Time Perception And Long-Term Risks

Abstract

This paper reviews the psychological aspects of long-term risks and time. The role played by the time dimension has not been systematically investigated in most earlier studies of risk perception. However, the tirtfe aspect of risk can be identified in a factor space describing the fundamental components of risk perception. Experiments on the experience of fast and present time are described, and the results from these studies are related to futjjre time perception. Different people tend to have different time orientations (in terms of attention paid to past, present, and future time) and different time horizons (th,e maximum time ahead that one is concerned with). There seem to be few indisputable results valid across different content areas (e.g., health, economy, environment), and therefore it seems reasonable to talk about a number of specific time horizons, each one depending on the particular area under consideration. Cultural aspects are important in understanding time perception, and therefore some possible effects of cultural background on time perception are discussed. Intuitive models of forecasting, in particular experiments on predictions of curvilinear changes over time, are presented next. These studies show systematic errors when intuitive predictions are compared with factual trend s. Also, unaided predictions have been shown to depend strongly on the context in which the judgment task is performed. The paper concludes with results on psychological tliscounting of value and a model describing conflict and changes of evaluations from the time of a decision until its implementation.