Can you still remember that time in primary school when that boy with the crooked nose stole your pencil case and only to return it filled with custard and beetles? More to the point, do you often think about that time with clear recollection of the emotions you felt at the time? Perhaps your melancholic recollections are more recent and you often think about that fool who left you for the botanist with the ridiculous body piercing? Either way, a new study has shown that if you do spend time recalling negative events that could be harming your intellectual performance in the present.
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The background to this new research is the notion of “time perspective”. According to Stanford University Psychology Professor, Phillip Zimbardo, people can be classified according to their time perspective which means whether they are stuck in the past, live in the present, or are motivated by the future. Previous research has shown that people with a time perspective that is focussed on the future have a better chance of achieving long term goals and of resisting short term impulses.
In this study the researchers wanted to see whether your ingrained time perspective would impact your current academic performance. To do this they tested subjects to see whether they fitted into one of six time perspective categories: past-negative, past-positive, present-hedonistic, present-fatalist, future, and future-transcendental. They then matched these results against current academic results for these subjects (all university students).
The results showed that those with a higher past-negative time perspective (meaning they focus on the negative aspects of the past) had the lowest “grade-point averages”.
It’s all pretty simple really, ruminating negatively on the past means less time spent in the present moment meaning study will be less effective. It’s a good reminder that negative thinking breeds negative effects, it is always best to look on the bright side and, as C.S. Lewis said, to look onward and upward.
