OGrady 1

Kayla OGrady

UWRT 1103

3 November 2019

Understanding Procrastination: Is it Positive or Negative

Piers Steel, a psychologist at the University of Calgary reported the following meta-

analysis in 2007 “80 percent to 95 percent of college students procrastinate, particularly when it

comes to doing their coursework” (Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 133, No. 1). Many people

procrastinate, but not many know what procrastination actually is. Procrastination involves

delaying responsibilities, decisions, or tasks that need to be done. It is important for students to

understand why they procrastinate so they can learn how to avoid doing those things. Strategies

some use may not be useful to others, so it is so hard to find only one cause and effect to link

with procrastination. Frank Partnoy, a professor at the University of California Berkeley wrote,

“Procrastination has become a hot subfield in economics, but if we asked three economists about

procrastination, we might get five different opinions.” Research has been done to see possible

links between procrastination and emotions, and also procrastination and the brain. In high

school I wasn’t one that procrastinated. If an assignment was given it was done days in advance.

So why would I start procrastinating so much now? Some of the reasons why I procrastinate now

in college is that the work is much more difficult and you are moving at such a fast pace. In high

school I only had 4 classes a day and my senior year I only took 3. When I decided to take 5

classes I wasn’t aware what impact it might have on me completing assignments on time and to

my best ability. Main distractions I face are with my social media, not managing time spent with

friends and family, Netflix. These distractions can cause you to lose focus of what you want to
 OGrady 2

get done, therefore delays the task. I have a difficult time allocating enough time to work on

homework which results in me pushing things off until they pile up right before the due date.

College is such a competitive environment that can be overwhelming for many to get adapted to.

That competitive nature can have an impact on self worth. Procrastination is something that

many people will experience at least once in their life.

I received a total of 14 responses on a survey I created about procrastination. Although

my sample size was relatively small, my results demonstrate what UNCC students think about

procrastination. 71.4% said they procrastinated, 28.6% do not procrastinate. Many people

defined procrastination as putting off a task, they said negatives with procrastination were stress,

anxiety, lower grades, sleep deprivation, laziness. Of the 14 responses, 6 people said they study

for an exam 1 day in advance, 7 study 2-4 days in advance and 1 studied 5-9 days. No one

studied 10-14 days before exam, which was surprising to me. 85.7% said procrastination was

behavioral, 14.3% said it was neurological. Majority of the responses said procrastination is

more common today because of how easy technology can be accessed. Some of the main

distractors today are Netflix, phones, computers, sports, social media, emails. Interesting to see

that some people also procrastinate for certain classes. Ways to avoid procrastination were

having a calendar, putting devices away, better mindset, creating habits, self-discipline. Students

mentioned how the calendar on Canvas was very helpful. I too use that calendar to keep up with

my classes. Classmates also said there was more procrastination today because students are given

a heavier workload and not prioritizing academic work. Academic procrastination has to do with

delaying an academic assignment. Anyone familiar with procrastination should agree that it can

be stressful. Procrastination varies while doing different tasks. Self-control and limiting

distractions are some ways to take immediate action toward limiting procrastination.
 OGrady 3

My point here is that procrastination is stressful, should interest those who experience

procrastination in the academic setting. Beyond this limited audience, however, my point should

speak to anyone who cares about the larger issue of the mental health of students. Often times

procrastination is associated with anxiety, depression, fear of failure and perfectionism. Many

have different views on procrastination and whether it is mainly behavioral or neurological.

Behavioral procrastination has to do with lack of time and task management. Those who think

procrastination has a link to fear of failure are Voge, Schouwenburg. Nic Voge is a senior

associate director at Princeton University and is interested in the self-worth theory, he believes

that your ability is not equal to your worth. Some people that procrastinate have a fear that they

will not do well on an assignment so they keep putting it off. Fear of failure relates to the

Procrastinators Code which is “I must be perfect. Everything I do should go easy and without

effort. It’s safer to do nothing than to take a risk and fail.” I put off chemistry homework because

I feel like I won’t be able to get a high score. If I start to get some of the questions wrong I feel

discouraged and ultimately push it off later and later until I reach the point where I have no other

option but to just do it so I don’t receive a zero.

 OGrady 4

The behavioral and neurological views of procrastination from Lieberman, Haycock,

Schouwenburg, Pathan found the connection between procrastination and increased anxiety.

Laurel Haycock is a psychologist. Students become anxious because they wait to do work until

the last minute. Nic Voge talked about the relation to procrastination and perfectionism by

saying “those of us who are perfectionists and procrastinate we have often excelled at high levels

in the past we could begin to internalize those standards and feel we must meet them each time.”

I can relate to perfectionism because I have the constant feeling that I must get an A in

Chemistry since that is what I have done in the past.

A study was done by Schouwenburg, Wendelien van Eerde about Big Five factors

revealed self-consciousness was not highly related to procrastination. Traits are tendencies that

result in patterns of behavior in different situations. Big Five model of traits are “surgency, or

extraversion-introversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and intellect or

openness to experience” (Counseling the Procrastinator in Academic Settings). Schouwenburg

also had results that show connection of consciousness and neuroticism with procrastination. The

trait procrastination is associated with low emotional stability and neuroticism. Schouwenburg,

Hu used Lay’s General Procrastination Scale to assess procrastination in their research. The scale

contained 20 items pertaining to procrastination and the participants ranked themselves as

extremely characteristic or extremely uncharacteristic.

Views of self-efficacy are the same from Haycock, Gustavson. Self-efficacy is a person's

ability to achieve the goals they set themselves. Gustavson is a professor in the Department of

Psychiatry at the University of California in San Diego. The purpose of looking at self-efficacy

was to see if efficacy strength was related to procrastination. They observed the different

efficacy strengths to determine which could predict the strongest level of procrastination. Self-
 OGrady 5

efficacy affects persistence. Procrastinators that struggle with low self-efficacy have a hard time

managing tasks. In comparison, persistence can be a struggle for procrastinators. Covington and

Lieberman view procrastination as a way of coping with stress, negative moods. Procrastination

can have such a different meaning from so many people so it is interesting to see how those

views compare, contrast. The book Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research, and

Treatment mentions a study done by Schouwenburg analyzing anxiety and test anxiety. Student

groups were labeled as overstriving, success oriented, failure avoiding, failure accepting.

Overstriving people have high hopes for success, high failure, don’t procrastinate. Success

oriented people have high hopes for success, low fear of failure, don’t procrastinate. Failure

avoiding people have low hopes for success, high fear of failure, do procrastinate. Failure

accepting people have low hopes for success, low fear failure, “pure” academic procrastinators. I

find myself in the failure avoiding category.

A majority of people view procrastination as being negative, this paragraph mentions

those who have positive views about procrastination. The essence of Nic Voge, Charlotte

Lieberman, and John Perry’s argument is that procrastinators are not lazy. John Perry a professor

of Philosophy at Stanford University, believes procrastinating does not mean doing nothing,

which compares to the view of the others of procrastinators not being lazy. Procrastinators may

not be doing a certain task but while putting that task off it gives them time to accomplish many

other things that they might not even notice. I may put off doing one assignment for a class that

is not interesting to me but in that time I finish numerous assignments for other classes. John

Perry’s said“procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing”(“How to Procrastinate and Still Get

Things Done”). Perry also wrote about the positives of procrastination by using a strategy called

structured procrastination. Structured procrastination is a strategy that “converts procrastinators

 OGrady 6

into effective human beings.” Procrastinators sometimes accomplish other tasks and think of

them as a way of not doing something more important. Structure your tasks as a hierarchy,

having the most urgent thing you need to do first. Perry is a procrastinator but also gets a lot of

things done, this closely relates to what Partnoy was writing about. These findings challenge the

work of earlier researchers, who tend to assume that procrastinators are lazy. Procrastinators can

be encouraged to accomplish difficult tasks. It is interesting how Lieberman, Voge described

procrastination as a cycle. The cycle of delays and excuses is constant for procrastinators, the

cycle can become a chronic habit.

In comparison Laurel A. Haycock, Dr. Tim Pychyl view procrastination as an emotional

problem not a time management problem. They view procrastination as something more than bad

time management skills. Sometimes putting things off can cause people to feel ashamed and

guilty for not doing the assignment. Moyra Scott is a productivity expert and Dr. Pychyl is a

professor at the University of Ottawa. Scott believes breaking up tasks is more motivational. On

the other hand, Dr. Pychyl thinks next action of a task is more motivational, you need to keep

going and look towards what is next.Tips from Moyra Scott for procrastination are to use a timer

when completing tasks, minimize phone interruptions. I disagree with those tips because I find it

difficult to see the importance in breaking a task up. A main reason I procrastinate is because I

don’t want to work on the assignment, I find not interesting. Breaking a task up makes it feel like

it takes even longer to do rather than getting something done all at once. A specific study from

Daniel Gustavson examined SMART goals and reducing academic procrastination. SMART

stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time bound.The result of the research was

that creating SMART goals didn’t decrease academic procrastination. The relation I make to

those findings is that when I have created SMART goals in the past they didn’t help me reduce
 OGrady 7

procrastinating. I find it hard to stick with and follow through with the goals I make, so I don’t

make many. You can manage procrastination by looking at emotions instead of trying to manage

your time. It can be difficult to stop procrastination, so you need to find what works for you.

Some strategies to limit procrastination is to forgive yourself for putting things off. Researchers

have found that when you forgive yourself it allows you to become more productive.

The views of neurological connections and procrastination were the same for Pathan and

Hu. Nazima Pathan writes for BBC mainly about health and science, Yue Hu involved in

Research Center of Psychology and Social Development at Southwest University in China. The

amygdala is located in the temporal side lobe of the brain. The amygdala is related with

motivation, emotions and was larger in procrastinators. Erhan Genc, one of the authors based at

the Ruhr University Bochum stated that “individuals with a larger amygdala may be more

anxious about the negative consequences of an action.” I find this interesting because I definitely

feel anxious when thinking about the grades I will get when I procrastinate. Often times when I

procrastinate the work I do isn’t nearly as good as it would be if I didn’t wait until the last

minute. Those who procrastinate had worse connections between the amygdala and DACC. The

DACC is the part of the brain and stands for dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. DACC keeps

people focused and on track by blocking out things that may be distracting. I believe this part of

their research is very true, I have a hard time blocking out distractions. Patrtnoy, Hu wrote about

fMRI and how it helped map procrastination to different regions of the brain. FMRI means

functional magnetic resonance imaging it measures brain activity. Hu used a voxel-based

morphometry (VMO) method in the study to look at procrastination in relation to the nervous

system. Procrastination was negative related to gray matter volume in the middle frontal gyrus

(MFG) and orbital frontal cortex (OFC) are regions of the brain. GM is gray matter and GPS
 OGrady 8

stands for general procrastination scale. The amount of GM was both positively and negatively

associated with procrastination. I believe more research needs to be done on the brain, because

this research had both positive and negative correlations to procrastination in the same parts of

the brain.

Figures from The neural substrates of procrastination: A voxel based morphometry study, written by Hu.

Overall, I side with the views of those that believe procrastination is behavioral and has

negative associations like anxiety, stress, lower grades. I’m not one of those procrastinators that

thrives when put under the pressure of time. Procrastination has so many causes and effects,

those need to be studied more. I believe there is not one solution to procrastination because of

how complicated it is, and the fact that different things work for different people. I find myself

procrastinating for certain subjects more than others. Fear of failure has a strong relation to

procrastination as stated in this quote from Noelle Hancock “Procrastination is the lazy cousin of

fear. When we feel anxiety around an activity, we postpone it.” I find myself postponing

assignments that I don’t like or those that I fear are difficult. Some helpful ways I used to deal

with procrastination are limiting time spent on my phone, and using the calendar on Canvas.
 OGrady 9

Further research is needed to look at possible links between the brain and procrastination. What

might cause you to procrastinate? Try to avoid those distractions, whether it be poor time

management, technology. You don’t want to fall into the constant loop of procrastinating

because it becomes stressful and overwhelming.

Works Cited

“At Last, Procrastination.” Wait: the Art and Science of Delay, by Frank Partnoy, PublicAffairs,

2012, pp. 147–171.

Gustavson, Daniel E, and Akira Miyake. “Academic Procrastination and Goal Accomplishment:

A Combined Experimental and Individual Differences Investigation.” Learning and

Individual Differences, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Feb. 2017

Hancock, Noelle. “80 Procrastination Quotes to Get You Focused.”

KeepInspiringme,www.keepinspiring.me/procrastination-quotes/.

Haycock, Laurel A., et al. “Procrastination in College Students: The Role of Self-Efficacy and

Anxiety.” Journal of Counseling & Development, vol. 76, no. 3, Jan. 1998, pp. 317–
 OGrady 10

24.EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ573153&

authtype=shib&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Hu, Yue et al. “The Neural Substrates of Procrastination: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study.”

Brain and Cognition 121 (2018): n. pag. Web.

Lieberman, Charlotte. “Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control).” The

New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-

do-with-self-control.html.

Nic Voge. “Self Worth Theory: The Key to Understanding & Overcoming

Procrastination | Nic Voge | TEDxPrincetonU.” YouTube, uploaded by TEDx Talks, 20

December 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1027&v=52lZmIafep4

Pathan, Nazima. “Procrastination: It's Pretty Much All in the Mind.” BBC News, BBC, 26

Aug. 2018, www.bbc.com/news/health-45295392.

Perry, John. “How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done .” The Chronicle, 23 Feb.

1996, www.chronicle.com/article/How-to-ProcrastinateStill/93959.

Schouwenburg, Henri C. “Academic Procrastination Theoretical Notions, Measurement,

and Research.” Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research, and Treatment,

by Joseph R. Ferrari et al., Springer-Verlag New York, 2013, pp. 71–96.

Schouwenburg, Henri C. “Procrastination in Academic Settings: General Introduction.”

Counseling the Procrastinator in Academic Settings, American Psychological

Association, 2004, pp. 3–17.

OGrady 11