Past Negative Consequences of Unnecessary Delay as a Marker of Procrastination

Svartdal, Frode; Nemtcan, Efim

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.787337

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 76 publications

(132 reference statements)

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“…However, as such intentions are difficult to measure and are also rarely measured, the criteria for identification of procrastinatory behaviors need refinement. Problems associated with this subjective criterion (e.g., overoptimistic beliefs, harsh selfevaluation, strategic thinking that did not work, and others; see Svartdal and Steel, 2017;Svartdal and Nemtcan, 2022) reinforce this conclusion.…”

Section: Definition and Criteriamentioning

confidence: 88%

“…In the absence of suitable criteria, researchers have often resorted to behavioral delay in general as a proxy for behavioral procrastination (e.g., Miyake and Kane, 2021 ; Vangsness et al, 2022 ). Even self-report scales measuring procrastination struggle to separate rational delays from suboptimal or irrational delays (e.g., Svartdal and Steel, 2017 ; Svartdal and Nemtcan, 2022 ), resulting in scale scores that include non-procrastinatory delays and thus compromise their validity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The ABC of academic procrastination: Functional analysis of a detrimental habit

Svartdal

Løkke

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Academic procrastination – habitually delaying work with academic tasks to the extent that the delays become detrimental to performance, wellbeing, and health – represents a substantial personal, systemic, and societal problem. Still, efforts to prevent and reduce it are surprisingly scarce and often offered as treatment regimens rather than preventive efforts. Based on the principles of functional analysis and a broad examination of factors that are important for academic procrastinatory behaviors, this paper aims to describe a strategy for analyzing individual controlling conditions for procrastination and give parallel advice on how to change those controlling conditions. Both are ideographic, allowing for individual and dynamic analyses of factors responsible for instigating and maintaining procrastination, as well as tailor-made remedies that address controlling conditions in preventive and curative efforts to reduce procrastination. Although functional analysis integrates well with important research findings in the procrastination field, this approach suggests new criteria for identifying procrastinatory behaviors and an alternative model for analyzing their control conditions. We conclude that a functional approach may supplement procrastination research and efforts to prevent and alleviate this detrimental habit.

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Section: Definition and Criteriamentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ABC of academic procrastination: Functional analysis of a detrimental habit

Svartdal

Løkke

2022

Front. Psychol.

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“…Researchers have defined procrastination as putting off or postponing a task, anticipating adverse consequences in the future, and causing unnecessary delays (Lay, 1986; Svartdal & Nemtcan, 2022). People with high procrastination tendencies are more likely to engage in delaying behaviors and have poor time management skills (Lay & Schouwenburg, 1993).…”

Section: Diversification Of Procrastinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Procrastination and Precrastination from the Perspective of Self‐Control

Adachi,

Adachi

2024

Jpn Psychol Res

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Procrastination is defined as postponing a task, anticipating adverse consequences in the future. In contrast, D. A. Rosenbaum and colleagues introduced the concept of “precrastination” in 2014, defining it as people doing a task early even when involving physical cost because they desire to minimize their cognitive load. This study aimed to organize and expand the new concept and advance understanding of precrastination in everyday situations and of the associations between precrastination and self‐control. Using the scenario assumption method, we examined whether people would precrastinate or procrastinate a task to remove cognitive load and clear their mind even if there was physical cost/burden (Study 1), and whether they would precrastinate or procrastinate a painful event to remove emotional load stemming from a fear of pain (Study 2). The results showed that (a) people start tasks early in order to remove cognitive and emotional load; (b) people do not start tasks early when they involve physical cost, burden, or fear; (c) people with high self‐control start tasks early to remove cognitive load even when involving physical cost; and (d) people with high self‐control and low fear start tasks earlier to remove emotional load.

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“…Following Svartdal et al (2020), this factor was named onset delay. The content of the selected six items seems suitable to reflect past negative consequences, which Svartdal and Nemtcan (2022) found crucial for separating maladaptive and irrational delay from other forms. The six items chosen because of their correlation with the API thus seem suitable to derive criteria for identifying maladaptive and irrational delay.…”

Section: Onset Delay Assessed With the Apimentioning

confidence: 99%

Diagnostic criteria to differentiate pathological procrastinators from common delayers: a re-analysis

Rist,

Engberding,

Hoecker

et al. 2023

Front. Psychol.

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Detection and treatment of clinically relevant forms of procrastination would be greatly facilitated by diagnostic criteria as formulated for psychological disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5). In the present article, the steps for deriving and validating diagnostic criteria for pathological procrastination are described. In an online survey of a random sample of N = 10,000 German university students, 990 answered 13 items derived from the attempts in the literature to define procrastination, the Aitken Procrastination Inventory (API) and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). A subset of six items related to the first factor onset delay of the API was selected by Best Subset Multiple Regression (BSMR). A latent class analysis (LCA) of these six items sorted the students into six clusters. A cluster of pathological procrastinators (10%) was separated from the clusters of less impaired habitual, average, and occasional delayers. In addition, a cluster of unconcerned delayers (10%), with strong procrastination tendencies but little personal disadvantages, and a small cluster of fast performers (2%) emerged. The pathological procrastinators differed from all other clusters significantly on nine of the 13 items. They were older, had studied longer but had fulfilled less of their study obligations and were more depressed. The answer options of the six questions were collapsed into two categories (procrastination feature present for at least half a year or absent). These criteria were used for the clinical diagnosis of pathological procrastination. For a diagnosis, two fixed criteria (delaying important tasks needlessly and strong interference with personal goals) plus at least two of four additional criteria (time spent procrastinating, time pressure, physical and psychological complaints, below performance potential) must be met. This diagnostic rule captured 92% from the cluster of pathological procrastinators and 10% of the habitual delayers, but no one from the remaining clusters. Using these diagnostic criteria for clinical diagnosis and intervention decisions will facilitate the comparison and integration of the results from future studies of procrastination.

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Past Negative Consequences of Unnecessary Delay as a Marker of Procrastination

Cited by 9 publications

References 76 publications

The ABC of academic procrastination: Functional analysis of a detrimental habit

The ABC of academic procrastination: Functional analysis of a detrimental habit

Procrastination and Precrastination from the Perspective of Self‐Control

Diagnostic criteria to differentiate pathological procrastinators from common delayers: a re-analysis

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