A review of the study on procrastination

LI Chundou, GE Cao, LI Shijie

(Department of Education, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450000, China)

Abstract:Procrastination is a universal phenomenon, and even become part of the people’s living habits. In the fast and efficient modern life, the procrastination will not only give people a serious impact on learning and work, but also lead to anxiety, guilt and self-blame and other negative emotions on the individual’s physical and mental health damage. In order to find out the essence of procrastination and help people get rid of the troubles caused by delay, psychologists have done a lot of research. This paper will sort out the research in this area. We review these areas of intervention from the aspects of delay connotation, influencing factors, theoretical development, neural basis, and negative delays.

Key words:procrastination; influencing factors; intervention

Procrastination is a common problem that everyone hates, many of us have become accustomed to procrastination. Even among students, procrastination is common. In an investigation report, a quarter of people think that the procrastination is a serious problem. In a survey aimed at students, one-third of students’ life events are affected by procrastination, and they are constantly rising. Procrastination will cause us to have very bad feelings, influence our progress and work efficiency, and influence our emotions. Many people are plagued by procrastination. Many scholars study the status of procrastination through questionnaires, and there are some studies on neural mechanism. This article will review these researches in this field.

1 The connotation and influencing factors of procrastination

1.1 The connotation of procrastination

Scholars try to describe this general phenomenon of procrastination by various definitions, however, there has been still no comprehensive theory yet. Solomon and Rothblum, their earliest procrastination researches have shown that procrastination is “unnecessary delaying tasks to experience the subjective discomfort”, focusing on negative emotions caused by phenomenon[1]. Ferrari et al. conceptualized phenomenon as self-imposed actions. The specific meaning here is that when the task is about to reach the deadline, individuals still delay the start or delay the completion of the time[2]. Other researchers define the procrastination from different aspects. Some define procrastination as a kind of behavior,others define it as a behavioral propensity.

There are also scholars who have learned that procrastination is not absolutely negative, and procrastination can also play a very positive role. These positive effects include the ability to ease anxiety or stress through procrastination when some tasks or assignments exert great pressure on individuals. In addition, there are some procrastinators who will efficient work leads to more creations and new ideas when completing tasks. There are also people who, after experiencing procrastination, are more likely to develop problem- or result-oriented thinking when deadlines approach, and focusing more on current activities and working more efficiently at the same time. Therefore, some scholars have divided the procrastination into positive and negative. Negative procrastination is that procrastinators delay the start of tasks and are unable to complete tasks well before deadlines. Positive procrastination means that the procrastinators are people who are suitable to work under high pressure. They like challenges and high pressure environment. They even deliberately procrastinated, hoping that in the case of high pressure, they could focus more on the immediate task and work more efficiently[3].

1.2 Influencing factors of procrastination

Personality traits affect individual procrastination. When discussing procrastination, many of them are inseparable from the factors of personality.So there are many related studies. Researchers explore the relationship between personality and procrastination from different aspects. Researchers who used Big Five as a research model found that the sense of responsibility was negatively related to delays. Responsible people are generally more self-disciplined, more cautious, and more self-disciplined. There is a significant negative correlation between conscientiousness and delay[4]. Some researchers believe that delay is a motivation issue, including self-restraint, perfectionism, and motivation to avoid failure[3].Ross et al. believe that individuals’ self-restraint through procrastination is to protect their own value in front of others, thereby protecting their self-esteem[4].

Parental support patterns can affect children’s procrastination. According to Robert J’s research,Significant negative correlation between parental rearing style and child procrastination[3].The nature of the task is also very important in the related studies of delay. Delays are related to interests and areas where different people are good at. People often do not delay on the task of interest.

In addition, the study found that individual delays can also be affected by changes in the external environment. When there are more recreational activities or more interference, the individual can easily be distracted and leave the task to be completed. There is also a time pressure on the deadline for the task to influence delays. When time is sufficient, procrastinators are more likely to delay the task.

2 The development of procrastination’s theory

There are three main theories that can be used to explain the delay. The theory of expectations is the first toremind. When a person is considered unlikely to complete a task, it is more likely to take a protracted strategy. Self-efficacy is an important factor in the expectation theory. Existing studies have shown that self-efficacy is negatively correlated with delay. One’s expectations will change with the growth or change of time. But the theory of expectations cannot explain this change caused by time.

Then,Ainslie proposed a time discount theory to compensate for the shortcomings of the expected value theory, which was used to explain the changes in behavior brought about by time. Theorizing that delay is our instinct. Everyone tends to underestimate what may happen in the future. As the long-term goals of the future are underestimated, people are more likely to delay in their actions. When the deadline came, we saw an event that was underestimated by ourselves, but it was too late. Although the time discount theory compensates for the change in behavior caused by time, it also gains the support of many people, but it also ignores the role played by self-efficacy in it.

Therefore, some scholars have put forward the theory of time motivation, combining the theory of expected value and time discount theory[3]. The theory holds that procrastination is not only related to expectations, but also related to the value of the tasks. Procrastination also has different manifestations in different people. Delays exist in individual differences.

3 Neural basis of procrastination

Cardinal et al. showed that the delay may be related to the dopamine system and cognitively controlled brain regions.The results of event-related potential studies showed that high self-prioritized small rewards and P2 brainwaves are more delayed[5].Resting-state functional magnetic resonance studies have found that procrastination may be related to the prefrontal lobe in the DMN, which may be caused by excessive activity in some areas of the prefrontal lobe, and control of DMN in the frontal frontal lobe. Failure is related[6].

4 The intervention of procrastination

With respect to procrastination interventions, we must look for interventions from the protracted factors, including tasks, personality or personality factors[7]. Can mainly be expanded from the following four aspects: First, from the cognitive improvement, according to the ABC theory we know that caused the behavior is not caused by the incident, but the individual’s attitude to the incident, the evaluation caused. So we can cause changes in behavior by improving cognition. Secondly, from the emotional improvement, studies have found that many negative emotions are highly related to procrastination. Positive emotions are more likely to awaken one person to start action, so they can be resolved through reasonable venting of negative emotions, or narration, and exercise. Negative emotions. At the same time, establish a good pattern of positive emotions, learn to decompress yourself, and in this way reduce the procrastination caused by emotions[8].Thirdly, from behavioral improvement, according to behavioral therapy, aiming at the causes of individual delays, cultivate reasonable ability to arrange time and self-control, learn to subdivide tasks into small tasks, establish awareness of goals, and set goals in a timely manner. The goal of the completion of the status of timely inspection and feedback, the early period can be achieved through the rewards and punishments to complete the mission objectives, and then gradually internalized into a sense of achievement to achieve the goal. Fourth, some scholars have tried to provide group counseling to procrastinators, develop group counseling for procrastinators, and use group strength to make progress together.

5 The current research deficiencies and future prospects

A large number of scholars have continuously enriched theoretical studies of procrastination through varying degrees of research. However, there are still many issues that need further study. The first is the problem of the research object. The results obtained from the students’ samples were poor in ecological validity during promotion. Second, there are many studies on the status of procrastination, and there is relatively little research on the issue of delay. Future research should strengthen research on proactive delays while providing effective measures to eliminate delays.

Questionnaires used in the study of procrastination are also a problem. Most of the scales used are self-contained scales. Many people find it difficult to judge whether their status is delayed or delayed. In addition, the foreign questionnaires used by many people, cultural differences in different countries may also have different depths of influence on delays. It is suggested that a questionnaire that meets the Chinese culture and that can be uniformly administered should be revised for domestic conditions.