Parenthood and the temporal limits of concern for the future

Perspectives about the future have been studied by psychologists for decades. This study investigates two specific aspects of future time perspective, the temporal limit of feeling personally invested in the future, and what reasons motivate a feeling of investment in the distant future. We propose that evolved kinship emotions are a primary motivator of concern for the distant future. This led us to hypothesize that the temporal limit of concern for the future would be greater in parents than in non-parents, and that descendants would be a common reason cited for concern for the distant future. These hypotheses were supported in survey studies that included 896 participants, as well as in structured interviews conducted on a subset of respondents. Parents reported feeling invested a greater number of years into the future and thinking about the posthumous future more frequently than non-parents. Surveys also found that women were concerned further into the future than men. In interviews, concern for self was the most frequently cited motivator of feeling invested in the distant future, followed by concern for descendants. These results suggest that a willingness to invest in the distant future is influenced by evolved kinship emotions. We discuss how approaches to long-term social challenges such as climate change may benefit from a better understanding of how innate cognitive tendencies may guide thinking about the distant future.