Being the first, we hope it to be a milestone in highlighting the effort spent by different psychological approaches to understand the role played by time concepts in individual, group, and organizational development .The Conference was jointly organized by the "Instituto de Psicologia Cognitiva, Desenvolvimento Vocacional e Social" (Institute for Cognitive Psychology, Vocational and Social Development), a R & D unit based at the University of Coimbra, and the "Groupe de Recherche en Psycologie Sociale -GrePS", a R&D unit based at the University of Lyon, France . It was hosted by the Faculty of Psychology and Education of the University of Coimbra (Portugal), the oldest University in Portugal (its foundation goes back to 1290), and an institution for which the notions of a rich past history and future strategic planning constitute the cornerstones of today's concerns . In a moment in time where the past, the present and the future are intensively invested with meaning and intention, researchers coming from all over the world reflected on how time perspectives impact on our lives, from our more proximal to our most distal socio-ecological contexts . It reunited more than 300 participants coming from 42 countries spread all over the 5 continents .During three intense but exciting days, senior and junior researchers exchanged and questioned emerging and well established concepts, reflecting upon diverse and joint projects, and prepared the path for future developments .We can undoubtedly say that the organization of this conference was a timely one, once there has lately been a renewed interest, as well as a series of academic initiatives, dedicated to the understanding of specific aspects of individual, group, and social behavior through the study of its core temporal dimensions .The study of subjective temporality or Time Perspective (TP) has been going on since K . Lewin defined it as "the totality of the individual's view of his psychological future and psychological past existing at a given time" (1951, p . 75), and it has encompassed several topics in various psychological domains . The chapters that are included in this book are a good illustration of the multifaceted focus on the research of subjective time in the psychological science . Taking this diversity into account, the editors opted to organize the contributions into six parts, corresponding to the following broad scientific domains:Part 1 -Time Perspective and human development: adaptive functioning and risk behaviors across the life-span . This part includes 8 chapters presenting the role played by TP, both in the normative developmental path from birth to death and in more deviant patterns of behavioral functioning in childhood, adolescence and adulthood .
0Part 2 -The relationships of personality and affective processes with Time Perspective, includes 4 chapters that address the relations among psychological personality traits and more dynamic affective processes with several subjective temporality dimensions .Part 3 -Time Perspective, health an...