Temporal perspective and the transmission of life experience in senility

The article presents the relationship between temporal perspective and wisdom transmission of the people in late adulthood to the younger generation. The participants were asked to write a short “Letter to a grandchild”. The letters written by 119 participants aged over 60 years old were analyzed qualititavely in terms of content and form, using categories from previous studies (Dryll, Tokarska, Cierpka, 2016). In order to assess temporal perspective the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) by Philip G. Zimbardo and John Boyd was used (adaptation by Aneta Przepiórka, Małgorzata Sobol-Kwapińska and Tomasz Jankowski, 2016). A number of dependencies between transmission characteristics and temporal perspective scales was observed. The results follow a characteristic pattern where instead of the focus on timing (past, present, and future), an attitude (positive or negative) seems to be more important. The results do not support the concept of a balanced temporal perspective, which can be explained by cultural differences as well as developmental characteristics of the participants.