Rethinking procrastination: positive effects of "active" procrastination behavior on attitudes and performance

Researchers and practitioners have long regarded procrastination as a self-handicapping and dysfunctional behavior. In the present study, the authors proposed that not all procrastination behaviors either are harmful or lead to negative consequences. Specifically, the authors differentiated two types of procrastinators: passive procrastinators versus active procrastinators. Passive procrastinators are procrastinators in the traditional sense. They are paralyzed by their indecision to act and fail to complete tasks on time. In contrast, active procrastinators are a "positive" type of procrastinator. They prefer to work under pressure, and they make deliberate decisions to procrastinate. The present results showed that although active procrastinators procrastinate to the same degree as passive procrastinators, they are more similar to nonprocrastinators than to passive procrastinators in terms of purposive use of time, control of time, self-efficacy belief, coping styles, and outcomes including academic performance. The present findings offer a more sophisticated understanding of procrastination behavior and indicate a need to reevaluate its implications for outcomes of individuals.     

Individual values,learning routines and academic procrastination

Background. Academic procrastination, the tendency to postpone learning activities, is regarded as a consequence of postmodern values that are prominent in post‐industrialized societies. When students strive for leisure goals and have no structured routines for academic tasks, delaying strenuous learning activities becomes probable. Aims. The model tested in this study posits that postmodern value orientations are positively related to procrastination and to a lack of daily routines concerning the performance of academic activities. In contrast, modern values are negatively related to procrastination and positively to learning routines. Academic procrastination, in‐turn, should be associated with the tendency to prefer leisure activities to schoolwork in case of conflicts between these two life domains. Sample. Seven hundred and four students from 6th and 8th grade with a mean age of 13.5 years participated in the study. The sample included students from all tracks of the German educational system. Method. Students completed a questionnaire containing two value prototypes as well as scales on learning routines and procrastination. Decisions in motivational conflicts were measured using two vignettes. Results and Conclusions. Results from structural equation modelling supported the proposed model for the whole sample as well as for each school track. A planned course of the day can prevent procrastination and foster decisions for academic tasks in case of conflicts. Students' learning takes place within a societal context and reflects the values held in the respective culture.     

Tie my hands, tie my eyes

Previous studies have demonstrated that motor abilities allow us not only to execute our own actions and to predict their consequences, but also to predict others' actions and their consequences. But just how deeply are motor abilities implicated in action observation? If an observer is prevented from acting while witnessing others' actions, will this impact on their making sense of others' behavior? We recorded proactive eye movements while participants observed an actor grasping objects. The participants' hands were either freely resting on the table or tied behind their back. Proactivity of gaze behavior was dramatically impaired when participants observed others' actions with their hands tied. Since we don't literally perceive actions with our hands, the effect may be explained by the hypothesis that effective observation of action depends not only on motor abilities but on being in a position to exercise them. This suggests, for the first time, that actions are observed best when we are actually in the position to perform them.     

Effect of evaluation threat on procrastination behavior

The author evaluated the effects of evaluation apprehension and trait procrastination on behaviors. The author examined private university students from southern California (N = 72) on two independent variables: evaluation threat (manipulated) and trait procrastination (nonmanipulated). The author found a significant interaction effect between type of evaluation threat and level of trait procrastination on the number of days to complete an assigned essay. Post hoc analyses showed high trait procrastinators in the high evaluation threat group significantly delayed returning essays compared with those in the low evaluation threat group. Also, in the low evaluation threat group, low trait procrastinators delayed more than did high trait procrastinators. These results suggest that educators can reduce behavioral delays by increasing evaluation threat, depending on a student's level of trait procrastination.     

The logic of the medical research article

As do all forms of science, medical theories have a factual as well as a logical basis. New information is presented in medical research articles. These papers have three separate arguments: the argument of the hypothesis, the argument of the experimental protocol, and the argument of the hypothesis's judgment. These arguments may be examples of the hypothetico-deductive or confirmational model of scientific inference. The logical form of these arguments are informal and inductive rather than formal and deductive. Understanding the nature of the logic of the medical research article may help avoid erroneous conclusions.     

In search of the arousal procrastinator: Investigating the relation between procrastination, arousal-based personality traits and beliefs about procrastination motivations

Arousal procrastination was investigated to determine: (a) If the General Procrastination Scale (GP; Lay, 1986) measures procrastination motivated by arousal, and (b) whether sensation seeking (SS), extraversion (E), and the reducer index (R) account for variance in beliefs about the motivation for academic procrastination. Participants were 311 undergraduate students (60.1% female), primarily Caucasian (63.3%), with a mean age of 20.09 (SD = 3.08). An online questionnaire package included measures of procrastination and 3 arousal-based personality inventories. A factor analysis of the GP and the Sensation Seeking Scale-V (SSS-V; Zuckerman, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 1978) produced six factors with the GP and SSS-V items loading on separate factors, indicating no relation. A regression analysis revealed that SS, E, and R together accounted for 5.2% of the variance in participants’ arousal-related beliefs motivating their procrastination. These results challenge the existing literature claiming that the GP is a measure of arousal procrastination, but do indicate that some individuals believe that their procrastination is motivated by a need for heightened arousal.     

Relative contributions of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-handicapping in predicting student procrastination

The relative contributions of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-handicapping student procrastination were explored. College undergraduate participants (N = 138; 40 men, 97 women, one not reporting sex) filled out the Procrastination Scale, the Self-Handicapping Scale-Short Form, and the Self-regulation and Self-handicapping scales of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. A hierarchical regression of the above measures indicated that self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-handicapping all predicted scores on the Procrastination Scale, but self-regulation fully accounted for the predictive power of self-efficacy. The results suggested self-regulation and self-handicapping predict procrastination independently. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature on the concept of "self-efficacy for self-regulation" and its use in the field of procrastination research.     

Conscientiousness, procrastination, and person-task characteristics in job searching by unemployed adults

The study examined the job-search intentions and subsequent behavior of 32 unemployed males and 32 unemployed females, median age of 43 years, in relation to conscientiousness and the lower-order trait procrastination and to rated person-task characteristics of importance, pleasantness, and competence regarding 14 job-search activities. At Time 1, conscientiousness was positively related to each of the person-task characteristics and to intentions to engage in the composite of job-search activities; trait procrastination was not. At Time 2, two weeks later, trait procrastination predicted self-reported job-search behaviors, controlling for initial intentions, with pro-crastinators exhibiting less job-search activity in the two week interim, compared to nonprocrastinators. Both conscientiousness and trait procrastination were related to a direct self-report measure of dilatory behavior. The three person-task characteristics were found to mediate the relation of conscientiousness to job-search intentions and to dilatory behavior. In addition, perceived task pleasantness moderated the relation of conscientiousness to job-search behavior, controlling for intentions, such that higher levels of conscientiousness were associated with increases in behavior only under conditions of low task pleasantness. Discussion centered on the prominent role of the person-task characteristics and on the place of conscientiousness and trait procrastination in predicting intentions and behavior.     

The logicist manifesto: At long last let logic-based artificial intelligence become a field unto itself

This paper is a sustained argument for the view that logic-based AI should become a self-contained field, entirely divorced from paradigms that are currently still included under the AI “umbrella”—paradigms such as connectionism and the continuous systems approach. The paper includes a self-contained summary of logic-based AI, as well as rebuttals to a number of objections that will inevitably be brought against the declaration of independence herein expressed.     

An assessment of appraisal,anxiety, coping,and procrastination during an examination period

High School students responded to an inventory which included dispositional measures of procrastination and social evaluation trait anxiety. Subsequently, and 7 days prior to their first examination (Stage 1), each of the 40 female and 23 male students completed measures of state anxiety, perception of the stressor situation, and ways of coping, all with regard to their approaching exam period. These judgments were repeated 1 day prior to their first examination (Stage 2), and again 5 days after their last examination (Stage 3). Correlational analyses indicated that threat and harm perceptions were highly positively related to state anxiety, whereas challenge and gain were moderately and negatively related. State anxiety was linked to emotion-focused coping, but was independent of problem-focused coping. In an analysis of variance, high procrastination, high trait anxious subjects felt the least challenged at Stage 1. In a ‘maverick’, post hoc analysis, high procrastinators were more likely than low procrastinators at each stage to promise themselves ‘that things will be different next time’. Discussion included an assessment of the need for specificity when using the Ways of Coping (Folkman and Lazarus, 1985) scale.     

民胞物与--对人的类本质关系的思考

生产作为运用知识的活动这一点昭示了人类关系的本质。由于知识是达于主体间、主客体间相互作用内在性质的信息,所以,运用知识进行生产就是在按主体间、主客体间相互作用的性质建立相互关系。显然,这是人类关系所独具的形式;由此建立起来的关系必定具有和谐的品质。而这种关系乃是人类的本质关系。借用北宋张载的说法,可以称之为“民胞物与”。     

拖延的认知神经机制与基因:行为-脑-基因的多角度研究

拖延是一种普遍存在,具有跨时间和跨情景稳定性的问题行为,严重的拖延甚至会危害到人们的工作、学习及身心健康。鉴于目前对于拖延的认知神经机制仍不清楚,研究模态较为单一,本研究拟从行为-脑-基因的系统研究思路出发,以多模态MRI(Task、Resting、VBM和DTI)为主要技术手段,将HTR2B基因多态性作为突破口,系统考察拖延的认知机制、神经基础和遗传基础,并试图制定拖延的应对与干预方案。研究分为4个部分:(1)从行为上,结合预期恐惧范式和跨期选择范式探索其拖延决策的机制;(2)在神经层面上,采用MRI多模态技术系统考察拖延行为的神经基础;(3)在基因层面上,采用分子遗传学方法,将HTR2B设定为靶基因以深入研究拖延的遗传基础,并考察脑结构和脑功能在基因与行为间的中介作用;(4)最后从行为干预与脑的可塑性的角度,设计拖延的干预方法来改善拖延行为并验证拖延的神经机制。     

Truth As,At Most,One

Michel Foucault's Force of Flight: Toward an Ethics of Thought By James W. Bernauer Humanities Press International, 1990. Pp. 261. ISBN 0–391–03740–4. $15.00 pbk.

Hipparchia's Choice, An Essay Concerning Women, Philosophy, Etc. By Michèle Le Doeuff, translated by Trista Selous Basil Blackwell, 1991. Pp. vii + 364. ISBN 0–631–17639‐X. £45.

Psychology Edited by Stephen Everson Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 269. ISBN 0–521–35338–6. £32.50.

On the Nature and Existence of God By Richard M. Gale Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 422. ISBN 0–521–40300–6. £35.

The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State Edited by Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit Basil Blackwell, 1989, pbk 1991. Pp. vii + 207. ISBN 0–631–18088–5. £14.95 pbk.

Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein: How to play games with words By Roy Harris Routledge, 1988, pbk 1990. Pp. xv +136. ISBN 0–415–05225–4. £9.99 pbk.

Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences By Geoffrey Hawthorn Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 192. ISBN 0–521–40359–6. £27.50.

Freedom, Truth and History: An Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy By Stephen Houlgate Routledge, 1991. Pp. 288. ISBN 0–415–06658–1. £35.

Locke on Money. Volumes I and II By Patrick Hyde Kelly Clarendon Press, 1991. Vol. 1 Pp. xv + 342. ISBN 0–19–82456–7. £50.00 Vol. II Pp. vii + 322. ISBN 0–19–824837–7 £45.00.

L'Union substantielle. I. Blondel et Leibniz By Marc Leclerc Culture et Vérité, 1991. Pp. v + 415. ISBN 2–87299–014–3.

Plato's Parmenides By C. C. Meinwald Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. 192. ISBN 0–1–506445–3. £27.50.

Idee und Weltwille: Schopenhauer als Kritiker Hegels By Alfred Schmidt Carl Hanser Verlag, 1988. Pp. 175. ISBN 3–446–15161–3.     

An exploration into the influence of academic and social values, procrastination, and perceived school belongingness on academic performance

The results of a structural equation model showed that a tendency to procrastinate, assessed early in college students’ first term, was positively related to social values, assessed as concerns over social exclusion, but was negatively related to academic task values and grade goal-setting. The results suggest that procrastination may be a partial mediator of the influence of academic and social values on perceived school belongingness. In addition, the tendency to procrastinate had a direct negative relationship with self-regulatory self-efficacy and perceived school belongingness and was positively related to perceived stress near the end of the term. There was also a statistically significant negative total effect of procrastination on performance-approach and mastery-approach goal orientation and end-of-term grade point average (GPA). Statistically significant positive total effects of performance-approach and mastery-approach achievement goal orientations on GPA were found. However, while a statistically significant direct positive effect of performance-approach orientation on GPA was found, a direct relationship between mastery-approach orientation and GPA was not statistically significant.