Current Psychology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9777-3

The effects of decisional and academic procrastination on students’

feelings toward academic procrastination
Meirav Hen 1 & Marina Goroshit 1

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
Procrastination is often associated with feelings of discomfort. The current research examined the effects of decisional and
academic procrastination on students’ feeling of discomfort related to academic procrastination and the desire to change their
procrastination habits. We assumed that academic procrastination would mediate the relationship between decisional procrasti-
nation and students’ feelings toward academic procrastination. A total of 373 undergraduate social sciences students from
northern Israel participated in the study. The results challenge the traditional perception that procrastination is mostly associated
with feelings of discomfort and may imply that while decisional procrastinators experience discomfort associated with procras-
tination, academic procrastinators want to change their procrastination habits but do not report feelings of discomfort. The
findings also suggest a difference between the two types of procrastination and may contribute to the argument that for some
students, procrastination serves as an immediate emotional relief, followed by negative academic outcomes that enhance the
desire to change this habit.

Keywords Decisional procrastination . Academic procrastination . Feelings toward procrastination

Introduction findings indicate that decisional procrastinators recall fewer

Procrastination is typically defined as a voluntary delay of an
individual’s intended action toward some task despite foresee-
able negative consequences and a potentially overall worse
outcome (Ferrari 2010; Steel 2007). Some individuals delay
action as a maladaptive lifestyle across a variety of settings
(Steel and Ferrari 2013). These individuals are usually de-
scribed as chronic procrastinators, who purposefully delay
the start or completion of tasks for irrational reasons and ex-
perience anxiety over the delay (Ferrari 2010). One specific
form of chronic procrastination is decisional procrastination
(Ferrari 1994). This type of procrastination is considered a
cognitive type of procrastination and is believed to play a
unique role in an individual’s psychology (Tibbett and
Ferrari 2015). It is argued to be a strong predisposition to be
unable to make decisions on time, related to a diffuse identity,
forgetfulness, cognitive processing failure, self-defeating be-
haviors, and anger suppression (Di Fabio 2006). Recent
* Meirav Hen
meiravhen2@gmail.com
1
Telhai Academic College, Qiryat Shemona, Israel
happy memories across a lifetime and fewer details of those
memories and that prediction patterns differ between decision-
al and general procrastinators (Tibbett and Ferrari 2015).
Despite the wealth of literature on procrastination, only a
few studies have directly asked students about their feelings
toward procrastination and about their desire to change this
habit. These few studies explored feelings towards academic
procrastination only, which is usually perceived as a state-
related behavioral type of procrastination that differs from
chronic types of procrastination. The findings of these studies
suggested that upset feelings towards procrastination were
only weakly associated with academic procrastination, while
the desire to change the procrastination habit was strongly
associated with the procrastinating behavior (Milgram et al.
1992, 1995; Milgram and Naaman 1996). When these find-
ings were discussed it was suggested that for some students,
state-related academic procrastination serves as a means to
regulate negative emotions that may accompany an aversive
task or as a strategic effort to improve a bad mood and there-
fore it is not associated with immediate discomfort, however it
is identified as a bad habit that needs to be changed
(Brinthaupt and Shin 2001; Sirois and Pychyl 2013).
Direct feelings towards procrastination and the desire to
change this habit have not yet been studied in relation to a

chronic type of procrastination, raising the question of wheth-
er feeling patterns are similar across situational versus chronic
types of procrastination.
Decisional Procrastination
Decisional procrastination is believed to be a chronic cogni-
tive type of procrastination, and it represents a stable individ-
ual difference variable characterized by delays in making de-
cisions, particularly under stressful circumstances (Ferrari
1994). One possible explanation for this behavior is self-
esteem and social-esteem protection, with procrastinators be-
ing afraid of revealing possible incompetence to themselves
and others, so they make endless excuses (Ferrari et al. 2007).
This avoidant behavior leads to deficits in many life domains,
which may further reinforce chronic procrastinators’ negative
beliefs about their own abilities (Díaz-Morales et al. 2008).
Ferrari (2000) argues that decisional procrastination is as-
sociated with cognitive failure. The individual has a delay in
processing and assessing information about alternative
choices as a consequence of fragility, non-acquisition of com-
plex information, or a memory deficit in relation to complex
information. Milgram and Tenne (2000) argue that when faced
with the need to make a decision, people assess whether they
possess the resources to handle the situation, and if they per-
ceive their resources as inadequate, they cope with the per-
ceived anxiety that ensues and avoid the situation by postpon-
ing the task or decision-making. Decisional procrastination
has also been found to be strongly associated with decisional
worry and regret, discomfort and high anxiety (Fernie et al.
2015; Tibbett and Ferrari 2015). Additionally, decisional pro-
crastinators are reported to have greater difficulty making im-
portant life choices, and they exhibit negative health conse-
quences and lower life satisfaction (Patalano and LeClair
2011).
When compared with general and behavioral types of pro-
crastination, all types have been found to be associated with
similar negative factors, such as low self-esteem, fear of fail-
ure, sensation seeking, dependency on others, self-
discrepancies and some self-defeating behaviors, though in a
different manner (Ferrari 1994; Orellana-Damacela et al.
2000; Steel 2010). For example, decisional procrastination
was found to be strongly associated with neuroticism person-
ality factors, while behavioral procrastination was associated
with conscientiousness (Morris and Fritz 2015). Díaz-Morales
et al. (2008) found that future time orientation negatively pre-
dicted avoidant procrastination, while decisional procrastina-
tion was positively predicted by low present-hedonistic and
future time orientations. Ferrari (1994) found that among spe-
cific self-defeating behaviors, decisional procrastination was
related to failing to complete crucial tasks, inciting anger in
others, and rejecting good-spirited others. Behavioral
Curr Psychol
procrastination, on the other hand, was related to failing task
completion, rejecting well-minded others, feeling guilty after
a positive event, and choosing handicapping situations.
Interpersonal dependency was a significant predictor of deci-
sional procrastination, while self-esteem predicted behavioral
procrastination. In a study that examined both behavioral and
decisional procrastination and self-discrepancies, only deci-
sional procrastination significantly varied as a function of
self-discrepancy (Orellana-Damacela et al. 2000).
Milgram and Tenne (2000) offered an explanation of the
difference between decisional procrastination and other forms
of behavioral procrastination. They suggested that decision-
making is logically and psychologically prior to the action that
will be initiated once a decision has been made, and it may be
more ideational, deliberative, and consequently more vulner-
able to internal and external sources of ideational interference.
Behavioral procrastination, by contrast, is action inhibited,
and it represents a difficulty in meeting one’s commitment to
behave in a certain manner as a consequence of the decision.
Furthermore, van Hooft et al. (2005) discussed decisional pro-
crastination in terms of a pre-decisional or deliberative phase
in which people deliberate on what behavior to pursue and
how to achieve their goals. They also argued that decisional
procrastination appears to operate earlier in the action process
and therefore differs from general and behavioral procrastina-
tion, which are more proximal to the behavior. Overall the
literature suggests that decisional procrastination differs from
behavioral types of procrastination and therefor needs to be
further researched as a pre-decisional stage of procrastination
that is potentially different from post-decisional or
implemental / behavioral types of procrastination (Steel
2010).
Academic Procrastination
Academic procrastination is a well-researched type of procras-
tination that has often revealed inconsistent findings regarding
its’ reasons and consequences (Kim and Seo 2015; Klingsieck
2013). It is usually perceived as a state-related behavioral type
of procrastination, defined as the "voluntarily delay of an
intended course of study-related action, despite expecting to
be worse off for the delay^ (Steel and Klingsieck 2016, p. 37).
This type of procrastination affects over 70% of college stu-
dents and is reportedly associated with unsatisfactory academ-
ic performance, lower levels of well-being, stress and anxiety.
Academic procrastination was found to be strongly associated
with task aversiveness, task delay, self-efficacy, and impul-
siveness, as well as conscientiousness and its facets of self-
control, distractibility, organization, and achievement motiva-
tion (Steel 2007). It affects graduate, undergraduate and high
school students (Onwuegbuzie and Jiao 2000), traditional and
non-traditional students (Prohaska et al. 2000), high-achieving
Curr Psychol
and low-achieving college students (Kim and Seo 2015), stu-
dents in many different cultures (Klassen et al. 2010; Ozer
et al. 2009), and students in statistics, mathematics, writing,
English and communication courses (Fritzsche et al. 2003;
Olubusayo & Otedola, 2010; Onwuegbuzie 2004).
Klingsieck (2013) identified four main theoretical perspec-
tives to understand the reasons for this behavior. First, the
differential psychology perspective that perceives it as a per-
sonality trait linking procrastination to other traits and trait-
like variables such as consciousness, neuroticism and perfec-
tionism. Second, the motivational and volitional psychology
perspective that understands procrastination as a failure in
motivation and/or volition relating it to motivational aspects
such as self-efficacy and goal orientation, or volitional aspects
such as time management. Third is the clinical psychology
perspective that focuses on the clinically relevant extent of
procrastination, linking it to anxiety, depression, stress, and
personality disorders. Finally, there is the situational perspec-
tive, which is recently becoming more popular and is focused
on investigating situational and contextual aspects of procras-
tination such as task and teacher characteristics. To date more
and more studies suggest that whatever reasons are revealed,
the underlying theme in all perspectives is that academic pro-
crastination is a quintessential self-regulatory failure (Steel
and Klingsieck 2016).Interestingly although studied as a
self-regulatory failure, studies indicated that in some cases
upset feelings and negative academic outcomes were only
weakly associated with academic procrastination (Kim &
Seo, Milgram et al. 1992, Milgram et al. 1995; Milgram and
Naaman 1996). These findings are somewhat surprising be-
cause procrastination has mostly been found to be associated
with negative feelings such as guilt, regret, self-blame, anxiety
and despair (van Eerde 2003; Zeenath and Orcullo 2012). In
an attempt to address this paradox, we found several studies
which suggest that in some cases, academic procrastination is
not necessarily dysfunctional and that the outcome of it may
motivate students to address boring and routine tasks more
effectively. In addition, it has been suggested that for some
students, behavioral types of procrastination serve as a tempo-
rary relief from stress or as a strategic effort to improve a bad
mood (Brinthaupt and Shin 2001; Sirois and Pychyl 2013).
These studies and others did find that students would like to
change this habit, but do not report feeling of discomfort re-
garding academic procrastination (Milgram et al. 1992, 1995).
Taken together this literature review suggests that while
chronic and situational types of procrastination share some
similarities, they differ in nature and in consequences. The
chronic nature of decisional procrastination creates an ongo-
ing discomfort and may harm the hope to change this habit.
The situational nature of academic procrastination is associat-
ed with an immediate emotional relief, followed by negative
consequences, and a desire to change this habit. However
when both types are examined together the pattern of relations
between procrastination and feelings of discomfort and the
desire to change this habit is unclear. Following the above
we hypothesized that:
1. Decisional procrastination will be positively associated
with feelings of discomfort regarding academic procrasti-
nation, but not with the desire to change this habit.
2. Academic procrastination will be positively associated
with the desire to change this habit, but negatively with
feelings of discomfort regarding academic procrastination.
3. Academic procrastination will negatively mediate the re-
lationship between decisional procrastination and feelings
of discomfort.
4. Academic procrastination will positively mediate the re-
lationship between decisional procrastination and the de-
sire to change this habit.
Method
Participants
The research participants were 373 social sciences students at
a three-year undergraduate college located in northern Israel
(85% females). Their ages ranged from 19 to 58 years (M =
25.44, SD = 4.19). Thirty-seven percent of the participants
were first-year students; 37%, second-year; and 26%, third-
year. Forty-four percent of the participants were education
majors; 39%, social work; and 17%, psychology.
Instruments
We measured decisional procrastination using the Decisional
Procrastination Questionnaire (Mann 1982). This instrument
consists of 5 items measured on a 5-point Likert scale, from 1
(never) to 5 (always). An example question is, "Even after I
make a decision I delay acting upon it". It has been found to be
a valid measure of indecision (Mann et al. 1997) and has
demonstrated acceptable criterion validity, internal reliability
and test-retest reliability (Beswick et al. 1988). For the present
study, we calculated a mean score of the five items (α = .85).
We assessed academic procrastination using the Academic
Procrastination Scale - Student Form (Milgram, N. N., & Amir,
N. Academic procrastination in pre-, early and late adolescence,
unpublished report). In this instrument, students rate the extent
to which they procrastinate in three academic areas (7 items
each): (1) preparing homework for oral or written presentation
in class or for keeping up with the class curriculum (e.g., BWhen
I have to sit down and do my homework, I put it off again and
again^); (2) writing and submitting papers of considerable
length and comprehensiveness on specified topics (e.g.,
BWhen I have to sit down and prepare a written composition,

I put it off again and again^); and (3) preparing for and taking
written tests or examinations (e.g., BI find myself doing other
things (e.g., TV, music, book) when I am supposed to prepare for
an examination^). Responses are given on a 5-point Likert scale
ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). This scale was used with
middle school and high school students (Milgram, N. N., &
Amir, N. Academic procrastination in pre-, early and late ado-
lescence, unpublished report) and college students and their
parents (Milgrim et al. 1998). Recently, it has been used with
LD and non-LD college students (Hen and Goroshit 2014).
Furthermore, it has demonstrated high internal consistency
(α ≥ .90) and good construct validity (Milgram and Toubiana
1999). For the purpose of the present research, we calculated a
mean score of all 21 items (α = .85).
To measure students’ feelings toward procrastination, we
adopted items from Milgrim, Mey-Tal, and Levinson (1998).
We used two batteries of items, with three items per battery. In
the first battery, "feeling of discomfort as a result of procrastina-
tion", the students were asked to report how frequently they Bfelt^
bad when they delayed doing the tasks on each of the three sub-
scales of the Academic Procrastination Scale (e.g., BWhen I delay
doing my homework, I feel bad about it^). In the second battery,
"desire to change a habit of procrastination", the respondents
indicated how often they Bwished to change their habits^ with
regard to the tasks discussed in the Academic Procrastination
Scale (e.g., BI would like to change my habits related to procras-
tination in doing my homework^). The participants rated the items
in both batteries on a 5-point Likert scale, from 1 (rarely) to 5
(very often). These scales revealed our study has good internal
reliability (α = .82 for Discomfort and α = .85 for Desire to
change), as does the original study (α = .77 and α = .79, respec-
tively; See: Milgrim, Mey-Tal, & Levinson, 1998).
Procedure
We designed an online questionnaire using Qualtrics soft-
ware (www.qualtrics.com). We sent a web link to the survey
via e-mail to students in all of our courses during the data
collection period. These included courses in quantitative
research methods and statistics, theories of personality,
and a research seminar. At the first page of the question-
naire, we briefly described the goal of the study: BThis sur-
vey aimed to learn about the way you usually make deci-
sions, your study habits, and your feeling toward these
habits. There are no right or wrong answers, you are asked
to pick the answer that reflects the most what do you think or
feel regarding each question or statement^. Afterwards, the
participants were asked to sign a consent form prior to com-
pleting the questionnaire; the form included assurance that
participation in the study was anonymous and that the data
would be kept confidential and used only for the purposes of
the current research. It was also explained that they were
allowed to discontinue their participation in the study at
Curr Psychol
any stage. No incentive for participation was offered. We
received online questionnaires from 373 of 450 students
(83% participation rate). Ethics committee of the
Psychology department of Tel-Hai Academic College,
Israel, approved this study.
Statistical Analysis
There are two predicted variables in our study – the feeling of
discomfort related to academic procrastination and a desire to
change the procrastination habit. To test our hypothesized
mediation model, in which these two variables are predicted
by decisional procrastination via academic procrastination, we
used ordinary least squares path analysis with the PROCESS
macro developed by Hayes (2013) in SPSS 21.0. A bootstrap
procedure that resamples the data multiple times (5000 times
in our study, as per Hayes’ 2013 recommendations) and gives
an estimate of the entire sampling distribution for the indirect
effect was also performed. To test the null hypothesis regard-
ing mediation effects, the bias-corrected percentile method
generated 95% confidence intervals. The significance of the
indirect effect is the only requirement for mediation (Zhao
et al. 2010). We can account for a significant indirect effect
when the bias-corrected confidence intervals do not include
zero.
To assess the vulnerability of the regression coefficients to
the possibility of spurious associations, we entered a few con-
trol variables. In line with previous studies on study behaviors,
these included gender (1 = female), age (Eggens et al. 2008;
Nonis and Hudson 2010), and year of study (Onji and Kikuchi
2011).
Results
As a preliminary stage of our analysis, we ran Pearson bi-
variate correlations between the research variables (see
Table 1). These correlations showed that (1) feeling of dis-
comfort related to academic procrastination and desire to
change the procrastination habit are weakly and positively
correlated (r = .18; p < .01), suggesting that these are two
distinct concepts; (2) decisional and academic procrastina-
tion are moderately and positively associated (r = .54;
p < .001); (3) decisional procrastination is moderately and
positively correlated with the desire to change procrastina-
tion habits (r = .39; p < .001) but not with feelings of dis-
comfort about academic procrastination (r = .03; p = .56);
and (4) academic procrastination is weakly and negatively
correlated with feelings of discomfort related to academic
procrastination (r = −.25; p < .001) and is moderately and
positively associated with the desire to change procrastina-
tion habits (r = .63; p < .001). In addition, there was a
Curr Psychol

Table 1 Pearson correlation

coefficients between the research 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
variables
1 DP –
2 AP .54*** –
3 Discomfort .03 −.25*** –
4 Change .39*** .63*** .18** –
Controls
5 Gender (1-female) .01 −.07 .14* −.03 –
6 Age −.01 .01 −.03 .01 −.05 –
7 Year of study −.03 .09 −.08 −.05 −.13* .18** –
M 2.31 2.48 3.61 2.92 0.85 25.44 1.85
SD 0.88 0.71 1.00 1.13 0.35 4.19 0.77

DP- decisional procrastination, AP- academic procrastination, Discomfort- feeling of discomfort related to aca-
demic procrastination, Change- desire to change procrastination habit
N = 373
*
p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

negative and weak correlation between year of study and
decisional procrastination (r = −.09; p = .07).
In the second stage of our analysis, we performed two
mediation analyses (for each dependent variable) using the
PROCESS macro (Hayes 2013). The results showed that de-
cisional procrastination positively predicted academic pro-
crastination and explained 29% of its variance (see Table 2
and Fig. 1). In line with our hypothesis, decisional procrasti-
nation had a positive indirect effect on the desire to change
procrastination habits (b = 0.42, SE = 0.06; i.e., the higher the
level of decisional procrastination, the stronger the desire to
change procrastination habits) and a positive but insignificant
direct effect (b = 0.08, SE = 0.07; i.e.., the higher the level of
decisional procrastination, the stronger the desire to change
procrastination habits). The total effect of decisional procras-
tination on the desire to change this habit was positive and
significant, and the model explained approximately 41% of
the variance in the dependent variable.
However, in contrast to our hypothesis, decisional pro-
crastination had a negative indirect effect on feelings of
discomfort related to academic procrastination (b = −0.22,
SE = 0.05; i.e., the higher the level of decisional procrasti-
nation, the weaker the feeling of discomfort related to aca-
demic procrastination). It also had a positive direct effect on
feelings of discomfort (b = 0.26, SE = 0.07, i.e., the higher
the level of decisional procrastination, the stronger the feel-
ing of discomfort related to academic procrastination), sug-
gesting that negative feelings toward procrastination might
arise partially because of indecisiveness. The total effect of
decisional procrastination on feeling of discomfort related
to academic procrastination was close to zero and insignif-
icant (b = 0.03, SE = 0.06), implying that this is a case of
inconsistent mediation and that academic procrastination
acts like a suppressor variable (MacKinnon et al. 2007).
This mediation model explained approximately 10% of the
variance in the dependent variable.
Discussion
Decisional procrastination is often perceived as a unique
chronic type of procrastination that differs in nature and role
from situational types of procrastination (Ferrari 1994; Tibbett
and Ferrari 2015). Recent studies have suggested that it is a
pre-decisional stage of procrastination that is potentially dif-
ferent from post-decisional or implemental procrastination;
therefore, it should be studied distinctively and in relation to
other types of procrastination and should be addressed in the
proper manner (Steel 2010). The present study examined the
effects of decisional and academic procrastination on feelings
of discomfort related to academic procrastination and the de-
sire to change this habit and the mediating role of academic
procrastination in the relationships between decisional pro-
crastination and negative feelings. It was hypothesized that
while decisional procrastination will predict negative feelings
and not the desire to change this habit, situational procrastina-
tion will serve as an immediate emotional relief and therefore
will not predict feelings of discomfort in the same manner.
However when both types of procrastination will be
associated,
Our findings indicated that decisional procrastination and
academic procrastination were moderately and positively as-
sociated; strengthening the notion that these are distinct but
related constructs (Morris and Fritz 2015). As hypothesized
both types of procrastination were related to the feeling of
discomfort related to academic procrastination and to the de-
sire to change this habit but in different ways. While decision-
al procrastination was positively associated with feelings of
 Curr Psychol

Table 2 Direct, indirect and total effects of decisional and academic procrastination on students’ feelings

IV DV Effect (unstandardized)

Direct Indirect Total

Coeff. p Coeff. Bootstrap 95% Coeff. p

(SE) (SE) CI (N = 5000) (SE)

DP AP 0.44 <.001 0.44 <.001

(0.04) (0.04)
Discomfort 0.26 <.001 −0.22 −0.32; −0.14 0.03 .64
(0.07) (0.05) (0.06)
Change 0.08 .20 0.42 0.32; 0.54 0.51 <.001
(0.07) (0.06) (0.07)
AP Discomfort −0.51 <.001
(0.09)
Change 0.96 <.001
(0.08)
Controls
Gender Discomfort 0.12 .48
(1 = female) (0.17)
Change −0.17 .26
(0.15)
Age Discomfort 0.01 .65
(0.01)
Change 0.01 .27
(0.01)
Year of study Discomfort −0.06 .39
(0.07)
Change −0.15 .02
(0.06)

DP- decisional procrastination, AP- academic procrastination, Discomfort- feeling of discomfort related to academic procrastination, Change- desire to
change procrastination habit
N = 373

discomfort related to academic procrastination and was unre-
lated to the desire to change this habit, academic procrastina-
tion was negatively associated with feelings of discomfort
related to academic procrastination and positively associated
with the desire to change it. These findings may suggest that
the difference in nature between the two types of procrastina-
tion may underline the difference in patterns. While decisional
procrastination is thought to be more vulnerable to internal
and external sources of ideational interference and more con-
sistently associated with negative feelings following the
difficulties to decide (Milgram and Tenne 2000), academic
procrastination seems to be more proximal to the action and
maybe more affected by its’ immediate consequences of emo-
tional relief (van Hooft et al. 2005). The desire to change this
habit indicated by academic procrastination but not by deci-
sional procrastination may reflect the hope academic procras-
tinators experience in regards to changing this dysfunctional
act in comparison to the hopelessness expressed by the deci-
sional procrastinators. It may be suggested that decisional
procrastinators do not believe they can change their

(a) 2
R =.29
(b) 2
R =.29

AP AP
2 2
R =.10 R =.40

DP .23 Discomfort DP .07 Change

Fig. 1 Mediation models for prediction of feeling of discomfort toward
academic procrastination (a) and desire to change procrastination habit
(b) by decisional procrastination via academic procrastination. Notes:
Standardized estimates are shown. Coefficients higher than |.20| are
statistically significant (p < .01). DP-decisional procrastination, AP-
academic procrastination, Discomfort-feeling of discomfort toward
academic procrastination, Change-desire to change procrastination
habit. Control variables are not presented in the figure to simplify the
graphic representation of relationships between the variables
Curr Psychol
decision-making process that precedes the academic procras-
tination action, and therefore do not indicate a desire to change
the procrastination act (Díaz-Morales et al. 2008).
Furthermore, when we examined academic procrastination
as a mediator in the relationships between decisional procras-
tination, feelings of discomfort related to academic procrasti-
nation and the desire to change this habit, we noticed a change
in patterns. Decisional procrastination had a negative indirect
effect on the feeling of discomfort related to academic pro-
crastination and a positive indirect effect on the desire to
change this habit. This change in pattern may suggest that
when the decision –making processes is mediated by an actual
academic procrastination act, there is an immediate effect of
relief, strategic mood change (Sirois and Pychyl 2013) or pro-
tection of the fragile self through avoidance of the task (Ferrari
2010) that distance the effects of the negative feelings that
were associated with decisional procrastination only. In addi-
tion it may be suggested that the presence of the academic
procrastination action also increases the awareness to this dys-
functional behavior and its’ consequences, way and beyond
the hopelessness suggested in the decision-making process
(Fernie et al. 2015).
Practical Implications, Limitations and Future
Research
Our study may imply that when planning and conducting an
intervention for academic procrastinators, it is very impor-
tant to understand the possible sources of this behavior and
how a specific student feels about it. If academic procrasti-
nation is a way to achieve immediate emotional relief, but
the results of this behavior make a student want to change
this behavior, an intervention should include becoming
aware of this process and developing other strategies for
emotional relief. In addition, it may suggest that if a student
suffers from chronic decisional procrastination, he or she
might feel bad about academically procrastinating but not
be able to make a decision regarding the desire to change
this habit. This student might need initially to seek help for
his/her chronic dysfunctional decision – making processes
and then address their academic actions.
This was an initial study that examined decisional pro-
crastination and academic procrastination in relation to feel-
ings of discomfort and the desire to change procrastinating
behavior. The limitations of this study stem from the self-
report measures, the cross-sectional research design and the
specific sample, which included mostly females who stud-
ied social sciences. Future studies should address these lim-
itations to further understand these findings in other aca-
demic settings. In addition, future research should more
specifically seek to understand what underlies students’ ac-
ademic procrastination, how the tendency to delay decision-
making may affect the behavioral tendency to procrastinate,
and how it can be addressed. Future studies can also exam-
ine the effects of decisional procrastination and other types
of behavioral procrastination (i.e., workplace procrastina-
tion) on feelings regarding procrastination and can contrib-
ute to the overall understanding of and distinct intervention
in other situations and life-domains. Interventions may in-
clude strategies to help people better regulate their procras-
tinating behaviors (e.g., cognitive–behavioral strategies) or
better deal with decision making (e.g., debiasing interven-
tions) or increasing decision-making competence (Ceschi,
Costantini, Phillips & Sartori, 2017; Glick and Orsillo 2015;
Morewedge et al. 2015).
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interests All authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest in pursuing this publication. This article does not contain any
studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent
was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. All
procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in
accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national
research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later
amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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