Morning is tomorrow, evening is today: relationships between chronotype and time perspective

Abstract

The present study explores the relationship between Morningness–Eveningness and five personality dimensions for Time Perspective (TP), representing psychological attitudes toward time. Although these constructs are related to different time horizons (i.e., daytime vs. life-time horizon), existing empirical data regarding their personality and behavioral correlates allows for the prediction that some of the TP dimensions are significantly related to diurnal preference. A sample of 309 university students (30.1% male) aged between 19 and 26 completed the Polish adaptation of the morningness–eveningness questionnaire (MEQ) and the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI). Our research confirmed the main hypotheses, that Morningness is positively related to Future TP, whereas Eveningness correlates positively with Present-Hedonistic TP. Moreover, chronotype proved to be significantly related to other TP scales, as well as to the Deviation from Balanced Time Perspective (DBTP) coefficient, an indicator of a balanced time perspective, showing that Morning-types generally tend to express a more adaptive attitude toward psychological time. The possible mechanisms of the relationship, as well as implications for practice and theory are discussed in respect to the obtained data. The paper contributes to the knowledge about the relationship between circadian typology and personality in young adults.

Keywords:

• morningness
• eveningness
• MEQ
• time perspective
• ZTPI
• personality

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to Professor Wanda Ciarkowska for providing us a Polish adaptation of MEQ with normalization data; to Professor Ewa Czerniawska, Dr. Zuzanna Toeplitz, Barbara Zdral, and Katarzyna Erkiert for data collection and management; and to our kind subjects for their gracious cooperation. Primary support for this work was provided by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Educations N N106 039938 grant.