Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184

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Personality and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

The portrait of the procrastinator: Risk factors and results

of an indecisive personality
Thomas P. Tibbett a,⇑, Joseph R. Ferrari b
a
Texas A&M University, United States
b
DePaul University, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Procrastinators purposefully delay the start or completion of tasks for their own irrational reasons and
Received 10 December 2014 experience anxiety over the delay. However, imagining a typical ‘procrastinator’ evokes several conflict-
Received in revised form 6 March 2015 ing images with differing experiences and personality correlates. One reason for this muddled picture
Accepted 8 March 2015
may be conflated constructs. We posit that decisional procrastination (indecision) may be a related but
distinct construct to more generalized procrastination, being highly correlated but with divergent predic-
tors. In two studies, we examine competing hypotheses regarding the affective experiences (happiest
Keywords:
moments; Study 1) and risk factors (personality correlates; Study 2) for both indecision and general pro-
Indecision
Procrastination
crastination using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results found indecision uniquely predicted
Memory fewer happy memories across a lifetime and less detail of those memories, controlling for initial affect.
Affect Furthermore, different magnitudes of predictive patterns emerged for indecision (strong neuroticism,
Decision-making moderate introversion) and generalized procrastination (strong unconscientiousness and weakly asso-
ciated with neuroticism). In both studies, general procrastination led to indecision but models with
the opposite effect were much weaker, suggesting procrastinating behavior predicts being indecisive
but not vice versa. Results suggest differential experiences of indecisive individuals and more generalized
procrastinators. Both procrastination traits appear related but distinct, explaining why ‘typical’ pro-
crastinators can look so different psychologically.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction action, ultimately leading to enlightenment (Harvey, 1995).

1.1. Procrastination
‘‘Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your
own actions,’’ – Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama XIV.
Picture a typical procrastinator. Is the person lazy and unmoti-
vated, or engaged in organizing their room, instead of studying?
Does the person put off work for friends, parties, and social experi-
ences, or become anxious at home and alone?
At some point in the psychological literature, all these illustra-
tions describe chronic procrastinators—individuals who purpose-
fully delay the start or completion of tasks for irrational reasons
and experience anxiety over the delay (Ferrari, 2010; Ferrari,
Johnson, & McCown, 1995). These conflicting pictures illustrate
how variable the portrait of a procrastinator can be, but the end
result of procrastination appears similar. In the Dalai Lama’s teach-
ings, happiness follows from action, reflection, and then further
⇑ Corresponding author at: Texas A&M University, Department of Psychology,
United States. Tel.: +1 804 432 9817.
E-mail address: tptibbett@tamu.edu (T.P. Tibbett).
However, for procrastinators, actions essential to fostering happi-
ness may be put off, ignored, or avoided, leading to a lower quality
of life regardless of the circumstances. Creating positive affective
experiences to remember might be more difficult for these individ-
uals, despite the practice of ‘putting off’ being relatively common
in both behavior and decision-making.
Chronic procrastinators’ prevalence rates internationally have
been reported to be between 20% and 25% for both women and
men, even as high as 75% in populations like college students
(Ferrari, Díaz-Morales, O’Callaghan, Díaz, & Argumedo, 2007;
Steel & Ferrari, 2013). Everyone at some venture procrastinates,
but evidence suggests chronic procrastinators encounter more
obstacles to happiness. One possible explanation of the behavior
may be self-esteem and social-esteem protection, with pro-
crastinators being afraid of revealing possible incompetence to
themselves and others. Consequently, they put off doing tasks until
the last possible second for attributions of low effort over low abil-
ity, reminiscent of self-handicapping (Berglas & Jones, 1978;
Ferrari & Tice, 2000). This avoidant behavior leads to losses in
financial (McCown, Johnson, & Petzel, 1989), academic (Klassen,
Krawchuk, & Rajani, 2008), health (Tice & Baumeister, 1997) and

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.03.014
0191-8869/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
176 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184
social domains (Ferrari & Patel, 2004; Klingsieck, 2013), which fur-
ther may reinforce chronic procrastinators’ negative beliefs about
their own abilities. The vicious cycle seems to perpetuate avoid-
ance, which may prevent individuals from leading a happy life.
Chronic procrastination is not an adaptive behavior—it likens
unto a self-fulfilling prophecy, where individuals set themselves
up for failure (for a review, Ferrari, 2010). This self-handicapping
behavior is a distinct process from waiting. When individuals wait
between tasks, they are taking time to gather resources—mental,
informational, or otherwise—to complete their next task. Chronic
procrastinators do not typically wait; instead, they actively find
excuses or activities to occupy their time and justify not complet-
ing the task at hand (Ferrari, 2011). They then tie their failures to
environmental obstacles such as having enough time or blaming
the situation, rather than risk making a negative personal attribu-
tion. Although procrastination manifests in multiple forms and all
of them seem protective to the individual in the short-term
(Pychyl, Lee, Thibodeau, & Blunt, 2000), they do more harm than
good.
1.2. Decisional procrastination
One specific form of chronic procrastination is decisional pro-
crastination (DP), or indecision, a maladaptive pattern of postpon-
ing a decision when faced with conflicts and choices (see Ferrari
& Dovidio, 2001; Harriott, Ferrari, & Dovidio, 1996). The existence
of decisional procrastination as a construct is debated within the
procrastination literature. Some critics of decisional procrastina-
tion argue that it should not be considered separately from general
procrastination (e.g., Steel, 2010). Since the two constructs are
highly correlated, these proponents believe that decisional pro-
crastination is indistinct from more generalized measures and
should be subsumed by them. Other scholars (e.g., Anderson,
2003; Lay, 2009) contend that decisional procrastination is not a
form of procrastination at all; decision avoidance, they argue, can-
not be compared to general procrastination. Others acknowledge
distinctions but still pair indecision with more generalized pro-
crastination behavior (e.g., Mirzaei, Gharraee, & Birashk, 2014;
Özer, 2014). Like these authors, we take the perspective that while
indecision is similar to other forms of procrastination, it has a
unique role to play in an individual’s psychology.
Considerable evidence suggests that people who rate higher in
decisional procrastination take much longer to make decisions
(Beswick, Rothblum, & Mann, 1988; Frost & Shows, 1993). Ferrari
and Dovidio (2000) found that the reason for this delay had noth-
ing to do with being lazy or distracted; instead, the amount of
choice rendered highly indecisive individuals anxious. They con-
tinually searched for more information than necessary and could
not make a decision when faced with alternatives. As such, decisio-
nal procrastination may be thought of as avoidance of completing a
task: a motivational strategy like other types of procrastination
(Harriott et al., 1996). Indecisives avoid negative consequences
with their behavior for as long as possible. However, in order to
maintain their social and self-esteems, they exhaustively search
within a small subset of options to avoid completing their search,
never ‘getting around to’ exploring all choices (Ferrari & Dovidio,
2001). This leads to external attributions to task difficulty in order
to discount their role in any poor task performance. Decisional pro-
crastination can be disastrous in the context of making impactful
choices, such as in careers (Germeijs & De Boeck, 2002;
Salomone, 1982) or relationships (Ferrari & Emmons, 1994).
Though decisional procrastination yields tangible effects in
research, its existence is still in doubt. Fueling this debate is the
fact that there have been no studies (to our knowledge) which
explicitly examine the relationship of indecision to a more general-
ized construct: whether they are similar, distinct, or in-between.
We believe that distinctions exist but still need to be teased out,
as evidenced by the state of the literature; there are mixed results
of just what a procrastinator might look like, psychologically
speaking. Some deem that the portrait of a procrastinator is illus-
trated by impulsivity, a correlate of neuroticism, and it is currently
hypothesized as the leading catalyst in procrastinatory behavior
(Steel, 2010). By this view, neuroticism should be consistently
associated with procrastination behavior, as individuals high in
neuroticism are prone to impulsivity and behavioral dysregulation.
However, in personality studies, results are inconclusive.
Neuroticism has either been a strong, weak, or null predictor of
generalized procrastination (e.g., Johnson & Bloom, 1995;
Schouwenburg & Lay, 1995). To further muddle the picture, con-
scientiousness has been posited as a strong or even sole predictor
for this behavioral construct (Lee, Kelly, & Edwards, 2006).
Meanwhile, decisional procrastinators appear to have different
correlates altogether. For example, indecision has consistent, strong
correlations with neurotic personality styles (Beswick & Mann,
1994; Milgram & Tenne, 2000; Watson, 2001) and thereby
individuals are predisposed to the weaknesses that characterize
it: vulnerability, depression, and self-consciousness; it also corre-
lates moderately with introversion (Milgram & Palti, 1993) and in
some studies, conscientiousness (Di Fabio, 2006). This might sug-
gest a very different life for an indecisive as opposed to a general
procrastinator. It also indicates that we should look closely at which
constructs explain the most variance for the effects that overlap.
1.3. The current study
The current work explored how decisional procrastination is
both related and distinct from general procrastination. We address
these questions in two ways. First, we examine the affective experi-
ences (results) of indecision across a lifetime. From this perspective,
we may observe the unique autobiographical impact of being inde-
cisive as opposed to a behavioral procrastinator. If procrastination is
ubiquitous and decisional procrastination unworthy of distinction,
scores on both constructs should be highly positively correlated
with each other. They should also be roughly interchangeable in
any model and still maintain predictive validity and parsimony.
However, if decisional procrastination uniquely predicts the quan-
tity, quality, or detail of these memories controlling for general pro-
crastination, it might suggest decisional procrastination as a
candidate for complimentary study. We chose to analyze individ-
uals’ happiest memories of their lives, as these moments typically
embody how positively a person judges their own existence. By ask-
ing individuals to list their happy memories, we may intuit how
often (or how infrequently) a person might experience this satisfac-
tion and correlate with general and decisional procrastination
scores. In the current study, we compare competing hypotheses
using structural equation modeling (SEM) to tease apart and dismiss
alternate explanations, as well as control for potentially overlapping
variables. We hypothesize that decisional procrastination will be
related to, but still distinct from, general procrastination; though
both tendencies are motivational by nature, indecision involves
more rumination than general procrastination behavior. While
behavioral procrastinators act, putting off important work to be
done, indecisive individuals think about their choices and refuse
to act. We predict that this paralytic decision-making strategy will
translate to a larger impact on overall life experiences, creating an
affective experiential problem of fewer happy memories. By consis-
tently failing to act, an indecisive person will not have as many
opportunities to experience happy memories.
Second, we consider the origins (risk factors) of these types of
procrastination. Though the literature has been mixed in terms of
personality correlates of both general and decisional procrastina-
tion, we believe the picture would be clearer if the constructs were
 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184
examined in relation to each other rather than opposing measures.
To this end, with a series of structural equation models, we seek to
tease out which personality factors predict respective procrastina-
tion constructs in the same model. If decisional procrastination
were not distinct from generalized forms, personality correlates
should have effects for both constructs in the same pattern. They
should also be interchangeable in the final model. However, if it is
related but distinct, decisional procrastination should correlate
highly with general procrastination but have unique personality
predictors.
2. Study 1
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Participants
Undergraduate students (n = 62; 53 female, 8 male, 1 missing;
age range 18–40, Mage = 22.07) at a Midwestern private university
completed this pilot study for course credit. Respondents were
mostly European–American (62%), 14% Hispanic, 10% Black, 10%
Asian. Almost 5% identified as ‘Other’ in terms of race/ethnicity.
Participants were typically full-time students (about 5% part-time)
and upperclassmen (83% senior/juniors, 15% sophomores, and 2%
taking a fifth year).
2.1.2. Psychometric scales and procedure
Affect. After filling out demographic information, participants
completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS,
Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Participants responded to 20
items about their current mood on a 5-point scale (1 = very slightly
or not at all; 5 = extremely). The PANAS consisted of two subscales:
positive and negative affect. Higher scores in positive affect indi-
cated the extent to which participants felt enthusiastic, active, or
alert, generally associated with approach behavior. Higher scores
on negative affect items indicated the extent of aversive mood
states in an individual, generally illustrated by avoidance and gen-
eral distress. Watson and colleagues’ (1988) original scale had very
high internal consistency reliability for both subscales (a = 0.90 for
positive; a = 0.87 for negative). Before the task in the present
study, the typical participant began with moderate levels of posi-
tive affect (M = 3.01, SD = .41: a = 0.83 for positive) and negative
affect (M = 2.77, SD = .36: a = 0.80 for negative). We used these
items to control for affect upon entering the study.
2.1.3. Procrastination
For the next portion of the study, participants reported their
levels of procrastination in day-to-day life. This section consisted
of two different scales, which were counterbalanced. One scale par-
ticipants completed the Adult Inventory of Procrastination (AIP:
McCown et al., 1989). The scale is considered a general procrastina-
tion measure in a specifically behavioral sense; no items specifically
referenced cognition. This 15-item, 5-point scale asked a participant
to indicate agreement with a statement (1 = completely false,
5 = completely true) including examples such as ‘‘I don’t get things
done on time’’ and ‘‘I am not very good at meeting deadlines.’’
Higher scores on this scale indicate higher frequency of behavioral
procrastination in daily life. This scale has considerable internal con-
sistency and test–retest reliability (a = 0.79, 0.71 after 1 month) and
has been validated in the procrastination literature as a behavioral
predictor across cultures (e.g., Diaz-Morales, Ferrari, Diaz, &
Argumedo, 2006; Ferrari, O’Callaghan, & Newbegin, 2005). These
scores were summed together for a total measure.
The second procrastination scale participants completed was
Mann’s (1982) 5-item Decisional Procrastination (DP) scale, reflect-
ing levels of indecisiveness in day-to-day life. In contrast to AIP, DP
177
includes appraisals of decision-making. For example, items
included ‘‘I feel uncomfortable about making decisions’’ and ‘‘I
delay making decisions until it is too late.’’ This scale has con-
siderable test–retest validity (a = 0.69 after 1 month: Beswick
et al., 1988). It has since been subsumed into the Melbourne
Decision Making Questionnaire and validated (Mann, Burnett,
Radford, & Ford, 1997). Participants responded on a 5-point scale
(1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree), where high scores
reflected a motivational—not cognitive—deficit, in which partici-
pants put off making a decision when faced with multiple choices.
With the present sample, consistency on the DP scale was congru-
ent with these standards (a = 0.62: M = 3.17, SD = 1.45). Thus,
higher scores represented higher levels of procrastination through
indecision, rather than a cognitive detriment. Like the AIP, DP
scores are summed to create a total measure, rather than averaged.
2.1.4. Autobiographical memories
Finally, participants engaged in the exercise of remembering
episodic happy life events. Participants were encouraged to write
about a maximum of 33 Happy Moments in their lives or as many
as they could within a 60 min testing session. They recalled
autobiographical memories they would specifically consider to be
the happiest of their lives. They were encouraged to think deeply
and submit as many as possible. There was no character limit on
submission, enabling participants to elaborate as much detail as
comfortable. This recalling process resulted in 1589 memories
(M = 25 memories per participant). Two coders read the resulting
memories to ensure participants followed directions. Eligible
memories had four criteria; they were specific, episodic, autobio-
graphical, happy memories. If coders agreed that a particular mem-
ory did not satisfy all of these four criteria, that memory was
removed from consideration. For example, one memory coders
agreed to remove was ‘‘climbing trees.’’ Though this might be
autobiographical and happy, there is question as to whether this
is a specific, episodic memory. In contrast, an example memory
included was the following: ‘‘when I got a dog for x-mas last year.’’
After removal of memories that failed to satisfy directions, partici-
pants listed 1483 events used in our analysis.
All 1483 responses were coded by two independent researchers
for several categories, to assess differences in episodic content. We
used word frequency indicators akin to the Linguistic Inquiry and
Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007) program
in SASÒ: JMPÒ software to inform our categories (SAS Institute
Inc., 2012). This preemptory analysis resulted in a frequency of
all words used, allowing us to sort the highly frequent words into
categories. To give an example, there were 144 instances of the
word ‘school’ across all participants’ memories. However, this
word often was paired with other instances which changed the
meaning; for example, ‘graduation,’ which was mentioned 41
times, or ‘team,’ which was mentioned 34 times. Therefore, we cre-
ated categories for finishing school (Graduation) and competitive
school teams (e.g., Beating Others, Winning), as well as just general
school memories (School). Some words were related to each other;
for example, ‘father/dad’ (33), ‘mother/mom’ (30), ‘brother’ (24),
and ‘sister’ (21) were all common in happy memories. This, along
with the 31 instances of the word ‘family’ drove us to create a
Family category. Twenty-six different categories were the result
of over 1500 different words or phrases; these categories included
the most mentioned words, with at least 30 mentions of the word
or meaning behind them (Table 1). While potentially subjective,
this qualitative analysis allowed us to assess possible individual
differences similarly to LIWC (Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010).
Happy Moments might be coded positive for multiple cate-
gories. For example, a participant might write about the ‘‘beach
trip with my friends in Bermuda.’’ This memory might be coded
positive for Friends but also Fun and Travel, among others. Thus,
178 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184

Table 1 affect, negative affect, and decisional procrastination. The

Interrater reliability and coder instructions. model then tests whether AIP affects Happy Memory
Kappa Categories Coded positive if the memory involved. . . Frequency and word count.
0.974 Graduation Graduating a program or school  Model B.2 is a simplified model for general procrastination. This
0.969 Acceptance Acceptance into a program or school second iteration removes the non-significant predictors of A.1
0.909 Scholarship Receiving a scholarship in order to assess whether AIP predicts word count and number
0.896 School School memories of Happy Moments.
0.872 Promotion Receiving a promotion or raise
0.911 Career Dealing with jobs/career interests
0.809 Winning Contests, lotteries, awards, and achievements We used Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation for these SEMs.1
0.879 Leadership Involving the person leading others For each of these models, we tested not only the relationship
0.831 Beating others Competing and succeeding against other groups between observed variables but also several Goodness-of-Fit indices
0.824 Tryouts Succeeding in tryouts with limited spots
(AIC, AGFI, RMSEA). Therefore, we could assess both validity and par-
1 reading Books in a non-social context
0.689 Gifts Giving or receiving a gift simony of the models both independently and by comparison to
0.884 performance A recital or performance each other.
0.803 Fun An event interesting to the individual
0.904 Travel Traveling to a place, vacations, or pilgrimages
2.2. Results
0.922 Recovery Overcoming a disease, accident, or situation
0.66 Life skill Learning something new, like how to cook
0.967 Volunteering Volunteering time without pay 2.2.1. Distribution analysis
0.747 New beginning ‘‘The first day of ___’’ Both behavioral procrastination (AIP: M = 12.66, SD = 3.65) and
0.861 Rite of passage A big life event, transition
indecision (DP: M = 38.25, SD = 8.8) had the full range of response.
0.966 Family The memory centers around family members
0.868 Births Involving births into the writer’s family
Both AIP (W = .97, p > .05) and DP (W = .98, p > .05) scores upheld a
0.986 Pets Involving pets within the writer’s family normal distribution. As expected, AIP and DP scores were corre-
0.983 Weddings Involving weddings lated, r(59) = .53, p < .01, allowing us to construct a model eval-
0.95 Friends The memory centers around friends uating the direction of the relationship (if any). There was a
0.958 Lovers The memory centers around significant others
discrepant frequency in terms of gender (men: 8, women: 53);
Note. We report interrater reliability for coders (Kappa), as well as the categories however, no variables of interest had significantly different scores
coded and a brief explanation of coder instructions. when examining gender as a predictor (all ps > .1). PANAS scores
were taken before and after the Autobiographical Memory task.
we could create a precise picture of memory content. The primary All Shapiro–Wilk tests were non-significant (all ps > .05). Positive
purpose of this content analysis was to determine if a metric for affect (M = 3.01, SD = 0.43) and negative affect (M = 2.77,
comparison could be obtained between all participants. If so, we SD = 0.36) before the task had almost the full range of response.
could more easily focus on quantity of memories. If all participants’ This was also the case for positive affect (M = 2.22, SD = 0.56) and
memories had similar content, we could conclude that indecisive negative affect (M = 2.44, SD = 0.65) after the task.
persons had fewer happy memories, rather than infer that there
are massive individual differences which preclude comparison. In
2.2.2. Number of episodes recalled
short, it assessed whether individuals’ memories were more or less
Before considering content analysis, we calculated the number
the same, regardless of procrastination score. According to Cohen’s
of Happy Moments participants reported and compared them to
Kappa (1960), both coders were highly reliable in their assess-
their participant’s DP score. If not all participants reported similar
ments of the memories, with few scores falling below 0.70 and
numbers of memories, it would be difficult to draw conclusions by
none below 0.60 (Table 1).
counting the number of times we coded a category. For example, if
an individual reported 7 Family-related memories but only had 10
2.1.5. Model compilation
memories total, it would be very different than another participant
We specified structural equation models (SEMs) to test research
with 7 Family memories and 25 reported memories. There was a
questions and alternative explanations, using the SASÒ: JMPÒ
significant relationship in total number of memories reported
Structural Equation Modeling 2.1 add-on (SAS Institute Inc.,
between those with low and high DP scores, t(60) = 2.93,
2012). Though we were primarily interested in DP scores and
p < .01, d = 0.76. As such, when indecisiveness increased, the num-
how general procrastination affects them (Models A.1, A.2), we
ber of Happy Moments reported decreased, ranging between 8 and
considered that there could be an opposite effect, where indecision
32 memories per participant.
affects general procrastination (Models B.1, B.2). Accordingly, we
submitted multiple iterations for comparison in the best fit for
our data. The four models are described below. 2.2.3. Episodic memory content
To control for the differing numbers of memories per partici-
 Model A.1 is a full model for decisional procrastination. It begins pant as a function of DP scores, we calculated a percentage for
with all potential predictors (and potential confounds) predict- the episodes recalled instead of comparing the total instances.
ing DP: initial positive affect, negative affect, and general pro- For example, participants who had listed 7 instances of Family in
crastination (AIP). The model then tests whether DP predicts 10 total memories were treated as though 70% of their memories
number of memories and word count (a potential confound dis- were Family-related. A linear regression found that that low DP
cussed later.) The question is that, in controlling for these vari- scores had a higher percentage of memories concerning Winning,
ables, does DP predict the incidence of Happy Moments in life? t(60) = 2.51, p = .02, d = 0.64. High DP scorers were also less likely
 Model A.2 is a simplified model for decisional procrastination. to recall Weddings, t(60) = 3.06, p < .01, d = 0.78. Using SASÒ 9.3
Removing the non-significant relationships in A.1, we run a sec- (SAS Institute Inc., 2011) to conduct word count analysis, we also
ond iteration to see if DP accurately and parsimoniously pre-
1
dicts happy memory frequency and detail. ML estimation was designed with reasonable sample size and normal dis-
tributions in mind. It is often robust to violations of those assumptions. However,
 Model B.1 is a full model for general procrastination, using the
because this study had a smaller sample size, we also cross-validated our findings
Adult Inventory of Procrastination (AIP). Like A.1, B.1 begins with a Diagonally-Weighted Least Squares estimator. Results were consistent with
with predictors that could affect the results: initial positive the ML estimator.
 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184 179

found that there was a marginally significant trend whereby deci- Table 2
sive individuals described their memories in greater detail (word Fit indices and parsimony, study 1.

count) than more indecisive peers, t(60) = 1.94, p = .06, d = .50. Model AGFI AIC RMSEA SRMR v2 df p-Value
All remaining analyses were non-significant, with all participants A.1 0.89 34.71 0.01 ⁄
0.07 ⁄
5.71 ⁄
7.00 0.46⁄
irrespective of their DP score equally likely to report a similar per- A.2 0.92⁄ 17.06⁄ 0.02⁄ 0.05⁄ 3.06⁄ 3.00 0.38⁄
centage of each category in most memories. In sum, most partici- B.1 0.76 43.85 0.15 0.10 15.85 7.00 0.03
pants had similar types of happy memories. B.2 0.70 37.76 0.21 0.12 17.75 5.00 0.01

2.2.4. Comparative structural equation models
Model A.1. Running the full decisional procrastination model, we
found that positive affect and negative affect did not significantly
predict DP (positive: b = .06, t(57) = .40, n.s.; negative: b = .02,
t(57) = .11, n.s). This suggests that individual variance in affect
did not significantly affect our measures. General procrastination,
however, did affect DP in this model (b = .55, t(57) = 4.72,
p < .05). DP predicted the number of Happy Moments such that
more indecision predicted fewer Happy Moments (b = .32,
t(57) = 2.59, p < .05). We also found that despite having fewer
Happy Moments, indecisive individuals’ DP scores did not predict
the average word count of their memories (b = .24, t(57) = .40,
Note. These are compiled statistics that indicate goodness-of-fit and parsimony of
the tested models (see Iacobucci, 2010; Kashy, Donnellan, Ackerman, & Russell,
2009, for more discussion). A well-fitting model has a low Root Mean Squared Error
of Approximation (RMSEA < .08), a low Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual
(SRMR < .10), and a non-significant chi-squared value (p > .05). A parsimonious
model often has a high Adjusted Goodness-of-Fit (AGFI > .90) descriptive statistic
and low Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) by comparison to other models. For
convenience, statistics fitting these ideal values are starred.
A.1
Positive Affect -.06n.s.
Number of
Memories
-.32**

n.s), so they did not spend more effort detailing the memories they .64** General .55**
Indecision
had. These findings are summarized in Table 2 and graphically Procrastination
-.24n.s.
depicted in Fig. A.1. .02n.s.
Model A.2. This second step eliminated the non-significant pre- Word
Negative Affect Count
dictors of affect. Again, we found that incidence of general pro-
crastination in daily life affected indecision (b = .53, t(57) = 4.84,
p < .05). Indecision meanwhile predicted both number of Happy
A.2
Moments (b = .33, t(57) = 2.73, p < .05) and, different from the Number of
Memories
full model, word count (b = .25, t(57) = 1.98, p < .05): a weak
-.33**
effect. This reduced model also indicated that the model fit the
data and that the comparative values were superior to Model A.1 General .53**
Indecision
Procrastination
(Table 2, Fig. A.2). Testing relative likelihood between the AIC val- -.25*
ues, we found that full model was less than .01% likely to explain
our results better than Model A.2. Word
Count
Model B.1. Running the full general procrastination model, we
found that positive affect (b = .33, t(57) = 2.73, p < .05) and deci-
Fig. A. Decisional procrastination structural equation models. Note. Structural
sional procrastination (b = .50, t(57) = 4.72, p < .05) predicted
equation model results for the decisional procrastination full model (A.1) and more
behavioral procrastination. Negative affect did not significantly parsimonious reduced model (A.2). Both indicated a strong correlation between
predict AIP (b = .26, t(57) = 1.92, n.s.). Furthermore, controlling general procrastination and indecision, no relationship with initial affect, and
for all these factors, AIP did not significantly predict word count strong negative relationship with number of Happy Moments. The reduced model
(b = .09, t(57) = .26, n.s.) or number of happy moments detected a weak effect that indecisives wrote fewer words per memory on average.
⁄
p < .05; ⁄⁄p < .01.
(b = .04, t(57) = .68, n.s.). Unfortunately, this model did not fit
our data well. These results suggest general procrastination was
not driving this effect, despite being slightly correlated with deci-
sional procrastination (Table 2, Fig. B.1). Overall, this appeared to
across all participants comparing PANAS scores from the beginning
not nearly be as strong a model as the indecision explanation
of the study (M = 3.01, SD = 0.41) to the end (t(59) = 7.77, p < .01).
would be, differing from the view that decisional procrastination
Therefore, we did not include it in any of the aforementioned mod-
and general procrastination are interchangeable. To be certain,
els because we suspected the difficulty of the task contributed to
we conducted another iteration which excluded non-significant
the drop. For a comparative view of descriptive statistics and
initial predictors.
correlations between all variables of interest, see Table 3.
Model B.2. The reduced model found similar results. Without
negative affect, the relationship between positive affect and AIP
became insignificant (b = .17, t(57) = 1.51, n.s.). While DP was 3. Study 2
still a predictor of AIP (b = .50, t(57) = 4.63, p < .05.), AIP did not
predict either number of Happy Moments (b = .04, t(57) = .33, Our piloted first study offered some insight into the temporal
n.s.) or word count in those memories (b < .01, t(57) = .07, process of procrastination. First, it appeared that decisional pro-
n.s.). The reduced general procrastination model fit worse than crastination may not merely be substituted for more generalized
the full model. These results are summarized in Table 2 and procrastination; any model fit poorly when we switched the two
Fig. B.2. In sum, both decisional procrastination models explain constructs, implying they are functionally distinct but related.
the data better than measures of general procrastination, with Second, it appears that general procrastination first led to indeci-
the reduced decisional procrastination model (Model A.2) being sion (not vice versa), which leads to a variety of negative impacts.
the most effective. These initial findings are promising for determining the portrait of
It should be noted that in our data, as predicted, positive affect the procrastinator. We aimed to further illustrate distinctions in
after the task (M = 2.22, SD = 0.65) was negatively related to deci- types of procrastinators by assessing more recognizable per-
sional procrastination scores (b = .33, t(58) = 2.68, p < .01); sonality constructs, namely the Big Five Inventory (BFI; for a
however, we also found that positive affect scores were lower review: John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). In Study 2, we posit
180 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184
B.1
Positive Affect -.33* Number of
Memories
-.09n.s.
.50*
.64**
Decisional General
Procrastination Procrastination -.04n.s.
.26n.s. Word
Negative Affect
Count
B.2
Positive Affect -.17 n.s.
Number of
-.04n.s. Memories
General
Procrastination
-.01n.s.
.50* Word
Decisional Count
Procrastination
Fig. B. Behavioral procrastination structural equation models. Note. Structural
equation model results for the general procrastination full model (B.1) and reduced
model (B.2). Both models indicated a weak relationship between positive affect and
procrastination and a moderate effect of indecision on procrastination.
Procrastination had no relationship with the outcome variables of the autobio-
graphical memory task. However, the goodness-of-fit indices indicated these
models were neither parsimonious nor well-fit to the data. As such, this directional
explanation of the data was not compelling. ⁄p < .05; ⁄⁄p < .01.
structural equation models to address these questions and further
illustrate personality predictors of procrastination together rather
than separately.
3.1. A priori models
As in our pilot study, we approached Study 2 with two possible
full models for comparison. The first involved BFI traits dif-
ferentially predicting types of procrastination: general procrastina-
tion and indecision. Then indecision would filter into
procrastination behavior. We called this model the general pro-
crastination model, since its focus is generalized procrastination
behavior (like Model B.1 and B.2 in Study 1). The second full model
to test was similar but opposite in direction (like Model A.1 an A.2).
This model tests whether behavioral procrastination was leading
to participant indecision. We called this the indecision model, as
its end result was decisional procrastination.
Competing models were necessary because of the conflict of
personality effects in the procrastination literature, whether in
decisional or general procrastination. Some studies indicate a fairly
moderate correlation of neuroticism with general procrastination
(Johnson & Bloom, 1995; Schouwenburg & Lay, 1995). Other stud-
ies find neuroticism as a strong presence, particularly in decisional
procrastination but also general (Watson, 2001). Still other
researchers disagree that neuroticism should be a predictor of pro-
crastination at all and leave the mediation to conscientiousness
alone (Lee et al., 2006). Considerable evidence for extroversion as
a predictor has held in the literature, too, though it is not often
focused on as a potential predictor (Beswick & Mann, 1994;
Milgram & Tenne, 2000). Meanwhile, the literature is virtually
silent on how general procrastination and decisional procrastina-
tion affect each other. The strength of SEM in this design would
be the ability to understand whether these personality traits pre-
dict their respective procrastination types and intuit some form
of directionality. It also controls for redundancy, rendering extra-
neous predictors non-significant. In order to illustrate the per-
sonality of a procrastinator, it would be necessary to examine
these competing hypotheses.
3.2. Method
3.2.1. Participants
Undergraduate students (n = 211; 114 female, 96 male, 1 miss-
ing; Mage = 19.23) at a Midwestern private university completed
the study for course credit. Eight did not complete both pro-
crastination measures in their entirety and were excluded from
analysis for a total of 203 participants.
3.2.2. Psychometric scales and procedure
We compiled several Maximum Likelihood SEMs to compare
and dismiss competing claims.2 Our first research question was
whether certain personality components predicted specific types of
procrastination, controlling for other traits. We began with exoge-
nous variables of personality that in past studies have predicted cer-
tain types of procrastination. Both indecision (Model C) and general
procrastination (Model D) models began with the same exogenous
predictors, the BFI constructs. In these initial paths, the two models
do not differ.
However, they did differ in the matter of direction. As in Study
1, we wanted to examine whether the procrastination constructs
were highly interrelated. Were they interchangeable in the model?
If not, which came first, the cognition (DP) or the behavior (AIP)? If
the general procrastination model was the better fit, there would be
evidence to suggest indecisive thoughts influenced procrastination
behavior (AIP predicts DP). If the indecision model fit better, there
would be grounds to suggest that behavioral procrastination led
to indecisive thoughts in the future (DP predicts AIP). In this study,
we pit these two hypotheses against each other to assess the time-
course of procrastination and its effects on cognition and behavior.
For each of these models, we tested not only the relationship
between observed variables but also several Goodness-of-Fit
indices (AIC, AGFI, RMSEA). Therefore, we could assess both valid-
ity and parsimony of the models both independently and by com-
parison to each other.
3.3. Results
3.3.1. Distribution analysis
Table 4 summarizes descriptive statistics and correlations of all
variables of interest. In terms of procrastination, both general pro-
crastination and indecision had the full range of response; in this
study, we took the mean rather than the sum of these scales, differ-
ing from Study 1. Though AIP scores followed the normal dis-
tribution (W = .99, p > .05), DP scores had a slight positive skew
which violated assumptions of normality (W = .98, p < .05). As
expected, AIP and DP scores were correlated, r(201) = .39, p < .05,
d = .99, allowing us to continue with the model assessing direc-
tionality of outcomes.
There were few warning signs for extraversion (M = 3.42,
SD = .65), agreeableness (M = 3.80, SD = .48), conscientiousness
(M = 3.54, SD = .50), openness (M = 3.37, SD = .55) or neuroticism
(M = 2.89, SD = .68) in terms of normality. Though most personality
traits were expected to have slight skews in accordance with the
literature, conscientiousness had a completely normal distribution,
while all other distributions violated normality at a p < .05 level
but not p < .01. It should be noted that our sample had some
instances of multicollinearity, whereby most personality traits
were slightly correlated with each other. However, this has a foun-
dation in the literature and the nature of SEM partially addresses
this drawback.
2
One of the assumptions of ML is multivariate normality, which was violated in
this study. ML is often robust to violations of this assumption, but to make sure, we
cross-validated our results by bootstrapping. We took 500 bootstrap samples and re-
ran the ML analysis. Results were consistent with our original models.
 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184
Table 3
Data summary, study 1.
Variable Descriptive
M SD
General proc. (AIP) 38.25 8.84
Decisional proc. (DP) 12.66 3.65
Positive affect (PA) 3.01 0.41
Negative affect (NA) 2.77 0.36
Happy memories (HM) 23.92 8.08
Word count (WC) 7.92 2.05
Note. We report descriptive statistics and pairwise correlations for each variable of interest in structural equation models. All significant correlations (denoted with a *) in this
table were at a p < .001 level. Three non-significant correlations were marginal (p < .10, but not p < .05): general procrastination/positive affect, decisional procrastina-
tion/word count, and happy memories/positive affect.
Model C.1. For the general procrastination full model (Fig. C), we
found that conscientiousness significantly predicted AIP (b = .46,
t(201) = 7.57, p < .05), while agreeableness (b = .09,
t(201) = 1.42, n.s.) and neuroticism (b = .03, t(201) = .38, n.s.)
were non-significant with behavioral procrastination, given all
other factors. Meanwhile, extraversion was negatively related
(b = .25, t(201) = 4.09, p < .05) to DP, and neuroticism was posi-
tively related (b = .39, t(201) = 6.32, p < .05). This seemingly sup-
ports the existing viewpoint that conscientiousness should be a
sole predictor of behavioral procrastination, while extraversion
and neuroticism significantly predict decisional procrastination.
There was also a weak but significant directional relationship
between indecision and behavioral procrastination (b = .22,
t(201) = 3.45, p < .05). However, in consulting the fit indices, there
were problems. This model was reasonably parsimonious without
further steps; however, the model did not fit the data very well,
and it erred on the side of over-fitting with presence of non-signifi-
cant predictors. As such, we moved to a reduced model to attempt
to better explain our data.
Model C.2. We removed the non-significant findings of agree-
ableness, as they were neither theoretically relevant nor significant
in the full model. We kept the pathway from neuroticism to AIP
because it had support in previous findings of significance in the
literature. All findings held or grew stronger due to eliminating
agreeableness from the model. Conscientiousness was a significant
negative predictor of AIP (b = .49, t(201) = 8.46, p < .05), while
neuroticism was still non-significant (b = .05, t(201) = .74, n.s.).
Extraversion was a negative predictor of DP (b = .25,
t(201) = 4.09, p < .05), while neuroticism was positive (b = .39,
t(201) = 6.32, p < .05). AIP also predicted DP (b = .22, t(201) = 3.35,
p < .05). This illustrates similar findings to the full model; however,
the fit indices were worse (see Table 5). In sum, we saw no reason
to reduce the model further and concluded these models did not
support our data.
Model D.1. For the indecision full model (Fig. D), we found that
conscientiousness significantly predicted AIP (b = .51,
t(201) = 8.34, p < .05), while agreeableness (b = .08, t(2
01) = 1.20, n.s.) was non-significant with behavioral procrastina-
tion, given all other factors. Neuroticism was marginally significant
(b = .12, t(201) = 1.91, p < .1). Meanwhile, extraversion was nega-
tively related (b = .21, t(201) = 3.58, p < .05) to DP, and neuroti-
cism was positively related (b = .35, t(201) = 5.75, p < .05). Again,
this seemingly supported the existing viewpoint that con-
scientiousness should be a sole predictor of behavioral procrastina-
tion, while extraversion and neuroticism significantly predict
decisional procrastination. The directional relationship between
AIP and DP was also stronger in this model than previous ones
(b = .27, t(201) = 4.54, p < .05). This model was reasonably parsimo-
nious without further steps and the model appeared to fit the data
very well. However, we noted that its model comparison value was
inferior to the general procrastination reduced model (Table 5). In
181
Correlations
AIP DP PA NA HM WC
1 0.53⁄ 0.25 0.05 0.04 0.01
0.53⁄ 1 0.016 0.03 0.35⁄ 0.24
0.25 0.16 1 0.64⁄ 0.25 0.05
0.05 0.03 0.64⁄ 1 0.15 0.07
0.04 0.35⁄ 0.25 0.15 1 0.08
0.01 0.24 0.05 0.07 0.08 1
an effort to prune the model of non-significant predictors and
improve its model comparison value, we constructed a second
iteration to better explain our data.
Model D.2. We removed the non-significant predictor of agree-
ableness from the model. During this iteration, we retained neu-
roticism as a predictor for both procrastination types due to its
marginal significance in the full model and the presence in litera-
ture. All findings held or grew stronger due to eliminating agree-
ableness from the model. Conscientiousness was a significant
negative predictor of AIP (b = .54, t(201) = 9.18, p < .05), while
neuroticism became a weakly positive predictor (b = .13,
t(201) = 2.27, p < .05), a divergent finding from the last iteration.
Meanwhile, extraversion was a negative predictor of DP
(b = .21, t(201) = 3.58, p < .05), while neuroticism remained
strongly positive (b = .35, t(201) = 5.75, p < .05). Similar to the full
model, AIP also predicted the outcome of DP scores directionally
(b = .27, t(201) = 4.54, p < .05). This model was slightly more
parsimonious, and the data appeared to fit the model well, like
the full model (Table 5). However, this reduced model was superior
to the full model due to its model comparison value, and the lack of
non-significant pathways. It appeared this model was the best fit of
all iterations.
4. Discussion
The aim of the present research was to clarify and disentangle
decisional procrastination from a more general construct. We
addressed this issue in two ways. First, we considered the affective
experiences (results) of indecision across a lifetime by examining
the quality and quantity of happy memories. Our first study con-
firmed that indecisive individuals had fewer positive experiences
and less detail in those memories to draw from looking back on
their own experiences, even controlling for initial positive and
negative affect. Those who procrastinated in a more general sense
did not have these relationships, despite the two constructs being
highly correlated. Our second study explored what risk factors,
specifically personality traits, might lead to particular types of pro-
crastination. Though indecision and general procrastination corre-
lated highly, they had vastly different impacts on outcome
variables; we found in Study 2 that different personality predictors
might be an explanation. General procrastination appears to be
instigated almost wholly by low conscientiousness and only
slightly by high neuroticism. However, indecision’s most powerful
predictor is neuroticism, followed by introversion. This offers a
clearer a view of the personality predictors of procrastinating,
but it also offers stronger evidence for causal direction between
the two types of procrastination. Though correlation’s direc-
tionality can be ambiguous, SEM allows us to predict which direc-
tional relationship is stronger (and thereby, more likely to explain
the data). Our indecision models posit that general procrastination
causes indecision, with the reverse being either a non-significant
182 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184

Table 4
Data summary, study 2.

Variable Descriptive Correlations

M SD AIP DP A C E O N
General Proc. (AIP) 2.38 0.49 1 0.38⁄ 0.28⁄ 0.55⁄ 0.18⁄ 0.03 0.20⁄
Indecision (DP) 2.62 0.63 0.38⁄ 1 0.15⁄ 0.30⁄ 0.32⁄ 0.08 0.44⁄
Agreeableness (A) 3.80 0.48 0.28⁄ 0.15⁄ 1 0.33⁄ 0.07 0.21⁄ 0.27⁄
Conscientious (C) 3.54 0.50 0.55⁄ 0.30⁄ 0.33⁄ 1 0.22⁄ 0.08 0.13
Extraversion (E) 3.42 0.65 0.18⁄ 0.32⁄ 0.07 0.22⁄ 1 0.15⁄ 0.20⁄
Openness (O) 3.37 0.55 0.03 0.08 0.21⁄ 0.08 0.15⁄ 1 0.01
Neuroticism (N) 2.89 0.68 0.20⁄ 0.44⁄ 0.27⁄ 0.13 0.20⁄ 0.01 1

Note. All significant correlations (denoted with a *) in this table were at a p < .05 level.

D.1
C.1 Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness Extraversion
Extraversion -.51** -.21*
-.46** -.25* .27*
General Decisional
General .22* Decisional Procrastination Procrastination
Procrastination Procrastination
-0.08n.s. .35**
-0.09n.s. .39**
Agreeableness .12т Neuroticism
Agreeableness .03n.s. Neuroticism

D.2
C.2
Conscientiousness Neuroticism Extraversion
Conscientiousness Neuroticism Extraversion

-.54** .13*. .35** -.21*

-.49** .05n.s. .39** -.25*
General Decisional
General Decisional Procrastination Procrastination
Procrastination Procrastination .27*
.22*
Fig. D. Decisional procrastination structural equation models. Note. Structural
Fig. C. General procrastination structural equation models. Note. Structural equa- equation model results for the decisional procrastination full model (D.1) and more
tion model results for the general procrastination full model (C.1) and reduced parsimonious reduced model (D.2). General procrastination was characterized most
model (C.2). Goodness-of-fit indices indicated these models were neither parsimo- by low conscientiousness and a modest correlation to neuroticism. Decisional
nious nor well-fit to the data. As such, this directional explanation of the data was procrastination was characterized by neuroticism and extraversion. The goodness-
not compelling. n: p < .10;⁄p < .05; ⁄⁄p < .01. of-fit indices indicated that these models were superior explanations for our data
relative to their general procrastination counterparts. It also suggests that general
procrastination leads to more specific indecision not vice versa: n: p < .10; ⁄p < .05;
⁄⁄
p < .01.
Table 5
Fit indices and parsimony, study 2.
affective and episodic, autobiographical component to this narra-
Model AGFI AIC RMSEA SRMR v2 df p-Value
tive. It appears that increasingly indecisive individuals have fewer
C.1 0.87 48.01 0.12 0.05 ⁄
12.01 3.00 0.01
of these happy moments in their lives, and these fewer moments
C.2 0.84 37.60 0.15 0.06 11.60 2.00 0.00
D.1 0.94⁄ 53.52 0.05⁄ 0.03⁄ 7.52⁄ 5.00 0.18⁄ appear to be remembered with less detail. This indecision appears
D.2 0.97⁄ 28.23⁄ 0.02⁄ 0.02⁄ 2.23⁄ 2.00 0.33⁄ to be initiated by general procrastination, but the number of happy
moments was not directly affected by behavior specifically.
Note. These are compiled statistics that indicate goodness-of-fit and parsimony of
the tested models (see Iacobucci, 2010; Kashy et al., 2009, for more discussion). For Indecision appears to be the true predictor, a distinct personality
convenience, statistics that indicate superior fit are starred. construct from a more generalized procrastination behavior.
Although our approach was correlational in nature, we managed
or weaker explanation statistically. Taken together, these findings to provide a parsimonious directional model for our effects in order
suggest that indecision is an affective experiential problem related to increase plausibility of this perspective.
to but distinct from more generalized procrastination. One alternative explanation for these findings is that indeci-
sives, given a choice between all their life memories, fail to ade-
4.1. An affective experiential problem quately choose between their memories and therefore do not
write as many as their decisive peers. An argument may be made
Our results build on decisional procrastination and chronic pro- that decisional procrastinators have about as many happy memo-
crastination in general. Procrastinators typically have difficulties in ries, but procrastinate in our study itself, failing to record as many
time management stemming from their avoidant behavior in start- happy moments in their session until the last minute. However,
ing or completing a task (see Ferrari, 2010). Perpetuating this pat- the nature of the study would likely not require procrastination
tern would deal considerable damage to a person’s task as a short-term protective strategy. While we acknowledge that
performance, health, and professional life (Germeijs & De Boeck, indecisives engage in this behavior, it most often occurs in tasks
2002; Sirois, Melia-Gordon, & Pychyl, 2003; Tice & Baumeister, with high cognitive load and stress (Ferrari & Dovidio, 2001). We
1997), a picture that our findings support. While past research con- did not expose participants to a specific time limit or stressor;
veyed that indecisives engaged in self-regulatory, self-handicap- there was very little pressure that would result in the heightened
ping behavior that harms their performance on decision-making anxiety and perceived difficulty of the task on the part of
tasks (Ferrari & Dovidio, 2000, 2001), our first study adds an indecisives.
 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184
Furthermore, our quasi-experimental task for Study 1 had no
‘‘wrong answers,’’ instigated no competition, and examined only
autobiographical information: the participant was the foremost
expert in the world on their life-story topic. There is also significant
evidence in the literature that recall of happy memories and nos-
talgia have a positive, rather than stressful, effect on individuals,
helping individuals cope with psychological adversity (Cheung
et al., 2013; Zauberman, Ratner, & Kim, 2009). As such, procrastina-
tion in order to put off decision-making and protect self-worth, as
well as anxiety, would be unnecessary. Another competing expla-
nation comes from past research in decisional procrastination, sug-
gesting that indecisives exposed to these stressors would search
more systematically within a single memory or domain without
diversification (Ferrari & Dovidio, 2000). Taking this view, indeci-
sives would likely provide either longer, more detailed (albeit
fewer) memories or mostly memories within one specific dimen-
sion. However, we anticipated these alternatives and contributed
word count as a possible component to the model, which was weak
at best and often non-significant. Regardless, neither of these out-
comes was supported by the current data, with word count and
differences in qualitative content trending in favor of decisive
participants.
4.2. Different risk factors
Our results for personality correlates add to a fairly mixed
literature across time. By positing both indecision and general pro-
crastination into structural equation models, we found that con-
trolling for all other components, decisional procrastination is
best predicted by neuroticism, while general procrastination is
predicted by a detriment of conscientiousness. We can understand
how neuroticism was implicated by earlier studies as a factor,
judging by the significant correlation in general procrastination
as well; however, such a relationship is modest in our study when
controlling for other predictors. However, neuroticism is a massive
predictor of indecision. This makes sense, as neurotic individuals
typically consider everything that could possibly go wrong, often
over-inflating the consequences of an action; therefore, indecision
could be a short-term strategy to delay these imagined
consequences.
One somewhat surprising finding involved the directional nat-
ure of decisional procrastination and more generalized forms. In
all of our models, the strongest explanation of the data was a direc-
tional one leading from general procrastination (behavior) to deci-
sional procrastination (thoughts, indecision.) This seems
counterintuitive, as conventional logic assumes we typically think
about decisions before we make them, akin to appraisal models of
motivation and emotion. However, we posit that this relationship
might be different, as general procrastination does not constitute
behavior in a traditional sense; instead, it’s a delaying of behavior.
In delaying the behavior, it is reasonable to assume that as
individuals procrastinate, time will pass until the deadline must
be dealt with. In this situation, it is likely to presume that chronic
procrastinators will not know where to begin, what to do, and how
to finish the project they’ve delayed until the last minute: they will
be indecisive. That is likely why indecision is so intertwined,
operating with generalized procrastination as a last-minute pro-
tective strategy. However, while the constructs appear related in
this way, they still appear distinct from each other, judging by their
differing personality correlates and the experiences garnered by
their practice.
4.3. Limitations and conclusion
Interestingly, there was not more deviation in qualitative con-
tent between indecisive and decisive participants in their affective
183
experiences. Though there is some evidence that decisive individu-
als experience more social and competitive happy memories than
indecisives, it is difficult to pin down the exact contextual differ-
ences without a formalized, validated measure. We emphasize that
our current efforts in qualitative experience of happy memories
were exploratory in nature and hint at testable effects in future
empirical work. Though there were some power concerns in
Study 1, we note that all relationships present in both studies were
sustained in a more powerful set of models (Study 2). Some null
results may also stem from the unequal quantity of memories
between decisive and indecisives. Because of this, to have any
meaning, our findings were required to compare the category’s
percent representation all memories (15% of memories had ‘‘X’’
quality) rather than a simple count of total memories (4 memories
had ‘‘X’’ quality). In order to further tease apart this issue, future
work might consider instructing participants to list their ten best
happy memories with no time limit (a manageable task for pro-
crastinators and non-procrastinators). In having equitable number
of memories, researchers would have more statistical power and a
better metric for examining differences. It is also worth noting our
sample was characterized by a discrepancy in gender in Study 1.
Though we took special care to test for gender differences in all
analyses of interest, we understand that there might not be suffi-
cient power per cell to see possible effects. With a sample more
balanced in gender, we would predict that the effects would be
stronger, as men exhibit procrastination more in general (Steel &
Ferrari, 2013). It is also worth noting that these results do not
address specific age or ethnic groups, so statistical noise may be
introduced with variability in these demographics. However, we
believe that random selection from the population may address
this potential drawback.
The portrait of the procrastinator can look very different,
depending on what type of procrastination they practice. Some
chronic procrastinators may be unconscientious and consistently
put off work in a behavioral sense. Others, specifically decisional
procrastinators, may be paralyzed in thought and decision-making
by their neuroticism and keep to themselves. Both of these types of
procrastinators experience a lower quality life by ‘putting off’
important work, but our research suggests they remain distinct
in their affective experiences, enough so we should not conflate
the two. These results appear to be due to their differing per-
sonality traits. Despite identifying decisional procrastination as a
cognitive, behavioral, and now an affective experiential problem,
it is important to remember that for procrastinators, too, change
must first come from within. The Dalai Lama teaches us that ‘‘we
can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with
ourselves.’’ In essence, forcing procrastinators to manage their time
will certainly not motivate them to practice this philosophy them-
selves (see Ferrari, 2011); breaking a bad habit cannot be effec-
tively maintained by extrinsic motivation alone (Lepper, Greene,
& Nisbett, 1973). But there is hope. From what our own research
suggests, reducing this maladaptive decision-making strategy will
lead to more positive experiences, greater positive affect, and bet-
ter quality of life. As such, when ‘‘ex-indecisives’’ later meditate
upon their happy moments, we expect they will have more on
their mind.
Ethical statement
In accordance with Elsevier’s ethical guidelines, we, the authors
of this work, confirm this manuscript to be the authors’ own origi-
nal work, which has not been previously published elsewhere. It
reflects our own research and analysis in a truthful and complete
manner. We properly credit the meaningful contributions of co-au-
thors and co-researchers, and we verify the work is not submitted
184 T.P. Tibbett, J.R. Ferrari / Personality and Individual Differences 82 (2015) 175–184
to more than one journal for consideration (not under simultane-
ous peer-review). Finally, this manuscript is appropriately placed
in the context of prior and existing research.
Acknowledgements
Authors express gratitude to Nicole Landreth and Samantha
Darling for their assistance in data organization and theme coding.
The authors have no conflict of interests to report from the results
of their research.
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