The Time Web: Correlating Nostalgia, Procrastination and Time Perspective

Abstract

Late 20th century saw a shift in the understanding of nostalgia as geographical to focus on its temporal aspects. Last century witnessed a wave of research on nostalgia as well as procrastination focusing on their more positive impacts. Despite the strong temporal basis of both these phenomena, there exists only scarce, if not zilch, literature studying them together. Thus, this paper investigates possible associations between these routinely experienced phenomena and temporal orientations. The aim of the present study was to correlate the phenomena of nostalgia, procrastination and time perspective. Using Batcho’s Nostalgia Inventory, Lay’s General Procrastination Scale and brief measure of Zimbardo’s Time Perspective Inventory, an online questionnaire was prepared to collect data from respondents of age group 17 to 21 years through convenience sampling technique. Results obtained through descriptive and inferential statistics reflected significant correlations of nostalgia with past positive, present fatalism and future time perspective as well as of procrastination with past positive and future time perspective. The correlations obtained have been interpreted in light of the similarities among the phenomena and previous researches. Further implications for this study have also been discussed with respect to their applications in therapeutic and educational settings, and the need for further research regarding their impacts across ages and cultures.