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Prevalence of Procrastination among Samples of Adults

Article  in  Psychological Reports · April 1996

DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1996.78.2.611

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 Psychological Reports, 1996, 7 8 , 611-616. O Psychological Reports 1996

PREVALENCE OF PROCRASTINATION
AMONG SAMPLES O F ADULTS '

JESSE HARRIOTT AND JOSEPH R FERRARI

DePaul University

Summary.-At four public meetings, 122 women and 89 men (M age=47.6 yr.)
completed measures of Decisional, Avoidanr, and Arousal Procrastination. About 20%
of respondents (42 adults) claimed to be chronic procrastinators, with highest rates of
all three procrastination types reported by members of the community (public) groups
( n = 64) compared to professional (n=54), business ( n = 59), and educational (!I = 34)
employees. Respondents who had been married, i.e., separated, divorced, widowed,
reported higher rates of procrastination (independent of number of children) than
adults who were currently married or never married. Respondents with high-school
education or less reported higher rates of decisional procrastination than individuals
with college or postcollege educations.

E h s and Knaus (1977) estimated that 70% of college students engage

in academic procrastination, i.e., delay beginning or completing academic
tasks. Only a few studes have examined the use of procrastination within
the general population. For example, McCown and Johnson (1989) found
that over 25% of 146 adults surveyed stated that procrastination was a
"significant problem" in their lives. Almost 40% of respondents stated that
procrastination had personally caused them financial loss during the past
year. McCown and Roberts (1994) conducted a telephone survey with 360
persons selected at random, aged 18 through 77 years. Procrastination scores
for men peaked for persons their middle-to-late 20s and then declined for
subsequent age groups until about age 60. For women, scores d e c h e d from
a high point in early adulthood and were higher for those between 55 and
60 years old. Ferrari (1993) found higher procrastination scores among 240
adults who delayed their beginning to shop during the Christmas season.
High procrastinators more than low procrastinators were likely to delay the
redemption of a mall gift certificate. Ferrari and Olivette (1993) found no
significant gender ddference in decisional procrastination. Taken together,
these studies indicate that procrastination may be common in the general
population.
The current study explored types of procrastination (Avoidant, Arousal,
and Decisional) among samples of a community. This study may give some
insight into the profile of the adult population who use dfierent procrasti-
nation methods.

'Please address correspondence to the second auchor at che Deparrment of Psychology, DePaul
University, 2219 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614.
 J. HARRIOTT & J. R. FERRARI

METHOD
All participants (122 women and 89 men; M age=47.6 yr., SD=15.8)
were volunteers who attended invited talks on procrastination given by the
second author. Prior to each talk on procrastination, attendees completed
several demographic items (age, gender, years of education, marital status,
number of children, occupation, number of people they supervise, and the
length of time at their present posts) and three measures of procrastination.
Procrastination measures included McCown and Johnson's (1989) 15-item,
5-point rating Avoidant Procrastination scale, Lay's (1986) 20-item, >-point
rating Arousal Procrastination scale, and Mann's (1982) >-item, >-point rat-
ing Indecision scale. All three measures have Cronbach alpha reliabhties
2.70 and acceptable validity for use as research inventories (see Ferrari, John-
son, & McCown, 1995).
One sample of participants attended a general public gathering (n =64)
at a local town meeting hall and were invited through newspapers, flyers,
and posters in the community. A second sample were professional, business/
commerce persons (n =54) invited via a mailed organizational newsletter. A
third sample were bank employees (n=59) contacted by an internal memo
issued to all employees. The fourth sample were university managers (n =34)
invited to a scheduled series of speakers announced in an interoffice memo.
While it was not possible to ascertain the size of the entire eligible populous
for the general public sample, we were informed that over 75% of the mem-
bers from the other three samples were included in this survey. No attendee
refused to participate.

Table 1 presents the mean scores, standard deviations, coefficients al-

pha, and partial correlates (controlling for age) for the three measures of
procrastination. Scores on Decisional, Avoidant, and Arousal Procrastination
were significantly related for these adults, as is consistent with studies using
these measures with college students (see Ferrari, et a/., 1995).
Further, high rates of procrastination on each method were calculated
across alJ 211 participants. Extreme high scores were computed by summing

TABLE 1
MEANS,
STANDARDDEVIATIONS.
AND PARTIAL
CORRELATIONS
(CONTROLLING
FORAGE)AMONGPROCRASTINATION (N = 211)
MEASURES

Procrastination M SD Cronbach a Partial r

1 2
1. Decisional 10.9 4.3 .81
2. Avoidant 35.4 9.9 .82 .461*
3 . Arousal 48.8 14.1 .89 .564* .764*
 PREVALENCE OF PROCRASTINATION 613

ratings of 2 4 for all items of a particular scale, a procedure used by Mc-

Cown and Johnson (1989) and McCown and Roberts (1994). Among the
present respondents, 19.3% (41) reported themselves as Indecisive, 15.6%
(33) claimed to be Avoidant procrastinators, and 21.8% (46) stated they
were Arousal procrastinators. In the current study, over-all prevalence of pro-
crastination was about 20% (42) of the adult community population. Com-
pared to college student samples for whom procrastination may be as high
as 70% (Ehs & Knaus, 1977), it seems that tendencies toward procrastina-
tion may decrease across ages. Ferrari, et al. (19951, however, stated that aca-
demic procrastination is situation-specific so a student may delay studying
but not delay in attending a party or purchasing tickets to a concert. The
three types of procrastination measured in the current study examined dis-
positional forms of procrastination such as indecision and tendencies for
thrill-seeking. Therefore, lower rates of procrastination for those who are
younger and those who are older may reflect ddferences in measurement do-
mains and not developmental changes.
A 2 (gender) x 4 (sample) analysis of variance was performed separately
for the three measures of procrastination. Consistent with other studles (e.g.,
Ferrari, 1993), men and women did not report significantly diHerent amounts
of procrastination, despite their involvement in dLfferent organizations. How-
ever, as noted from Table 2, higher ratings of Decisional (F,,,,, = 8.2, p <
.001), Avoidant (F,,,,,=5.1, p < .001), and Arousal (F,,, =3.4, p < .02) Pro-
crastination were reported by members of the general public than among the
three occupational settings (Newman-Keuls). Unfortunately, because the pres-
ent samples were not randomly selected and, in turn, may have been hlghly
selected participants, it was not possible to ascertain whether this result re-
flected a response bias against admitting tendencies to procrastination in the
occupational samples or whether it suggests actual ratings of procrastination
among subgroups of the general population. There was no significant inter-
action between gender and sample.
One-way analysis of variance also was performed for years of education
separately for scores on three measures of procrastination (Table 2). Mean
rate of Decisional Procrastination was highest (Newman-Keuls) among per-
sons with a high-school education or less, compared to persons with college
or postcollege education (F,,,,, = 3.3, p < .04). Previous stucbes have shown
that chronic procrastination was unrelated to intellectual abhties (Ferrari, et
al., 1995). Perhaps as a person has more years of education he learns to be
more decisive about famhar tasks that he is required to complete, e.g., pa-
pers, projects. An alternative interpretation is that indecisive persons are
weeded out of the educational system because they are unable to make deci-
sions. People who finish more education than high school, who gain profes-
sional status, and who are business or educational employees have already
614 J. HARRIOTT & J. R. FERRARI

TABLE 2
MEANRATINGS
ON PROCRASTINATION
MEASURES
BY PERSONAL
CHARACTERISTICS
Characterisdcs n Procrastination Measures
Decisional Avoidant Arousal
Sample
General Public 64 13.5 38.7 54.4
Professional 54 9.5 34.5 43.1
Bank Employees 59 9.9 35.3 45.9
University Managers 34 9.1 33.5 46.1
Education, yr.
<High School 53 12.6 34.1 50.6
College 87 10.7 35.3 48.9
Postcollege 57 10.9 34.8 47.0
Marital Status
Never Married 35 11.2 34.8 51.4
Married 137 10.6 34.0 47.1
Was Married 29 14.7 39.1 54.7
Number of Children
0 56 11.7 35.5 51.5
1 28 10.3 33.3 47.4
2 51 10.5 35.4 48.9
3 31 12.7 35.2 49.8
4 12 11.0 35.4 47.5
25 23 10.8 33.7 43.7

shown by their accomplishments that they may well procrastinate less than
individuals who are not in these categories.
To explore whether tendencies to procrastinate were common among
ddferent family Mestyles, respondents were asked to report their current
marital status and number of children. One-way analysis of variance was per-
formed for scores on three measures of procrastination among marital status
categories and number of children (Table 2). Persons who had been married
but were not now, i.e., divorced, widowed, separated, reported significantly
higher ratings of Lndecision ( F,,,,,
= 12.1, p<.001), Avoidant (F2,,,=2.9, p <
.05), and Arousal (F2,,,,=4.4, p=.Ol) Procrastination than individuals who
were single or were presently married (Newman-Keuls). However, number
of children did not seem to differentiate persons' tendencies to use one of
these three procrastination methods. Taken together, these two results sug-
gest that persons who were married have difficulty with procrastination and
that difficulty may contribute to marital stress. Being a parent (married or
unmarried) seemed not to contribute to tendencies to procrastinate; there
were no significant correlations between the number of children and ratings
on each of the three measures of procrastination. Clearly, further investiga-
tion is needed, but the role of procrastination among couples may be inter-
esting and fruitful to study.
 PREVALENCE O F PROCRASTINATION 615

Finally, an analysis of employment status on tendencies to procrastinate

was performed. Fourteen occupational types were grouped into three em-
ployment categories of Profession-related (health, education, self-employed,
professional, clergy: n =33), Business-related (manager, administration, oth-
er-business; n = 125), and Other occupations (n=45). A one-way analysis of
variance was performed comparing these three employment categories sepa-
rately for each of the three measures of procrastination. There was a signifi-
cant mean difference in scores among categories on Decisional Procrastina-
tion (F,,,,,=4.99, p < ,008) but not on tendencies to Arousal or Avoidant
Procrastination. Newman-Keuls comparisons indicated that adults in Busi-
ness-related occupations reported significantly less Lndecision (M= 10.5, SD=
4.0) than adults in Profession-related (M= 12.4, SD=5.0) or in Other occu-
pations (M= 12.6, SD=5.0). Partial correlations ( c o n t r o h g for age) were
performed for each measure of procrastination by number of people super-
vised and length of time in a position. Only ratings on Decisional Procrasti-
nation were significantly negatively related with the number of people super-
vised ( r = -.19, p < .01). These results may not be surprising considering that
chronic indecisiveness would not be functional for supervisors (in the cur-
rent study, M = 5 people supervised).
Thus, procrastination may be a fairly common phenomenon for about
one in five adults. Unfortunately, in the current study no assessment of eth-
nicity was made, and respondents were not randomly selected. People who
attend invited talks on procrastination are not Uely to be representative of
the adult community, so the range of scores reported in this study may be
restricted. Further research with different subgroups of participants, differ-
ent measures and rnechods of data collection, and different numbers of par-
ticipants are needed. Nevertheless, it appears that chronic procrastination is
prevalent among adults. Frequent tendencies toward task delays may have
both broad personal consequences and even societal implications. Attempts
to identdy procrastination as a problem and to indcate the cost of the prob-
lem to industry, the economy, and human relationships are needed.
REFERENCES
ELLIS,A.. & KNAUS,W. J. (1977) Overcoming procrastination. New York lnsr~tutefor Rational
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FERRARI, J. R.. JOHNSON, J. L., & MCCOWN,M. G. (1995) Procrastirration and task avoidance:
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FERRARI.1. R.. &OLIVETTE, M. J. (1997) Perceptions of parental control and the development
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 616 J. HARRIOTT & J. R. FERRARI

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