中国科学院行为科学重点实验室知识库

Search interest in the upcoming year compared with the past has been proposed as the Future Orientation Index (FOI) to assess forward-looking tendencies. Our study aimed to replicate and extend correlations between the FOI and key development indicators, such as GDP and Human Development Index (HDI), across countries with different dominant search engines (from Google to Baidu), time periods (from 2012 to 2021), and measurement levels (inter-country, intra-country, and individual). Our results successfully replicated the correlation between the Baidu-based FOI and province-level GDP (r = .719-.860, ps < .001) and HDI (r = .635-.867, ps < .001) from 2012 to 2021 in China. However, the FOI could not predict patience (beta = -.038, p = .402) measured at an individual level. Our findings provide an easily accessible index to investigate intra-cultural differences in future orientation and underscored two prerequisites for the FOI: 1) the selection of a locally dominant search engine and unambiguous keywords and 2) the application of the FOI within a group-level context.