Framing health messages for adolescents: Should we use objective time periods, temporal benchmarks, or both?

Time perspective is a cognitive-motivational construct, which has been shown to be related to decision-making, motivation and adjustment. The majority of research into time perspective has been conducted in college students and/or general population samples. Focus groups were held as part of a larger investigation into the relationship between adolescent time perspectives and alcohol-related behaviours. Results show that adolescents conceptualise time in both objective and more abstract ways. In particular, they appear to conceptualise short-term past and future more objectively and long-term past and future in more abstract terms. Their conceptualisation of the present predominated on immediate events, although in some cases the present was an extended one, covering a school-related period of time.