Time perceptions and time allocation preferences among adolescent boys and girls

Adolescence,  Spring, 1996  by James E. Bruno

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An article in Time magazine entitled, "Time is Not on Their Side" (Taylor, 1989) noted that distortions in time perceptions and allocations resulting from child-rearing practices eventually place many inner-city youths "at-risk" in a rigid, time-oriented school environment. As the author noted, "It is uncommon for parents of at-risk children to refer to time, establish the relationship of time allocation to rewards, or to even sequence events (continuity) in their child-rearing practices." In essence, the article notes that the time structure of school and the consequences of different types of time allocations on rewards and punishment (conditioning) are largely unfamiliar to these at-risk children.

Research on time perceptions of adolescents conducted by Baruch in Israel, and Baruch, Bruno, & Horn (1987) in the United States, has attempted to address, from a school policy perspective, the impact of time perception on a child's behavior in school. At a national level, Roark (1992) reported the results of a recent Carnegie Report which stressed the need to develop more "directed" types of activities for students. A major characteristic of at-risk students is that they have a great deal of time to allocate, while achieving students seem to never have enough time. The challenge for educators and social planners is not to simply "fill" their time, but to provide activities that will be a valuable investment in their future.

For the social scientist, time allocation preferences of adolescents can also provide an interesting set of "markers" for modeling student behaviors in school. External vs. internal loci of control, for example, are highly dependent on time perceptions and allocations.

While time allocation is one component of an adolescent's behavior, another is the recognition of a past, present, and future. Colarusso (1988) noted in his important psychoanalytical studies of temporal development of children: "The present has meaning primarily in terms of whether the 'loved one' is at hand or absent; the past is defined as the time emphasis before he or she was discovered; the future as the time of anticipated pleasure together" (p. 17).

For adolescents, relating the past, present, and future consolidates or integrates their sense of who they are (memory of the past), what they are doing now (present behavior), and what they plan to become in the future (imagination and vision). A sense of a personal self is strongly associated with a notion of the continuity of time. In fact, what seem to be measured by the composition of the time investment portfolio, is how the "self' is valued or, simply put, how society values the time of individuals and thus, how society values them. If time is not valued, then the self is not valued, and this deprivation is reflected in the composition of the time investment portfolio and is manifested in at-risk behaviors both in and out of school.

Allocations of Time

An important theoretical framework presented in this study is that there is a rational, personal lifestyle goal that governs the decision-making process with regard to the allocating of time to directed and nondirected activities (i.e., the composition of the time-investment portfolio). The model used in this study assumes that we all allocate our time among competing directed and nondirected activities in order to ensure the attainment of our lifestyle goals. For purposes of this study, U = f ([X.sub.1], [X.sub.2], [X.sub.3], [X.sub.4]) where U = utility and X is a classification of directed and nondirected activities. For example, investments of time leading to material success ([X.sub.1]), social acceptability ([X.sub.2]), personal development ([X.sub.3]), and passive entertainment ([X.sub.4]),: are reflected in the composition of the personal time-investment portfolio.