Time perspective in career-related choices: Applications of time-discounting principles

The article reports two studies applying time-discounting principles to car eer-related issues. The first study on 40 participants examined the influen ce of time delay on decisions between options for paying a student union fe e or receiving a student scholarship. The predicted positive-negative asymm etry was obtained, with greater time discounting for positive than negative outcomes. The second study compared 13 expert career counselors with 22 si milar-age novices in terms of their degree of discounting for their own job preferences and for those of an average graduate. No differences emerged b etween the novices and experts in relation to their own choices, but expert s presented a more realistic assessment of the average graduate decisions t han did the novices. The results are discussed in terms of the importance o f time perspective in career choice, framing effects, the implicit time con structs in occupational information, and the difficulty of applying career expertise to one's own job choices. (C) 2000 Academic Press.