Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 29:1 (2022) ► pp.160–179

Worrying about your future

How anxiety influences people’s implicit spatial conceptions of time

| Sichuan International Studies University,
According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, people’s sagittal mental space-time mappings are conditioned by their temporal-focus attention. Based on this, it can be predicted that, by virtue of their future-oriented thinking, individuals with high anxiety should be more likely to think about time according to the future-in-front mapping than those with low anxiety. Utilizing a combined correlational and experimental approach, we found converging evidence for this prediction. Studies 1 and 2 found that individuals higher in dispositional anxiety and state anxiety, who characteristically worry about the future, were more likely to conceptualize the future as in front of them and the past as behind than individuals lower in dispositional anxiety and state anxiety. Study 3 showed that participants who were induced with anxiety mood tended to map the future on a frontal position, compared to those in the baseline condition. These findings shed further light on the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, thus providing the first experimental evidence that emotional experience can influence people’s temporal-focus attention in determining their metaphorical sagittal orientation of time.
Keywords: time metaphors, anxiety, future-oriented thinking, Temporal Focus Hypothesis, emotion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and background of the research
  • 2.Study 1
    • 2.1Method
      • 2.1.1Participants
      • 2.1.2Materials and procedure
    • 2.2Results and discussion
  • 3.Study 2
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials and procedure
    • 3.3Results and discussion
  • 4.Study 3
    • 4.1Method
      • 4.1.1Participants
      • 4.1.2Materials and procedure
    • 4.2Results and discussion
      • 4.2.1Manipulation checks
      • 4.2.2Implicit space-time mapping and temporal focus
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.20019.li
References (63)
References
Alcaraz Carrión, Daniel & Javier Valenzuela. 2022. Time as space vs. time as quantity in Spanish: A co-speech gesture study. Language and Cognition 14(1). 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anagnostopoulos, Fotios & Fay Griva. 2012. Exploring time perspective in Greek young adults: Validation of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory and relationships with mental health indicators. Social Indicators Research 106(1). 41–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Åström, Elisabeth, Ali Seif, Britt Wiberg & Maria Grazia Carelli. 2018. Getting “stuck” in the future or the past: Relationships between dimensions of time perspective, executive functions, and repetitive negative thinking in anxiety. Psychopathology 51(6). 362–370. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Åström, Elisabeth, Britt Wiberg, Anna Sircova, Marie Wiberg & Maria Grazia Carelli. 2014. Insights into features of anxiety through multiple aspects of psychological time. Journal of Integrative Psychology and Therapeutics 2(3). 1–7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bechara, Antoine, Antonio R. Damasio, Hanna Damasio & Steven W. Anderson. 1994. Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to prefrontal cortex. Cognition 501. 7–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beck, Aaron T., Gary Brown, Robert A. Steer, Judy I. Eidelson & John H. Riskind. 1987. Differentiating anxiety and depression: A test of the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 96(3). 179–183. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bishop, Sonia J. 2007. Neurocognitive mechanisms of anxiety: An integrative account. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 111. 307–316. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008. Neural mechanisms underlying selective attention to threat. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 11291. 141–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boroditsky, Lera. 2000. Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition 75(1). 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. Does language shape thought? English and Mandarin speakers’ conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology 43(1). 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. Language and the construction of time through space. Trends in Neurosciences 41(10). 651–653. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burns, Patrick, Teresa McCormack, Agnieszka J. Jaroslawska, Patrick A. O’Connor & Eugene M. Caruso. 2019. Time points: A gestural study of the development of space-time mappings. Cognitive Science 43(12). e12801. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bylund, Emanuel, Pascal Gygax, Steven Samuel & Panos Athanasopoulos. 2020. Back to the future? The role of temporal focus for mapping time onto space. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 73(2). 174–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Callizo-Romero, Carmen, Slavica Tutnjević, Maja Pandza, Marc Ouellet, Alexander Kranjec, Sladjana Ilić, Yan Gu, Tilbe Göksun, Sobh Chahboun, Daniel Casasanto & Julio Santiago. 2020. Temporal focus and time spatialization across cultures. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 27(6). 1247–1258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Casasanto, Daniel & Roberto Bottini. 2014. Mirror reading can reverse the flow of time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143(2). 473–479. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. 1973. Space, time, semantics, and the child. In Timothy E. Moore (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, 27–63. New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cooperrider, Kensy & Rafael Núñez. 2009. Across time, across the body: Transversal temporal gestures. Gesture 9(2). 181–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cooperrider, Kensy, James Slotta & Rafael Núñez. 2022. The ups and downs of space and time: Topography in Yupno language, culture, and cognition. Language and Cognition 14(1). 131–159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Richard. J. 1998. Affective style and affective disorders: Perspectives from affective neuroscience. Cognition & Emotion 12(3). 307–330. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de la Fuente, Juanma, Julio Santiago, Antonio Román, Cristina Dumitrache & Daniel Casasanto. 2014. When you think about it, your past is in front of you: How culture shapes spatial conceptions of time. Psychological Science 251. 1682–1690. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donzuso, Giulia, Antonio Cerasa, Maria C. Gioia, Manuela Caracciolo & Aldo Quattrone. 2014. The neuroanatomical correlates of anxiety in a healthy population: Differences between the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale. Brain and Behavior 4(4). 504–514. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duffy, Sarah E. & Michele I. Feist. 2017. Power in time: The influence of power posing on metaphoric perspectives on time. Language and Cognition 9(4). 637–647. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duffy, Sarah E., Michele I. Feist & Steven McCarthy. 2014. Moving through time: The role of personality in three real-life contexts. Cognitive Science 38(8). 1662–1674. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emmorey, Karen. 2001. Space on hand: The exploitation of signing space to illustrate abstract thought. In Merideth Gattis (ed.), Spatial schemas and abstract thought, 147–174. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Griffin, Edward & Diane Wildbur. 2020. The role of balanced time perspective on student well-being and mental health: A mixed-methods study. Mental Health & Prevention 181. 200181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gu, Yan, Lisette Mol, Marieke Hoetjes & Marc Swerts. 2017. Conceptual and lexical effects on gestures: The case of vertical spatial metaphors for time in Chinese. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 32(8). 1048–1063. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gu, Yan, Yeqiu Zheng & Marc Swerts. 2019. Which is in front of Chinese people, past or future? The effect of language and culture on temporal gestures and spatial conceptions of time. Cognitive Science 43(12). e12804. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harmon-Jones, Eddie. 2003. Anger and the behavioral approach system. Personality and Individual Differences 351. 995–1005. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hartley, Catherine A. & Elizabeth A. Phelps. 2012. Anxiety and decision-making. Biological Psychiatry 72(2). 113–118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. From space to time: Temporal adverbials in the world’s languages. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Hauser, David J., Margaret S. Carter & Brian P. Meier. 2009. Mellow Monday and furious Friday: The approach-related link between anger and time representation. Cognition and Emotion 23(6). 1166–1180. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoyer, Jürgen, Andrew T. Gloster & Philipp Yorck Herzberg. 2009. Is worry different from rumination? Yes, it is more predictive of psychopathology! GMSPsycho-Social-Medicine 61. 1–9. Retrieved from [URL].
Huumo, Tuomas. 2015. Temporal frames of reference and the locative case marking of the Finnish adposition ete ‘in front of/ahead’. Lingua 1641. 45–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ji, Li-Jun, Albert Lee & Tieyuan Guo. 2010. The thinking styles of Chinese people. In Michael Harris Bond (ed.), The Oxford handbook of Chinese psychology, 155–167. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kosecki, Krzysztof. 2016. The Western conception of time in signed languages. In Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (ed.), Conceptualizations of time, 85–102. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Heng. 2021. Time heals all wounds: Analysis of changes in temporal focus and implicit space–time mappings among survivors of the 2019 China earthquake over time. Language and Cognition 13(4). 595–612. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Heng & Yu Cao. 2017. Personal attitudes toward time: The relationship between temporal focus, space-time mappings and real life experiences. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 58(3). 193–198. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. Time will tell: Temporal landmarks influence metaphorical associations between space and time. Cognitive Linguistics 29(4). 677–701. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022. Time for politics: The relationship between political attitude and implicit space-time mappings. Current Psychology 411. 1184–1190. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lin, Hao & Yan Gu. 2022. “Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.” A functional description of time expressions through fingers based on Chinese Sign Language naturalistic data. Language and Cognition 14(1). 61–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Margolies, Skye Ochsner & L. Elizabeth Crawford. 2008. Event valence and spatial metaphors of time. Cognition and Emotion 22(7). 1401–1414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marteau, Theresa M. & Hilary Bekker. 1992. The development of a six-item short-form of the state scale of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). British Journal of Clinical Psychology 31(3). 301–306. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Massar, Stijn A., Nisan M. Mol, J. Leon Kenemans & Joanna M. Baas. 2011. Attentional bias in high-and low-anxious individuals: Evidence for threat-induced effects on engagement and disengagement. Cognition and Emotion 25(5). 805–817. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miloyan, Beyon, Nancy A. Pachana & Thomas Suddendorf. 2014. The future is here: A review of foresight systems in anxiety and depression. Cognition and Emotion 28(5). 795–810. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mohamed, Mohamed Taha. 2018. Is up always good and down always bad? From linguistic to conceptual orientational metaphors in Arabic. Pragmatics & Cognition 25(2). 203–275. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moore, Kevin Ezra. 2006. Space to time mappings and temporal concepts. Cognitive Linguistics 171. 199–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Motro, Daphna & Daniel Sullivan. 2017. Could two negative emotions be a positive? The effects of anger and anxiety in enemyship. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 691. 130–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mullaney, Jamie L. & Janet Hinson Shope. 2015. Feeling the hands of time: Intersections of time and emotion. Sociology Compass 9(10). 853–863. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Núñez, Rafael & Kensy Cooperrider. 2013. The tangle of space and time in human cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17(5). 220–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Núñez, Rafael & Eve Sweetser. 2006. With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science 30(3). 401–450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pitt, Benjamin & Daniel Casasanto. 2020. The correlations in experience principle: How culture shapes concepts of time and number. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 149(6). 1048–1070. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shipp, Abbie J. & Brad Aeon. 2019. Temporal focus: Thinking about the past, present, and future. Current Opinion in Psychology 261. 37–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shipp, Abbie J., Jeffrey Edwards & Lisa Schurer Lambert. 2009. Conceptualization and measurement of temporal focus: The subjective experience of the past, present, and future. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 110(1). 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spielberger, Charles D., Robert L. Gorsuch & Richard E. Lushene. 1970. Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Stites, Lauren & Şeyda Özçalışkan. 2021. “The time is at hand”: Literacy predicts changes in children’s gestures about time. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 501. 967–983. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Torralbo, Ana, Julio Santiago & Juan Lupiáñez, J. 2006. Flexible conceptual projection of time onto spatial frames of reference. Cognitive Science 30(4). 745–757. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Walker, Esther & Kensy Cooperrider. 2016. The continuity of metaphor: Evidence from temporal gestures. Cognitive Science 401. 481–495. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zaleski, Zbigniew. 1993. Attitudes face à l’avenir: Espoir et anxiété. Revue Québécoise de Psychologie 14(1). 85–111.Google Scholar
. 1996. Future anxiety: Concept, measurement, and preliminary research. Personality and Individual Differences 21(2). 165–174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Jie & Qi Gao. 2012. Validation of the trait anxiety scale for state-trait anxiety inventory in suicide victims and living controls of Chinese rural youths. Archives of Suicide Research 16(1). 85–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zheng, Weiqi, Ye Liu, Chang Hong Liu, Yu-Hsin Chen, Quian Cui & Xiaolan Fu. 2019. The influence of event valence and emotional states on the metaphorical comprehension of time. Frontiers in Psychology 101. 410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimbardo, Philip G. & John N. Boyd. 1999. Putting time in perspective: A valid, reliable, individual-differences metric. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(6). 1271–1288. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Wang, Renqiang, Heng Li & Bo Yang
2023. The physics of time. Review of Cognitive Linguistics DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.