Occupational Future Time Perspective and Mental Health Problems across Adolescence: Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis and Alternative Variations

Future time perspective (FTP) is a general mental capacity to anticipate future, which activates self-regulation (e.g., goal-seeking behaviours). It has been shown negatively associated with various psychological problems cross-sectionally. However, this association requires corroboration from longitudinal within-person analyses, and in domain-specific FTP. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs) with several adjustments and sensitivity analyses were fitted to the z-proso longitudinal data to analyse how occupational FTP and psychological/neurodevelopmental outcomes (ADHD/externalising/internalising problems) covaried across ages 13, 15, and 17 (controlling for sex, SES, school type). A small effect was found (FTP at age 15 predicting externalising problems at age 17, β= .146, p= .05) in a RI-CLPM, and in a (contemporaneous) reciprocal panel model specification ADHD at age 17 predicted FTP at age 17 (β= -.310, p= .024). However, no cross-lagged effects were found to be robustly supported across different model specifications/adjustments.