The Interactive Role of Emotional Intelligence,Attachment Style,and Resilience in the Prediction of Time Perception in Doctoral Students

Abstract

Date Presented 04/05/19

Emotional intelligence, attachment style, and resilience were found to work together to predict time perception, which literature has shown to predict academic achievement in doctoral students. OT academicians can use these results to enhance admission criteria by screening for emotional intelligence, attachment style, and resilience and help at-risk students in online distance doctoral programs strengthen these predictors.

Primary Author and Speaker: Pat Precin

The perception of time is the subjective psychological process by which people make sense of personal experiences by putting them into different temporal categories. Students’ time perspective predicted academic outcomes: those with future orientations tend to have better academic outcomes than those with past or present (Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999, 2008). But why does school help discipline some students (e.g., by helping them move from a present-hedonistic to a more future orientation) but not all students? This study examined whether emotional intelligence, attachment style, and resilience predicted time perspective in coursework and dissertation phases of doctoral distance learning programs through the following research questions. Does resilience predict time perspective? Does attachment style predict time perspective? Does emotional intelligence predict time perspective? How will resilience, attachment style, and emotional intelligence interact to predict time perspective? Knowledge about the predictive nature of these variables on time perspective can guide academicians in helping at-risk students and enhancing admission criteria of online distance doctoral learners.

DESIGN/RESEARCH PRIORITY: This study was a nonexperimental quantitative survey design with cross-sectional data collection that supports the research priority of Functional Cognition.

Participants were 93 (68 female/25 male) distance learning doctoral candidates recruited from a convenience sample from 25 universities in the US with a 100% asynchronous online format; 51 participants were in the course work phase and 38 in the dissertation phase (4 did not delineate).

Data gathered online from the Zimbardo Time Perception Inventory, Resilience Scale, Psychosocial Maturity Inventory, Revised Adult Attachment Scale, and a demographic questionnaire were analyzed using step-wise logistic regression analyses.

RESULTS: Future time perspective was predicted by resilience, p = .005; independent attachment style, p = .008; dissertation phase, p = .006; marital status (married), p = .020; and gender (male), p = .010. Present-hedonistic time perspective was predicted by low emotional intelligence, p = .034 and dissertation phase, p = .037. Present-fatalistic time perspective was predicted by low emotional intelligence, p = 015. Past-positive time perspective was predicted by low anxiety attachment scores, p = .019. Past-negative time perspective was predicted by an anxiety attachment style, p = .034 and high emotional intelligence, p = .007.

CONCLUSION: Results advance Zimbardo and Boyd’s theory of time perspective by identifying these variables as predictors of time perspective and how they worked together to influence time perspective. The presence of predictors indicated that previous research was incomplete in its explanation of the relationship between time perspectives and human behaviors, such as academic achievement, because of the contribution of emotional intelligence, resilience, and attachment style to time perspective. Based on the results, academicians in online distance learning doctoral programs should provide students with: interventions that promote resilience and independence as well as a future time perspective, more structure in the dissertation phase of the doctoral program, methods for students to manage their emotions, more frequent communication with students to decrease anxiety, and assessment of at-risk students’ time perspective, resilience, emotional intelligence, and attachment style to determine the best intervention.

IMPACT: Results indicated the need to include emotional intelligence, attachment style, resilience, and time perception in admission criteria of online doctoral programs. Results can be used to create interventions for at-risk students.

References

Zimbardo, P., & Boyd, J. N. (2008). The time paradox: The new psychology of time that will change your life. New York, NY: Free Press.

Zimbardo, P. G., & Boyd, J. N. (1999). Putting time in perspective: A valid, reliable individual-differences metric. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1271-1288. Retrieved from http://www.timeperspective.com/Articles/1999PuttingTimeinPerspective.pdf