Choosing the future

The purpose of this study was to examine sex differences in college students' projections about their futures. The impact of future expectations on the present and the impact of the future on sociopsychological stages of development were also areas of inquiry.

Four hundred eighty-one University of Cincinnati students between the ages of 18 and 25 participated in the pilot and primary studies. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Texas Social Behavior Inventory to measure self-esteem, and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) to measure sex role orientation. Students responded to the PAQ twice: once according to their present self-concept and again according to their ideal self-concept. Each student also wrote a description of her/his ideal day in the present time. Students then were led through a guided fantasy of a day 5, 10, and 20 years in the future. Following each guided fantasy, they prepared a one-page written description of their imagined day.

The Murray Center holds all paper and computer-accessible data from the pilot and primary studies.