Predicting Future Vividness and Academic Success Using Household Income and Incarceration Rate

This thesis explores how different environments including poverty and crime rates relate to an individual’s perception of the future and academic success. The results from this study of 709 participants (15 of the participants were omitted due to incorrect or invalid information being submitted) showed that household income significantly predicted both vividness of the future and cumulative GPA; there was a positive correlation with GPA and a negative correlation with vividness. Incarceration rate was a marginally significant predictor of future and did not significantly predict cumulative GPA. It was also observed that men are more impacted by lower household income and higher incarceration rates than women when using at GPA as an outcome. The future vividness outcome showed no significant difference between men and women for either household income or incarceration rate. This study could be improved by having a group of participants whose population is more representative of different backgrounds.