BD/33648/2009)