Consideration of Future Consequences Scale

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Abstract

The Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) construct captures a fundamental human dilemma: the tension between immediate gratification and long-term rewards. Originally conceptualized in the mid-1990s, this psychological framework helps researchers understand why some individuals readily sacrifice present comfort for future gains, while others prioritize immediate desires. Measuring this trait accurately is crucial for predicting behaviors across diverse domains, from financial planning and environmental conservation to health-related decision-making.

While the CFC scale has been extensively utilized in Western contexts, its psychometric properties in non-Western, developing nations have remained relatively unexplored. This gap is significant because cultural norms heavily influence temporal orientation. To address this, recent research has focused on adapting and validating the instrument for Malaysian Young Adults. By establishing a culturally sensitive, psychometrically sound version of the scale, researchers can better investigate how future-oriented thinking manifests in Southeast Asian populations, ultimately enriching our global understanding of temporal cognition.

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Keywords
Consideration of Future Consequences
psychometrics
Cross-cultural validation
Time perspective
Malaysian Young Adults
Factor analysis

📊 Psychometric Scorecard

Items Count
10
Structure
Multidimensional
Cronbach's α
0.87
McDonald's ω
0.87
Validation Country
📍 Malaysia

Translation Method: Forward-backward translation

Authors

👤 Long She

👤 Lan Ma

👤 Fatemeh Khoshnavay Fomani
✉ [email protected]

Purpose

The primary utility of the CFC scale lies in its predictive power regarding human behavior. For researchers and clinicians, understanding a person's temporal orientation provides a critical lens for analyzing risk-taking, impulsivity, and goal-directed actions. However, psychological instruments cannot be universally applied without rigorous Cross-cultural validation. Different societies possess unique cultural dimensions regarding time, as highlighted by global leadership and cultural studies.

Validating this scale in Malaysia serves a dual purpose. First, it provides local researchers with a reliable tool to study behavioral phenomena, such as financial mismanagement or health risks, among young Adults, a demographic particularly vulnerable to short-term thinking. Second, it contributes to the broader psychometric literature by testing the scale's structural stability outside of Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations. This ensures that the measurement of future-oriented cognition is genuinely robust and cross-culturally applicable.

Construct

The psychological construct of CFC revolves around temporal discounting and future orientation. Initially, the construct was often treated as unidimensional, placing individuals on a single continuum ranging from highly present-focused to highly future-focused. However, contemporary psychometric evaluations have increasingly supported a bi-dimensional framework.

This two-factor model separates the construct into two distinct but related sub-domains: CFC-Immediate and CFC-Future. The immediate dimension captures an individual's preference for short-term outcomes and instant gratification, whereas the future dimension reflects a deliberate concern for the distant implications of current actions. Recognizing these as separate factors allows for a more nuanced understanding of intrapersonal conflict, acknowledging that a person might simultaneously experience strong desires for immediate rewards while still holding a genuine concern for their future well-being.

Validity

Establishing the validity of the adapted scale involved a comprehensive, multi-step approach. Initially, content validity was secured through expert panel reviews, utilizing the Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and modified kappa coefficients to ensure the translated items accurately reflected the intended psychological concepts without cultural distortion.

Construct validity was subsequently evaluated through rigorous statistical modeling. The researchers demonstrated convergent validity by examining Composite Reliability (CR) and the Average Variance Extracted (AVE), ensuring that items within each subscale were meaningfully related. Furthermore, discriminant validity was established using both the traditional Fornell-Larcker criterion and the more modern Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio of correlations. By keeping HTMT values below the stringent 0.85 threshold, the analysis confirmed that the immediate and future dimensions are statistically distinct constructs rather than overlapping artifacts.

Reliability

In psychometric evaluation, demonstrating internal consistency is paramount to ensuring that an instrument measures a construct reliably across different samples. For this adaptation, the researchers moved beyond the traditional reliance on Cronbach's alpha by also incorporating McDonald's omega and Maximal Reliability (MaxR) metrics.

The results demonstrated excellent internal consistency for both subscales. The CFC-Immediate factor yielded an alpha and omega of 0.901, alongside a composite reliability of 0.887. Meanwhile, the CFC-Future factor showed an alpha of 0.867, an omega of 0.868, and a composite reliability of 0.867. These values comfortably exceed the standard 0.70 threshold required for research purposes, indicating that the items within each dimension are highly intercorrelated and consistently capture the target construct. The inclusion of McDonald's omega is particularly noteworthy, as it does not assume equal factor loadings among items, providing a more robust estimate of reliability than alpha alone.

Factor Analysis

To rigorously test the underlying structure of the translated scale, the researchers employed a split-sample cross-validation strategy. Using the first half of their dataset, they conducted an Exploratory Factor analysis (EFA) with Promax rotation, an appropriate choice given that psychological sub-dimensions are typically correlated. The EFA revealed that a refined 10-item model naturally clustered into two distinct factors, accounting for approximately 61.68% of the total variance.

Following the exploratory phase, a Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA) was executed on the second half of the dataset. The CFA provided empirical support for the two-factor structure (CFC-Immediate and CFC-Future), demonstrating good model fit across various indices. This structural validation is critical; it confirms that the bi-dimensional nature of temporal consideration observed in Western samples holds true in the Malaysian context, albeit with a slightly streamlined 10-item pool.

FIGURE 1
The final measurement model of CFC scale among Malaysian Young Adults.

Subscales

Subscale Items Description
CFC-Immediate Measures the extent to which an individual prioritizes short-term outcomes and immediate gratification.
CFC-Future Measures the extent to which an individual considers and prioritizes the distant, long-term implications of their current actions.

Instrument

Test Type Self-report questionnaire
Format 10 items, Likert-type response format
Scoring Scored across two distinct subscales (CFC-Immediate and CFC-Future).
Language Malay
Population Adults, General population
Age Group 25-40 years
Administration Paper survey

Figures

Frontiers in Psychology
Winter ice diving underwater in a quarry in Canada

Sample

529 young Adults (aged 25 to 40 years) recruited via convenience sampling from shopping malls and public locations in Klang Valley, Johor, and Sabah, Malaysia.

Permissions & Test Year

Written permission for the use of the CFC scale was obtained via email from the original developer, Professor Alan Strathman.

Test Year: 2021

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Cite This Paper

Long She, Lan Ma, Fatemeh Khoshnavay Fomani (2021). Consideration of Future Consequences Scale. Frontiers in psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.770609

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Consideration of Future Consequences Scale Items

✉ Items are not yet available

The scale author has been contacted to obtain permission to share the items. This section will be updated once the items are provided.

Cite this article

Mohammed looti (2026). Consideration of Future Consequences Scale. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Retrieved from https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/consideration-of-future-consequences-scale-malaysian-version/

Mohammed looti. "Consideration of Future Consequences Scale." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 12 Aug. 2026, https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/consideration-of-future-consequences-scale-malaysian-version/.

Mohammed looti. "Consideration of Future Consequences Scale." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 2026. https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/consideration-of-future-consequences-scale-malaysian-version/.

Mohammed looti (2026) 'Consideration of Future Consequences Scale', PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Available at: https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/consideration-of-future-consequences-scale-malaysian-version/.

[1] Mohammed looti, "Consideration of Future Consequences Scale," PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, vol. X, no. Y, ص Z-Z, August, 2026.

Mohammed looti. Consideration of Future Consequences Scale. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. 2026;vol(issue):pages.

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