The Role of Time Perspective in Adjustment to Cancer

This dissertation, "The Role of Time Perspective in Adjustment to Cancer" by Mei-yi, Tang, 鄧美儀, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled "The Role of Time Perspective in Adjustment to Cancer" Submitted by TANG Mei-Yi for the degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in August 2005 Psychological adjustment to cancer has long been receiving attention from researchers (e.g. Brennen, 2001; Cordova et al., 2001). A lot of researchers have attempted to identify which coping strategies are the most effective in cancer experience. The present project categorizes coping strategies into emotion-focused and problem-focused ones, according to the classification of Lazarus and Folkman (1984). Current findings on the effectiveness of these coping strategies are mixed that they are found to be effective in some contexts but not in the others (e.g. Cohen, 2002; Kyngas et al., 2001; Penley, Tomaka, & Wiebe, 2002). These mixed findings point to a possibility that there may be some factors affecting the adaptiveness of these coping strategies. Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, Fung, & Charles, 2003) contends that how a person perceives time left in the rest of life can cause a motivational shift. When time is perceived as limited, emotional goals assume primacy, and hence emotion-focused coping. But when time is perceived as open-ended, knowledge-related goals and problem-focused coping would be preferred. The theory further maintains that if the coping strategy is congruent with ones' time perspective; better psychological well being would be resulted; otherwise, poorer well being will be resulted. Therefore, the present project explores whether time perspective would affect the use of emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping, as well as their effectiveness on cancer adjustment. Two studies were carried out. Study 1 investigated the hypotheses in a group of post-treatment cancer survivors in Hong Kong (N = 91), and Study 2 was conducted in a group of cancer in-patients in Beijing (N = 95). Participants completed a set of questionnaires including the Chinese version of Future Time Perspective Scale (Carstensen & Lang, 1996), Coping Response Inventory (Moos, 1993), Impact of Event Scale-Revised (Wu & Chan, 2003), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Leung, Wing, Kwong, Lo, & Shum, 1999), Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (Ho, Chan, & Ho, 2004), and Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) after informed consent. Results of both studies showed that all the participants used a greater proportion of emotion-focused coping than that of problem-focused coping, irrespective of their time perspectives. Participants with an open-ended time perspective coped more actively than did those with a limited time perspective. A longer time perspective was generally associated with better psychological well being. Moderating effect was only observed in the survivor sample that problem-focused coping was associated positively with posttraumatic stress only when time was perceived as limited. It is found that time perspective does not affect the proportion but the degree of each coping strategy used by cancer patients. Congruence of time perspective and coping is important for cancer survivors but not for in-patients under the acute stress of cancer treatment. These findings have clinical implications that, when devising interventions or coping strategies for patients, clinicians may need to consider their tim