Developing a Time Perspective Curriculum to Reduce Discrimination and Tobacco Use Among Adolescents
By: Daniel Grafil, Juan Carlos Argueta Rodriguez, Jo Nisa Cabilogan, Nada Habash, Ilke Bayazitli, Betsy Centeno
Department: Psychology
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Zena Mello
Time perspective, how one views aspects of the past, present, and future, has been seen to influence one’s behavior. Studies have shown that interventions based on time perspective have had success in helping participants change their behavior and maintain new healthy habits that they have learned (Hall and Fong, 2003). An area where this may be relevant is changing habits of tobacco use, which has been linked to discrimination. We believe that time perspective interventions can be used to help reduce tobacco use in teens. This study examined a preliminary curriculum designed to use time perspective as a way to diminish the negative effects of discrimination, which would then lead to a decrease in tobacco use among teens. Participants were recruited from two public high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. They were scheduled to participate in a Zoom meeting, during which they would take part in one of the curriculum’s five modules. Following the lesson, participants were asked for their feedback on the module. A qualitative analysis of the feedback showed that although many of the participants saw the modules as age appropriate and of moderate difficulty, more work needs to be done to make the modules more engaging and help them better understand the concept of time perspective, as well as create a concrete tie between the module’s content and tobacco use.