PROBLEM 4
INTENTION TO PROCRASTINATE
LEARNING GOALS
– Part 1
-
What is procrastination?
-
Are there different types of procrastinators, what are they?
-
Why do people procrastinate, what are its consequences (e.g., on performance, well-being)?
-
What can be done to prevent procrastination?
– Part 2
- Why do people fail to transform their intentions into actual behaviour?
- What are implementation intentions, and why do they (not) work?
ARTICLE SUMMARIES
PART 1
ARTICLE 1
HOWELL ET AL. (2006) – Academic Procrastination:
– Study.
– “Examined whether students’ submission patterns revealed a hyperbolic pattern of temporal discounting, such
that few assignments are submitted far ahead of the deadline and submission of assignments accelerates at an
increasing rate as the deadline becomes imminent.”
– Results – strong behavioural evidence of temporal discounting.
– say-do correspondence = only consistently correlated self-regulation measure.
INTRODUCTION
– Procrastination
- The tendency to delay initiation of completion of important tasks.
- Delay tasks to the point of discomfort.
– Few previous studies have described the dynamic, unfolding nature of procrastination across time.
- Exception – Schouwenburg at al. (2001) – characterised procrastination as involving temporal discounting:
the tendency to discount the value of delayed rewards.
- Limitation of that research – postponement was not assessed with a behavioural measure.
– Aim of current research – examine whether a hyperbolic pattern of postponement emerges for submission if a
series of computer-based course assignments.
– The “nomological network” of procrastination
- Hyperbolic pattern of postponement = can be conceptualised as a failure of self-regulation.
· Procrastinators have reduced ability to resist social temptations when the benefits of academic preparation
are distant, relative to the non-procrastinators.
- Second aim – to extend into the domain of self-regulation the “nomological network” of procrastination
described by van Erde (2003).
, · That study summarised the relationship between procrastination and many domains (e.g. personality, ability,
self-image, etc.)
· Many of the variables were relevant to self-regulation – but authors of current study found them to lack some
variables that are closely related to self-regulation. Thus, they sought to examine the relationship between
procrastination and implementation intentions, say-do correspondence, and perceived control.
- Implementation intentions (plans)
· Involves determining the when, how, where, etc. of one’s behaviour in relation to accomplishing a personal
goal.
· Been found to relate positively to academic functioning.
· No previous study has examined it in relation to procrastination.
- Say-do correspondence
· Refers to the extent to which pps do what they say they will do to carry out promises they have made.
· Important second step to implementation intentions for meeting a goal.
· Theorised to be a critical part of self-regulation development.
· Found to improve academic performance.
· No previous research has examined to what extent say-do correspondence is related to procrastination,
behavioural postponement, or implementation intentions.
- Perceived control
· Perceived academic control – refers to students’ beliefs about whether factors within themselves or outside
themselves determine academic success.
· “Procrastination may be associated with self-regulatory beliefs concerning the extent to which one exerts
influence over important outcomes in one’s life. “
· Believing one has control over academic success = should facilitate control over aspects related to such
success.
· Mixed results in relation to procrastination.
· No previous research has demonstrated a relationship between perceived academic control and behavioural
postponement.
THE CURRENT STUDY
– Predicted:
- Students would reveal a pattern of temporal discounting on a series of computer-based course assignments,
such that a few would be submitted early, and it would rapidly increase (at an accelerating rate) as the deadline
approached.
- This pattern would be especially true for those that describe themselves as procrastinators.
- Implementation intentions, say-do correspondence, and perceived academic control would correlate positively
with each other + negatively with both self-reported procrastination and behavioural postponement.
– Method
- 95 undergrad psy students.
- 70F, 24M, 1unspecified.
- Questionnaires:
· Procrastination Assessment Scale – Students (PASS)
- Self-rated tendency to procrastinate.
· Procrastination Scale
- Measures tendency to delay task initiation or completion.
· Perceived Academic Control measure
· Devised 3 items to assess students’ self-reported assignment procrastination
· Devised 3 items to assess implementation intentions.
· Devised 3 items to assess say-do correspondence
– Procedure
, - Late in their term (after all their assignment were finished), intro psych students were invited to participate in
research documenting the submission of course assignments in relation to the deadline for them.
- Also invited to complete the questionnaires.
- Gave access to their course grades + assignment submission times.
- Y assignments during a 15-week period.
– Results
- Pattern of assignment submission
· 5h intervals starting form 0h (the deadline) to 100h (about 4 days prior).
· Large number of ppl= submitted in the last moments.
- Consistent across the 7 assignments.
· Increase in submission a day prior to the deadline.
· Figure 1: pattern of submission of the 7 assignments.
· Figure 2: assignment submission data averaged across the seven
assignments.
- Contains best-fitting hyperbolic function – accounts for 89.1% of
variance.
- K is significantly different from zero = assignment submissions
follow a hyperbolic pattern.
· Figure 3: assignment submission data divided into ppl that core above
median (11) and ppl that score below on the self-reported assignment
procrastination measure.
- Reasoned that ppl which indicated that the procrastinated a lot
should have stronger evidence of the behavioural measure.
- High (self-reported) procrastination = curve explained 93.8% of
variance in frequency of assignment submission.
- Low (self-reported) procrastination = curve explained 69.2%.
- However, the curves did not differ significantly.
– Descriptive stats and intercorrelations among measures
- No age differences, gender differences (except for implementation
intentions in which women scored higher).
- Greater self-reported procrastinations correlated significantly with the
behavioural measure of postponement.
- Procrastination was inversely correlated with say-do correspondence – higher meant lower procrastination.
- Significant inverse relation between procrastination and implementation intentions.
· Also associated with say-do correspondence.
- Significant inverse relationship between procrastination and grades.
- Perceived control = positive relationship to grades.
– Discussion
- Assignment submissions
· Evidence of hyperbolic pattern of postponement on a behavioural measure – extends prior findings.
· Behavioural measure of procrastination consistently correlated with the self-reported ones.
· Behaviour measure = did not correlate with grades.
- The nomological network of procrastination
· Important and informative associations between procrastination and other individual difference measures:
- Self-reported procrastination correlated significantly with the behavioural measure of postponement.
- The three measures of self-reported procrastination correlated significantly with say-do correspondence.
· Suggests that ppl who have a tendency to procrastinate also have a general tendency to not do what they
say they will do.
· Noteworthy for two reasons:
, - “First, say-do correspondence items were not concerned with academic tasks, but rather more generally
with keeping, and benefiting from, promises made to oneself.”
- “Second, the generalized nature of this measure suggests overlap with personality dimensions,
particularly the five-factor dimension of conscientiousness (i.e., that dimension emphasizing
responsibility and dependability).”
· Interesting that conscientiousness is most strongly related.
- Say-do correspondence did not correlate with the behavioural measure of postponement.
· “Perhaps because some students promised to themselves (quite reasonably) that they would complete
the assignment within the final hours of the deadline and subsequently did so.”
· May reflect a planned postponement, or “pseudo-procrastination” – if so = would detract from an overall
association between behavioural postponement and say-do correspondence.
- “Say-do correspondence correlated significantly with implementation intentions, such that those who
reported a general tendency to do as they say also reported a tendency to make use of implementation
intentions to facilitate studying. Implementation intentions, however, were not consistently related to
procrastination.”
· Suggests that procrastination may involve more deficits in the latter than the former.
- Perceived academic control correlated with course grades.
· Showed no consistent relationship with procrastination or the remaining self-regulation variables.
- “The lack of association between perceived control and procrastination may reflect the fact that ‘‘control
over one’s own academic success’’ can take many forms including, perhaps, the deliberate allocation of
time for the completion and submission of assignments in the final hours leading-up to task deadline.”
- May also mean that believing that one exerts significant influence over one’s own academic success is
not a safeguard against procrastination.
ARTICLE 2
STEEL (2007) – The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory
Failure
– Review and meta-analysis.
- Thus, everything is very brief except for intro and discussion.
INTRODUCTION
– 80-90% of college students engage in procrastination.
- 75% consider themselves procrastinators.
- About 50% procrastinate consistently and problematically.
– Much still needs to be learned about the causes of procrastination.
- Need for a comprehensive and detailed examination of the research on procrastination.
– Thus, goal of this article = threefold:
- Establish the nature of procrastination conceptually.
- Explore broadly the causes and correlates of procrastination.
- Results need to be integrated with respect to temporal motivational theory (TMT), a recent integrative
motivation model that seeks to explain self-regulatory behaviour in a way that is consistent with a wide variety
of other theoretical perspectives.
DEFINITION OF PROCRASTINATION
– Many definitions of the word as it has been adopted from science into common language.
– All versions contain some form of postponing, delaying, or putting off of a task or decision.
– Thus, one procrastinates when one delays beginning or completing an intended course of action.
