Development and Validation of a Brief Multidimensional Measure of Future Orientation in Young Adults

Youth’s future orientation (FO) is a robust predictor of a successful transition to adulthood, and a protective and promotive factor for resilience. However, assessing FO during adolescence and emerging adulthood is typically unidimensional, burdensome, and lacks attention to positive and negative thoughts about the future. This study aimed to develop and validate the Orienting and Planning the Future Scale (OPFS), a short inventory of FO. Study 1 included participants aged 18 to 25 (N = 607, 65.6% female) recruited online via the M-Turk platform. Study 2 included a sample of emerging adults of low socioeconomic status (SES) (N = 224, 54.5% female). Confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-factor structure. We found evidence for convergent, discriminant, incremental, and criterion-related validity. Higher positive professional/financial FO was associated with reduced risky sexual behaviors (rank-order change). Thus, our results demonstrate reliability and validity of the OPFS among two samples of emerging adults.