Consideration of future consequences

[3] CFC has been shown to have implications for health-related behaviours, as those performed to protect health typically involve delayed benefits and immediate costs.

[8][9] Considering the future implications of one’s behavior is also important when making decisions regarding treatment options for health problems.

For example, increasing evidence suggests that long-term estrogen therapy raises the risk of breast cancer,[10] drugs used to reduce stomach acid have been linked to numerous future health problems,[11] and long-term blood pressure medication use can cause a number of side effects.

[7][13][14] CFC scale scores were found to be positively correlated with grade point average and also predicted success and goal attainment among students.

Individuals with higher CFC report engaging in fewer aggressive and risky driving behaviours and are more likely to express driving-related anger in an appropriate manner.

Studies have examined whether CFC has implications in the way people handle their money, specifically financial behavior that maximizes long-term well being (fiscal responsibility).

Results showed that individuals with low levels of CFC had greater impulsive buying tendencies and were more likely to engage in temporal discounting.

Additionally, another study among college students found that more compulsive buyers who focused on maximizing immediate consequences were at a much greater risk of building up significant amounts of credit card debt.

Measures of internal locus of control, delay of gratification, and the future oriented items on the Stanford Time Perspective Inventory,[24] have all been found to be positively correlated with CFC.

Mean CFC scores obtained in previous studies have ranged from 4.84 among undergraduates,[20] 3.87 among commuters with an average age of 38 years,[27] and 3.20 among a sample of 50- to 69-year-olds.

The temporal frame allows the expected outcomes of a behaviour (benefits and losses) to be presented as occurring in the short-term or in the long-term.

Studies[2][26][28] have shown that high CFC individuals indicate greater intentions to engage in healthy behavior when the long-term consequences are positive and the short-term consequences are negative, whereas low CFC individuals indicate greater intentions when presented with the opposite frame.

O’Connor, Warttig, Conner, and Lawton[29] examined the effectiveness of a web-based intervention aimed at raising awareness of the risks associated with hypertension.