I want to share with you some ideas about the secret power of time, in a very short time. 

Video: All right, start the clock please. 30 seconds studio. Keep it quiet please. Settle down. It's about time. End sequence. Take one. 15 
seconds studio. 10, nine, eight, seven,six, five, four, three, two ... 

Philip Zimbardo: Let's tune into the conversation of the principals in Adam's temptation."Come on Adam, don't be so wishy washy. Take a bite." "I did." "One bite, Adam. Don't abandon Eve." "I don't know, guys. I don't want to get in trouble." "Okay. One bite. What the hell?"
 (Laughter) Life is temptation. It's all about yielding, resisting, yes, no, now, later, impulsive, reflective,present focus and future focus. 
Promised virtues fall prey to the passions of the moment. 

Of teenage girls who pledged sexual abstinence and virginity until marriage -- thank you George Bush -- the majority, 60 percent, yielded to sexual temptations within one year. And most of them did so without using birth control. So much for promises. 

Now lets tempt four-year-olds, giving them a treat. They can have one marshmallow now. But if they wait until the experimenter comes back, they can have two. Of course it pays, if you like marshmallows, to wait. What happens is two-thirds of the kids give in to temptation. They cannot wait. The others, of course, wait. They resist the temptation. They delay the now for later. Walter Mischel, my colleague at Stanford, went back 14 years later, to try to discover what was different about those kids. There were enormous differences between kids who resistedand kids who yielded, in many ways. The kids who resisted scored 250 points higher on the SAT. That's enormous. That's like a whole set of different IQ points. They didn't get in as much trouble. They were better students. They were self-confident and determined. And the key for me today, the key for you, is, they were future-focused rather than present-focused. 

So what is time perspective? That's what I'm going to talk about today. Time perspective is the study of how individuals, all of us, divide the flow of your human experience into time zones or time categories. And you do it automatically and non-consciously. They vary between cultures, between nations, between individuals, between social classes, between education levels. And the problem is that they can become biased, because you learn to over-use some of them and under-use the others. 

What determines any decision you make? You make a decision on which you're going to base an action. For some people it's only about what is in the immediate situation, what other people are doing and what you're feeling. And those people, when they make their decisions in that format -- we're going to call them "present-oriented," because their focus is what is now. 

For others, the present is irrelevant. It's always about "What is this situation like that I've 

experienced in the past?" So that their decisions are based on past memories. And we're going to call those people "past-oriented," because they focus on what was.

 For others it's not the past, it's not thepresent, it's only about the future. Their focus is always about anticipatedconsequences. Cost-benefit analysis. We're going to call them"future-oriented." Their focus is on what will be.  So, time paradox, I want to argue, theparadox of time perspective, is something that influences every decision youmake, you're totally unaware of. Namely, the extent to which you have one ofthese biased time perspectives. Well there is actually six of them. There aretwo ways to be  present-oriented. Thereis two ways to be past-oriented, two ways to be future. You can focus onpast-positive, or past-negative. You can be present-hedonistic,namely you focuson the joys of life, or present-fatalist -- it doesn't matter, your life iscontrolled. You can be future-oriented, setting goals. Or you can betranscendental future:namely, life begins after death. Developing the mentalflexibility to shift time perspectives fluidly depending on the demands of thesituation, that's what you've got to learn to do.  So, very quickly, what is the optimal timeprofile? High on past-positive. Moderately high on  future. And moderate on present-hedonism. Andalways low on past-negative and present-fatalism. So the optimal temporal mixis what you get from the past -- past-positive gives you roots. You connectyour family, identity and your self. What you get from the future is wings tosoar to new destinations, new challenges. What you get from the presenthedonism is the energy, the energy to explore yourself, places, people,sensuality.  Any time perspective inexcess has more negatives than positives. What do futures sacrifice forsuccess? They sacrifice family time. They sacrifice friend time. They sacrificefun time. They sacrifice personal indulgence. They sacrifice hobbies. And theysacrifice sleep. So it affects their health. And they live for work,achievement and control. I'm sure that resonates with some of the TEDsters.(Laughter)  And it resonated for me. Igrew up as a poor kid in the South Bronx ghetto, a Sicilian family -- everyonelived in the past and present. I'm here as a future-oriented person who wentover the top, who did all these sacrifices because teachers intervened, andmade me future oriented. Told me don't eat that marshmallow, because if youwait you're going to get two of them, until I learned to balance out. I'veadded present-hedonism, I've added a focus on the past-positive, so, at 76years old, I am more energetic than ever, more productive, and I'm happier thanI have ever been. I just want to say that we are applying this to many worldproblems: changing the drop-out rates of school kids, combating addictions,enhancing teen health, curing vets' PTSD with time metaphors -- getting miraclecures -- promoting sustainability and conservation,reducing physical  rehabilitation where there is a 50-percentdrop out rate, altering appeals to suicidal terrorists, and modifying familyconflicts as time-zone clashes.  So Iwant to end by saying: many of life's puzzles can be solved by understandingyour time  perspective and that of others. And the idea is so simple, so obvious, but I think the consequences arereally profound. Thank you so much. (Applause）

 

健康的时间观念 – 菲利普· 津巴多 （The Phycology of Time - Philip Zimbardo）

这段演讲是心理学家Philip Zimbardo所做。什么是健康的时间观念呢？

 当初亚当和夏娃没有禁住苹果的诱惑，违背了上帝的意志，而遭到惩罚。

当代，又对一群4岁的孩子做了实验，孩子们被告知如果能够忍住棉花糖的诱惑，那么他们能够再得到一个棉花糖，然而绝大部分孩子都没能抵抗住诱惑，14年后，那些忍住诱惑得到第二块棉花糖的孩子的大学入学考试要远远高于其他孩子。

他们的智商没有差别，差别就在于时间的洞察力，即：个人如何在在家的划分区域中划分个人体验。人群中，有的人面对过去，有的人面对未来，有的人享受现在。当我们在做出一个决定的时候，有些因素是我们没有意识到的。级对过去的消极情绪，过去的积极情绪，现在的消极情绪，现在的积极情绪，未来的消极情绪，和未来的积极情绪。那些关注现在的人，倾向于享乐主义，他们只注重此时此刻的感受；而那些关注未来的人，倾向于关注未来的某一目标，并全力以赴。

研究表明：最佳的时间洞察力应该是适度的享受现在，更多的关注未来，同时绝不考虑消极因素。最佳的时间洞察力取决于过去的环境经历的影响，也憧憬着未来的目标和挑战。
 

我们为了未来的目标和憧憬，愿意牺牲一些东西，比如：睡眠，爱好，享乐，休闲。
 

Philp说他自己就是这样的人，他成长于西西里的贫民窟，但是他执着的关注着未来，并且愿意为此牺牲那些享乐，所以现在他生活的无比快乐，并且比同龄人有着更多的精力和动力。


 菲利普·津巴多（Philip George Zimbardo，1933年3月23日－）是一位美国心理学家、斯坦福大学退休教授，以斯坦福监狱实验和编写大学心理学教材而著称。美国心理学会(APA)前主席。自1968年以来担任斯坦福大学的心理学教授。他于20世纪50年代末在耶鲁大学获得博士学位，师从卡尔·霍夫兰(Carl Hovland)在耶鲁大学“态度改变研究计划”中做研究工作