Understanding public policy through a temporal lens – IAS Excellence Lecture

The cognitive ability to mentally travel through time allows people to project themselves backward and forward in time. Research has shown that anticipating and envisioning possible future events, and imagining ourselves experiencing those events, have important implications for health, finance, and environmental protection. While many public policies in these domains concern events that may occur decades into the future, current evidence suggests that we typically consider a much shorter temporal distance when spontaneously thinking about the future. In this presentation, I will first provide a theoretical summary of the links between time perspective and distinct life domains, with a particular focus on environmental issues. I will then review evidence examining associations between future time perspective and environmental engagement at the individual and societal levels. Overall, I will argue that a better understanding of psychological time can improve the design and implementation of public policies.