An experimental study on attitudes towards time and on the behavioural implications of such attitudes was conducted on 46 staff members of an Italian bank. The methods used were a Semantic Differential (SD) composed of three stimulus words (the past, the present and the future) and twelve adjectival scales, as well as in depth interviews aiming at providing a character-profile of the subjects. The results indicated that the largest grouping of subjects could be considered past-oriented. The second group fell into the category of future-oriented and the third group was made up by present-oriented individuals. For a minority, time dimensions were blurred and no specific orientation prevailed. Other SD measurements permitted to obtain a more articulate picture of the nature of attitudes toward time.
This paper deals with the concept of time perception and with specific research carried out to assess and measure some of the problems related to the temporal orientation of a city. Unlike chronological time, which is based on a universal, independent-of-life concept of time, the subjective perception of time is a cultural phenomenon based on the awareness and feelings that different people, groups and communities manifest in relation to the flow and duration of time. The research was conducted in 1977 on a sample of 259 adult citizens of Palermo. The technique adopted was the Semantic Differential, to find out the cognitive meaning of several concepts, including "the past", "the present" and "the future". Measurements of the direction of judgements, their intensity and their distances from other concepts provided a sufficiently broad framework for an analytical approach to the problems.