by Barbara R. Sarason, University of Washington
©1998 Peregrine Publishers, Inc., All Rights Reserved
Two social psychologists from Case Western Reserve University, Dianne
Tice and Roy Baumeister, wondered if people are kidding themselves
when they say they "perform best under pressure" and thus wait until the
last minute to complete tasks. This strategy, say the procrastinators, helps
them compress their work process and avoid worry over performance and
deadlines. But does it really work? In two recent studies of college
students, Tice and Baumeister found that procrastination not only leads to
poorer academic performance but, over the long term, it can actually make
a person feel physically sick!
The researchers focused on their own students in a health psychology
class. At the start of the semester, they assigned a term paper with an
initial due date as well as an automatic extension to another specific date.
Soon thereafter, they also asked students to complete a General
Procrastination Scale developed by Clarry Lay of York University in
Toronto, Canada, and instructed them to fill out daily symptom checklists
and a weekly stress measure for the next four weeks.
In that first study, the self-identified procrastinators earned lower grades
on both their term papers and on the course's two exams. Curiously,
though, despite their poorer performance, the procrastinators reported less
stress and fewer physical symptoms the more they put off working.
Perhaps, the team reasoned, procrastination is not such a bad thing after
all.
To test this, Tice and Baumeister conducted another class study, adding a
few more measures to the experimental protocol: They assessed stress and
symptoms early in the semester, as before, but this time they also
queried students about feelings of stress and physical symptoms in the
later weeks of class, as well. They also asked their subjects to record
how often they visited health care professionals in the past month. The
researchers found the pattern of course-performance and stress levels
early in the semester to closely resemble the data from their first study.
The picture at semester's end, however, was quite different:
Procrastination was positively correlated with stress (r = .68) and
symptoms (r = .65) as well as with additional visits to health
professionals (r = .37). The graph below shows how, as the semester
progressed, the number of symptoms increased for both procrastinators
and non-procrastinators. Trait procrastination was related to better health
earlier in the semester, but poorer health later. In a related study last year,
investigators Robert Bridge and Miguel Roig of Pennsylvania State
University also found a relationship between procrastination and irrational
thinking--a characteristic often associated with poorer mental health.
Research using measures such as the General Procrastination Scale
suggests that procrastination is a personality trait. Clarry Lay's research at
York University shows that procrastination can fit into the Five Factor
Model of Personality (the so-called Big Five) as part of the
Conscientiousness factor. Trait procrastination was the better predictor of
actual dilatory behavior, but conscientiousness was superior in predicting
negative feelings that arose from delayed effort. Another Big Five factor,
neuroticism, served as a mediator between conscientiousness and
procrastination and negative emotions. This means that while people who
score high in neuroticism tend to experience negative moods, neuroticism
declines as an important predictor of these negative moods when
researchers take either the conscientiousness or the procrastination aspect
of their personality into account. The figure below illustrates this
relationship.
Procrastination and its effects are certainly not unique to college students.
About 20% of adults claim to be chronic procrastinators, and separated,
divorced, or widowed respondents report higher rates of procrastination
than the currently married or continuously single. Procrastination in adults
can have effects just as negative as poorer academic performance: In a
study of unemployed men and women, median age 43, trait
procrastination was unrelated to the intention to search for a job but
definitely related to fewer job search activities. You may want a new
job, in other words, but it's tough to find one when you put off looking
for it!
1.Bridges, K. R., & Roig, M. (1997). Academic procrastination and irrational
thinking: A re-examination with context controlled. Personality and
Individual Differences 22: 941-944.
2.Harriott, J., & Ferrari, J. R. (1996). Prevalence of procrastination among
samples of adults. Psychological Reports 78: 611-616.
3.Lay, C. H. (1986). At last, my research article on procrastination. Journal
of Research in Personality 20: 474-495.
4.Lay, C. H. (1997) Explaining lower-order traits through higher-order factors:
The case of trait procrastination, conscientiousness, and the specificity
dilemma. European Journal of Personality 11: 267-278.
5.Lay, C. H., & Brokenshire, R. (1997). Conscientiousness, procrastination,
and person-task characteristics in job searching by unemployed adults.
Current Psychology 16: 83-96.
6.Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Longitudinal study of
procrastination, performance, stress, and health: The costs and benefits of
dawdling. Psychological Reports 8: 454-458.
7."Controlling procrastination." Sound advice for overcoming procrastinating
behavior. (15 Jan. 1998)
8.Another, more extensive set of tips for dealing with personal procrastination.
Includes management, cognitive, and behavioral strategies, and links to other
sites. (15 Jan. 1998)