Teachers’ future time perspective and work-related stress: a day-to-day investigation

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Teachers often experience work-related stress as anxiety. Future time perspective (FTP) may shape anticipatory appraisal and coping, yet daily ordering with stress in teachers remains unclear. DESIGN: 15-workday diary study. METHODS: = 151; 1,269 daily reports) completed end-of-day questionnaires on work-related stress (state anxiety indicators) and two work-domain FTP facets: future-oriented cognition and future-oriented affect. Bayesian Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling separated within-teacher fluctuations from between-teacher differences and estimated concurrent and next-workday associations. RESULTS: Within teachers, stress was higher on days with more future-oriented cognition and lower with more positive future-oriented affect. No next-workday cross-lagged effects emerged. Between teachers, higher average future-oriented cognition co-occurred with higher average stress, whereas more positive average future-oriented affect co-occurred with lower average stress. CONCLUSIONS: Future-oriented cognition is not uniformly protective and may reflect anticipatory worry when negatively toned, while positive future-oriented affect aligns with lower stress. Distinguishing cognitive from affective future orientation advances stress-and-coping research and suggests key processes may unfold within the workday.