Characterizing the Time-Perspective of Nations with Search Engine Query Data

Vast quantities of data on human behavior are being created by our everyday internet usage. Building upon a recent study by Preis, Moat, Stanley, and Bishop (2012), we used search engine query data to construct measures of the time-perspective of nations, and tested these measures against per-capita gross domestic product (GDP). The results indicate that nations with higher per-capita GDP are more focused on the future and less on the past, and that when these nations do focus on the past, it is more likely to be the distant past. These results demonstrate the viability of using nation-level data to build psychological constructs.日常互联网使用行为会产生海量的人类行为数据。基于Preis、Moat、Stanley及Bishop（2012）的一项新近研究，我们借助搜索引擎查询数据构建了衡量国家时间视角的量化指标，并将这些指标与人均国内生产总值（per-capita gross domestic product, GDP）进行对照检验。研究结果显示，人均GDP更高的国家更注重未来而非过去；即便这些国家关注过去，其关注点也更偏向遥远的过去。上述结果证实了利用国家层面数据构建心理学构念的可行性。