News: Procrastination May be Dangerous to Your Health




       







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        Procrastination May be Dangerous to Your Health
      by Barbara R. Sarason, University of Washington
      © 1998 Peregrine Publishers, Inc., All Rights Reserved 
      Two social psychologists from Case Western Reserve University, Dianne Tice 
      and Roy Baumeister, wondered if people are kidding themselves when they 
      say they "perform best under pressure" and thus wait until the last minute 
      to complete tasks. This strategy, say the procrastinators, helps them 
      compress their work process and avoid worry over performance and 
      deadlines. But does it really work? In two recent studies of college 
      students, Tice and Baumeister found that procrastination not only leads to 
      poorer academic performance but, over the long term, it can actually make 
      a person feel physically sick! 
      The researchers focused on their own students in a health psychology 
      class. At the start of the semester, they assigned a term paper with an 
      initial due date as well as an automatic extension to another specific 
      date. Soon thereafter, they also asked students to complete a General 
      Procrastination Scale developed by Clarry Lay of York University in 
      Toronto, Canada, and instructed them to fill out daily symptom checklists 
      and a weekly stress measure for the next four weeks. 
      In that first study, the self-identified procrastinators earned lower 
      grades on both their term papers and on the course's two exams. Curiously, 
      though, despite their poorer performance, the procrastinators reported 
      less stress and fewer physical symptoms the more they put off working. 
      Perhaps, the team reasoned, procrastination is not such a bad thing after 
      all. 
      To test this, Tice and Baumeister conducted another class study, adding a 
      few more measures to the experimental protocol: They assessed stress and 
      symptoms early in the semester, as before, but this time they also queried 
      students about feelings of stress and physical symptoms in the later weeks 
      of class, as well. They also asked their subjects to record how often they 
      visited health care professionals in the past month. The researchers found 
      the pattern of course-performance and stress levels early in the semester 
      to closely resemble the data from their first study. The picture at 
      semester's end, however, was quite different: Procrastination was 
      positively correlated with stress (r = .68) and symptoms (r = .65) as well 
      as with additional visits to health professionals (r = .37). The graph 
      below shows how, as the semester progressed, the number of symptoms 
      increased for both procrastinators and non-procrastinators. Trait 
      procrastination was related to better health earlier in the semester, but 
      poorer health later. In a related study last year, investigators Robert 
      Bridge and Miguel Roig of Pennsylvania State University also found a 
      relationship between procrastination and irrational thinking--a 
      characteristic often associated with poorer mental health. 
       
      Research using measures such as the General Procrastination Scale suggests 
      that procrastination is a personality trait. Clarry Lay's research at York 
      University shows that procrastination can fit into the Five Factor Model 
      of Personality (the so-called Big Five) as part of the Conscientiousness 
      factor. Trait procrastination was the better predictor of actual dilatory 
      behavior, but conscientiousness was superior in predicting negative 
      feelings that arose from delayed effort. Another Big Five factor, 
      neuroticism, served as a mediator between conscientiousness and 
      procrastination and negative emotions. This means that while people who 
      score high in neuroticism tend to experience negative moods, neuroticism 
      declines as an important predictor of these negative moods when 
      researchers take either the conscientiousness or the procrastination 
      aspect of their personality into account. The figure below illustrates 
      this relationship. 
       
      Procrastination and its effects are certainly not unique to college 
      students. About 20% of adults claim to be chronic procrastinators, and 
      separated, divorced, or widowed respondents report higher rates of 
      procrastination than the currently married or continuously single. 
      Procrastination in adults can have effects just as negative as poorer 
      academic performance: In a study of unemployed men and women, median age 
      43, trait procrastination was unrelated to the intention to search for a 
      job but definitely related to fewer job search activities. You may want a 
      new job, in other words, but it's tough to find one when you put off 
      looking for it! 
      Resources 
        Bridges, K. R., & Roig, M. (1997). Academic procrastination and 
        irrational thinking: A re-examination with context controlled. 
        Personality and Individual Differences 22: 941-944. 
        Harriott, J., & Ferrari, J. R. (1996). Prevalence of procrastination 
        among samples of adults. Psychological Reports 78: 611-616. 
        Lay, C. H. (1986). At last, my research article on procrastination. 
        Journal of Research in Personality 20: 474-495. 
        Lay, C. H. (1997) Explaining lower-order traits through higher-order 
        factors: The case of trait procrastination, conscientiousness, and the 
        specificity dilemma. European Journal of Personality 11: 267-278. 
        Lay, C. H., & Brokenshire, R. (1997). Conscientiousness, 
        procrastination, and person-task characteristics in job searching by 
        unemployed adults. Current Psychology 16: 83-96. 
        Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Longitudinal study of 
        procrastination, performance, stress, and health: The costs and benefits 
        of dawdling. Psychological Reports 8: 454-458. 
        "Controlling procrastination." Sound advice for overcoming 
        procrastinating behavior. (15 Jan. 1998) 
        Another, more extensive set of tips for dealing with personal 
        procrastination. Includes management, cognitive, and behavioral 
        strategies, and links to other sites. (15 Jan. 1998)