Consideration of Future Consequences Scale (CFC)

1. Abstract

The Consideration of Future Consequences Scale (CFC) is a premier psychometric instrument developed by Alan Strathman, Faith Gleicher, David S. Boninger, and C. Scott Edwards in 1994 to assess individual differences in the extent to which people anticipate and are influenced by the distant versus proximal outcomes of their current behaviors. Grounded in temporal motivation, self-regulation, and decision-making theory, the scale captures the fundamental cognitive and motivational tension between immediate gratification and future goal attainment. The original instrument consists of 12 self-report items administered on an authentic 5-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (extremely uncharacteristic) to 5 (extremely characteristic). Psychometrically, the scale demonstrates robust internal consistency across diverse populations, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently falling between .80 and .86 in foundational student and community samples, and test-retest reliability establishing temporal stability across multi-week intervals (r = .72 to .76). Although originally conceptualized and scored as a unidimensional continuum—where higher scores reflect a pronounced orientation toward distant outcomes—contemporary psychometric evaluations, most notably by Joireman and colleagues, demonstrate that the scale can be effectively decomposed into two correlated yet distinct subscales: CFC-Future (assessing concern for long-term impacts and willingness to sacrifice present comfort) and CFC-Immediate (assessing preoccupation with immediate needs, convenience, and short-term payoffs). The instrument displays robust convergent validity with constructs such as delay of gratification, trait self-control, and conscientiousness, alongside strong discriminant validity distinguishing it from general intelligence, social desirability, and need for cognition. Extensively applied across health psychology, environmental studies, behavioral economics, and organizational behavior, the CFC scale stands as a vital diagnostic and predictive tool for evaluating risk behaviors, preventative health adherence, ecological stewardship, and intertemporal trade-offs.

2. Keywords

Consideration of Future Consequences, temporal discounting, self-regulation, delay of gratification, health behavior, environmental concern, psychometrics, intertemporal choice, CFC-12, future time perspective

3. Authors

The Consideration of Future Consequences Scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by a collaborative research team of social and personality psychologists:

• Alan Strathman, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychological Sciences, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA. Specializes in social cognition, attitude formation, temporal framing, and persuasion.
• Faith Gleicher, Ph.D. — Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA. Research contributions center on cognitive appraisal processes and social perception.
• David S. Boninger, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, and social cognitive consulting. Focuses on attitude importance, cognitive schemas, and decision-making dynamics.
• C. Scott Edwards, M.A. — Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA. Involved in psychometric scale design, test administration, and statistical analysis of behavioral consequences.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale is to operationalize and quantify the structural cognitive orientation individuals maintain regarding the temporal horizons of their behavioral decisions. Across virtually all spheres of human activity, individuals encounter recurrent behavioral conflicts between actions that yield immediate benefits but incur long-term liabilities (e.g., substance use, procrastination, profligate spending, sedentary lifestyles) versus actions that demand immediate effort or sacrifice while securing substantial future rewards (e.g., physical exercise, academic studying, retirement investing, preventative medical screening, sustainable resource consumption). Strathman and colleagues (1994) developed the CFC scale to measure this stable, individual-difference variable, addressing why people confronted with identical informational cues systematically choose divergent behavioral paths based on the temporal weighting of outcomes.

In clinical, counseling, and preventive health domains, the CFC scale serves as a powerful predictive marker for risk-taking and lifestyle compliance. Individuals demonstrating low scores on the general CFC construct (or high scores on the immediate subscale) exhibit steep temporal discounting, prioritizing immediate sensory pleasure, stress alleviation, or personal convenience over the prospective threat of chronic illness. Consequently, the tool is employed by behavioral health researchers to identify populations susceptible to tobacco dependence, hazardous alcohol consumption, dietary noncompliance, and avoidance of cancer screening. In public health intervention design, understanding a target group’s CFC profile enables health communication specialists to tailor persuasion strategies: high-CFC cohorts respond preferentially to messages emphasizing distal health preservation, whereas low-CFC cohorts necessitate intervention frameworks that emphasize proximal, immediate gains (e.g., enhanced daily stamina, immediate monetary savings).

In environmental, consumer, and organizational psychology, the CFC scale provides foundational insights into collective action problems and intertemporal social dilemmas. Environmental preservation frequently requires citizens to incur tangible present costs (e.g., higher prices for carbon-neutral commodities, the inconvenience of rigorous recycling, reduced private vehicle usage) to mitigate abstract, geographically diffuse climate threats occurring decades in the future. The scale reliably distinguishes individuals willing to support green taxation and pro-environmental initiatives from those who prioritize immediate comfort. Similarly, in consumer finance, the CFC scale explains patterns of debt accumulation, credit card mismanagement, and retirement portfolio contributions, offering financial planners and behavioral economists a quantifiable metric to diagnose and remedy myopic financial behaviors.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct underlying the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale reflects an intrapsychic personality trait capturing the degree to which individuals consider distant versus immediate consequences of potential behaviors when selecting a course of action. Unlike transient emotional states or situational task constraints, CFC represents an enduring cognitive disposition that systematically biases attention, elaboration, and valuation across diverse behavioral options over time. The construct encompasses two fundamental dimensions that operate interactively within human decision architectures:

The Future Dimension (CFC-Future)

The future-oriented dimension reflects the propensity to anticipate the prospective states of the self and the environment, systematically projecting cognitive awareness years or even decades into the horizon. Individuals characterized by high CFC-Future levels routinely assess how minute, mundane daily habits reverberate across their lifespan. Core psychological facets of this dimension include:

• Willingness to Delay Gratification and Incur Present Sacrifice: The conscious, deliberate acceptance of immediate discomfort, effort, or affective deprivation to protect or enhance future well-being (e.g., enduring rigorous athletic conditioning or intensive academic preparation).
• Long-Range Goal Salience: Distant objectives remain cognitively active and emotionally charged in working memory, buffering the individual against impulsive distractions or immediate environmental temptations.
• Sensitivity to Distant Warnings: Cognitive vigilance toward preventive warnings regarding hazards situated far in the temporal distance (e.g., cardiovascular disease, planetary warming), prompting early corrective habits long before overt symptomatology emerges.

The Immediate Dimension (CFC-Immediate)

Conversely, the immediate-oriented dimension delineates a cognitive structure dominated by proximal temporal boundaries, typically demarcated by hours, days, or weeks. It is not merely the passive absence of future thought, but an active, focused drive toward the present context. Core facets include:

• Preoccupation with Immediate Convenience: The prioritization of physical ease, low cognitive effort, and immediate logistical expediency when deciding among alternate actions.
• Pragmatic Focus on Everyday Problems: A belief system postulating that immediate operational hurdles demand total cognitive bandwidth, coupled with an optimistic or fatalistic heuristic that distant problems will naturally resolve themselves or prove unpredictable.
• Discounting of Future Hazards: The systematic attenuation of affective responses to long-term risk messages, treating distant threats as too remote, uncertain, or irrelevant to warrant behavioral alterations today.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the CFC scale interfaces multiple major theoretical paradigms within psychological science, integrating principles from intertemporal choice, self-regulation theory, time perspective theory, and social cognitive models of decision-making.

Intertemporal Choice and Behavioral Economics

Classic microeconomic formulations assume that economic agents evaluate options by discounting the subjective value of future outcomes according to a constant discount rate. However, empirical behavioral economics has revealed that human beings exhibit hyperbolic or quasi-hyperbolic discounting, devaluing delayed rewards at an accelerated rate in the short term while exhibiting greater patience across distant intervals. The CFC construct integrates this framework by conceptualizing the temporal discount rate not merely as an invariant mathematical parameter of choice environments, but as a stable, individual-difference personality variable. Individuals low in CFC operate with a steeply sloped discount curve, rendering future rewards practically devoid of subjective motivational value relative to immediate payoffs. High-CFC individuals maintain flatter discount curves, allowing distal outcomes to retain substantial utility and compete effectively against immediate visceral desires.

Self-Regulation and Executive Function

From the vantage point of self-regulation models, such as Carver and Scheier’s control-process model and Baumeister’s strength model of self-control, human agency relies on continuous feedback loops wherein behavior is compared against internal standards. When the relevant standard is situated in the distant future, self-regulation requires executive cognitive resources to suppress automated, prepotent impulses toward immediate gratification. Strathman et al. (1994) conceptualized CFC as a chronic cognitive schema that directs attention to specific informational inputs: high-CFC persons automatically activate future consequence schemas, integrating prospective feedback loops into current self-regulatory monitoring.

Temporal Framing and Persuasion

The theoretical framework also draws upon cognitive appraisal and persuasion models. According to the temporal framing paradigm, message effectiveness depends on the congruence between the temporal frame of a persuasive appeal (present vs. future gains/losses) and the chronic temporal orientation of the recipient. High-CFC individuals process future-framed arguments deeply through systematic central-route processing, evaluating message validity and modifying behavioral intentions. Low-CFC individuals, largely unmoved by long-term consequence frames, demonstrate greater susceptibility to peripheral or immediate cues, such as immediate convenience or prompt affective relief.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale has been rigorously corroborated across three decades of international research encompassing diverse clinical, academic, community, and cross-cultural cohorts.

Construct and Convergent Validity

In their initial validation studies, Strathman et al. (1994) demonstrated significant positive correlations between CFC scores and measures of delay of gratification (r = .41 to .47), indicating that individuals scoring high on the CFC scale possess a superior capacity to forgo immediate rewards for superior delayed alternatives. Furthermore, the scale demonstrates robust positive associations with Conscientiousness from the Five-Factor Model of personality (typically ranging from r = .38 to .48), trait self-control as measured by the Tangney Self-Control Scale (r = .45 to .52), and active environmental concern (r = .24 to .35). Conversely, CFC correlates negatively with trait impulsivity (r = -.35 to -.45), sensation seeking, and chronic risk tolerance.

Discriminant Validity

Importantly, Strathman et al. (1994) confirmed that the CFC construct is empirically distinct from related cognitive and motivational constructs. The scale demonstrates negligible correlations with general cognitive ability and intelligence metrics (r < .10), confirming that future consideration is a motivational and stylistic preference rather than an artifact of intellectual horsepower. It correlates moderately, yet distinctly, with the Need for Cognition Scale (r = .28 to .34), proving that while high-CFC individuals engage in deliberate cognitive processing, the temporal content of thought is not redundant with generic intellectual enjoyment. Crucially, the scale exhibits negligible correlations with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (r = -.06 to .12), confirming that self-reported scores are free from systematic impression-management biases.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Large-scale meta-analyses, such as those conducted by Joireman and King (2016), synthesized data across hundreds of independent studies to establish robust criterion validity. In health behavior domains, CFC correlates positively with physical activity, nutrient-dense dietary patterns, smoking cessation, and routine cancer screening (meta-analytic r values clustered between .25 and .35). In environmental psychology, CFC reliably predicts engagement in energy conservation, public transit usage, and willingness to pay price premiums for sustainable merchandise (meta-analytic r values between .20 and .30). In occupational and financial settings, higher CFC scores prospectively predict superior academic grade-point averages, professional job performance ratings, retirement savings rate, and substantially lower credit card debt.

8. Reliability

The Consideration of Future Consequences Scale exhibits exemplary reliability across classic test-theory and modern item-response parameters across multiple cultural adaptations.

Internal Consistency

In the foundational investigations conducted by Strathman et al. (1994), Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency coefficients were computed across three independent samples comprising university undergraduates and community members:

• Sample 1 (N = 242): Cronbach’s α = .82
• Sample 2 (N = 189): Cronbach’s α = .80
• Sample 3 (N = 141): Cronbach’s α = .86

Subsequent psychometric investigations involving diverse adult community populations, military cohorts, and multicultural groups have consistently replicated alpha estimates within the .80 to .87 range. When evaluated as a two-factor structure (Joireman et al., 2006), the CFC-Future subscale routinely demonstrates alpha coefficients ranging from .78 to .84, while the CFC-Immediate subscale yields alpha coefficients from .80 to .85, demonstrating that both dimensions achieve high internal consistency without item redundancy.

Test-Retest Stability

The temporal stability of the CFC scale has been confirmed across various test-retest intervals. Strathman et al. (1994) initially administered the 12-item instrument to a subsample across a two-week interval, obtaining a test-retest reliability coefficient of r = .76 (p < .001). Subsequent studies extending the measurement interval to five weeks and twelve weeks reported stability coefficients of r = .72 and r = .68, respectively. These values verify that while the scale remains sensitive to developmental maturation and deliberate longitudinal clinical interventions, it functions as a highly stable, trait-like psychological baseline over typical observation windows.

9. Factor Analysis

The internal dimensionality of the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale has generated significant scholarly inquiry, evolving from an initial unidimensional model to an empirically supported two-factor bifactor structure.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the original scale validation by Strathman et al. (1994), principal components analysis and exploratory factor analysis with varimax and oblimin rotations yielded an initial scree plot suggestive of a strong primary general factor. The first unrotated factor accounted for approximately 35% to 42% of the total variance, with all 12 items loading above .40. Consequently, the scale was introduced to the literature as a unidimensional instrument wherein immediately worded items were reverse-scored to form a single continuous metric.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and the Two-Factor Structural Model

Subsequent psychometric re-analyses, initiated prominently by Joireman, Strathman, and Balliet (2006) and Joireman et al. (2012), challenged the strict unidimensionality of the CFC-12. Confirmatory factor analyses testing a one-factor model against alternative specifications revealed that a single-factor model exhibited suboptimal goodness-of-fit indices across several large samples (χ²/df > 4.5, RMSEA > .08, CFI < .88). Conversely, a two-factor correlated model—distinguishing between CFC-Future and CFC-Immediate—yielded superior model fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .94 to .96
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .93 to .95
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .048 to .056 (90% CI [.041, .064])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .042

In this validated structural model, the latent correlation between CFC-Future and CFC-Immediate typically fluctuates between r = -.35 and r = -.52, demonstrating that these constructs represent partially independent, orthogonal dimensions rather than polar opposites of a single axis. An individual may simultaneously exhibit moderate-to-high future awareness alongside distinct immediate impulses, generating unique psychological conflict states that unidimensional scoring obscures.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structural characteristics, administration protocols, and scoring guidelines for the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale are specified below:

• Instrument Name: Consideration of Future Consequences Scale (CFC; commonly referred to as CFC-12)
• Construct Assessed: Individual differences in the temporal weighing of immediate versus distant outcomes of behavior
• Instrument Type: Self-administered, paper-and-pencil or computerized self-report psychometric questionnaire
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (recommended reading level: grade 8 and above)
• Total Number of Items: 12 items
• Subscale Allocation:
  • CFC-Future: Items 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8 (capturing future focus, preventive orientation, and willingness to sacrifice present comfort)
  • CFC-Immediate: Items 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, and 12 (capturing short-term convenience, discounting warnings, and proximal immediacy)
• Authentic Response Scale: 5-point Likert scale (1 = extremely uncharacteristic, 2 = somewhat uncharacteristic, 3 = uncertain, 4 = somewhat characteristic, 5 = extremely characteristic)
• Administration Duration: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes
• Reverse-Scoring Protocol: Items 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are reverse-scored (1 = 5, 2 = 4, 3 = 3, 4 = 2, 5 = 1) when computing the traditional unidimensional total score.
• Scoring Options:
  • Unidimensional Total Score: Sum or mean of all 12 items after reverse-scoring the designated items. Higher numerical values denote a stronger dispositional orientation toward future consequences.
  • Two-Factor Subscale Scores: Compute separate mean scores for CFC-Future (items 1, 2, 6, 7, 8; unreversed) and CFC-Immediate (items 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12; scored in the direction of immediacy). This dual-metric approach is strongly recommended when examining divergent behavioral pathways.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Consideration of Future Consequences Scale was developed and published in 1994 by Alan Strathman, Faith Gleicher, David S. Boninger, and C. Scott Edwards in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a flagship journal of the American Psychological Association (APA). The scale was placed directly within the public scientific domain for scholarly, academic, and non-commercial educational research purposes. Researchers and psychological practitioners may reproduce, administer, and translate the scale without paying licensing fees or securing formal written permission, provided that standard academic citation is accorded to Strathman et al. (1994) in all scientific publications, presentations, and technical documentation. For commercial applications, proprietary assessment batteries, or digital health platforms intending to monetize the scale, institutional permission must be cleared through the rights and licensing office of the American Psychological Association.

12. References

The following foundational and contemporary empirical studies provide the psychometric, theoretical, and empirical framework for the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale:

• Joireman, J., Balliet, D., & Strathman, A. (2012). Consideration of immediate and future consequences: Integrating research on personality, social dilemmas, and temporal perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(2), 171–192. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868311431524
• Joireman, J., & King, S. (2016). Individual differences in the consideration of future consequences. In J. Stolarski, N. Fieulaine, & W. van Beek (Eds.), Time Perspective Theory; Review, Research and Application (pp. 273–288). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07368-2_18
• Joireman, J., Shaffer, M. J., Balliet, D., & Strathman, A. (2012). Promotion orientation explains why future-oriented people exercise and eat healthy: Evidence from the two-factor consideration of future consequences-14 scale. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(10), 1272–1287. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212449362
• Joireman, J., Strathman, A., & Balliet, D. (2006). Considering future consequences: An examination of the factor structure and model test of the CFC scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 40(6), 1267–1277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.10.016
• Strathman, A., Gleicher, F., Boninger, D. S., & Edwards, C. S. (1994). The consideration of future consequences: Weighing immediate and distant outcomes of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(4), 742–752. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.66.4.742

13. Items of the Scale