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SUBJECTIVE TEMPORAL DISTANCE AND EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT
Author(s) -
Bratfisch Oswald,
Ekman Gösta,
Lundberg Ulf,
Kruger Kunnibert
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1971.tb00618.x
Subject(s) - psychology , logarithm , exponential function , power function , function (biology) , constant (computer programming) , monotonic function , simple (philosophy) , social psychology , statistics , cognitive psychology , econometrics , mathematics , mathematical analysis , computer science , philosophy , epistemology , evolutionary biology , biology , programming language
BRATFISCH, O., EKMAN, G., LUNDBERG, U., and KRÜGER, K. Subjective temporal distance and emotional involvement. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971, 12, 147–160. –Three experiments were conducted in which subjects were required to estimate the subjective temporal distances of various historical periods, each of which was named after some person, event, or social process. In all, 65 subjects participated. In related experiments the same subjects estimated their degree of emotional involvement in what might have happened to people living during the various periods named. Using the actual dates when the events took place, the relation between objective and subjective temporal distance was found to be described by a simple power function. Emotional involvement was shown to be inversely related in a simple monotonic manner to both subjective and objective temporal distance, when other variables were so far as possible held constant. A number of different alternative power functions as well as an exponential and a logarithmic function were fitted to the empirical data. A specific type of power function with three empirical constants and a simple exponential function were found to describe experimetal data to a good approximation.