Psychology Today Blogs - Don't Delay

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire"

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:12:12 -0700

This quote is from William Butler Yeats (Poet, 1865-1939). It captures what lies at the heart of authentic engagement - fire. As an educator, I've learned a great deal about pedagogical pyromania. In fact, it's my passion.

As an educator who studies procrastination, I think a lot about student engagement. Formerly a boy scout and still active with a life outdoors (for example, with my other life as a musher, I run a team of sled dogs and camp in the winter with my team - a true Canadian, eh?), I've learned a lot about lighting fires. I've put these two parts of my life together, with an understanding of how to light the fire of student learning. It's really an appropriate metaphor and a good place to start my blog today.

Although this blog entry has a focus on student learning, you'll see that at its heart, the topic is still motivation and procrastination. Fully engaged people are not usually troubled by procrastination. So, what lights that fire for them?

The fire triangle
If you talk about lighting, or fighting, fires, sooner or later you'll talk about the "fire triangle" (firefighters will add the fire tetrahedron and the fire square as well, as our knowledge expands about types of fires). Focusing on the fire triangle, we can articulate the science and art of building a fire. The three elements of this triangle are fuel, heat and air. The science of building a fire is knowing that these work together (and quite a bit about fuel itself like tinder, kindling and fuel wood). The art of building a fire is being able to regulate these under the given circumstances to get a blaze going.

The "fire triangle" of motivation
So, what about this fire that Yeat's writes about? What is the art and science of lighting the fire for learning? Richard Ryan & Edward Deci have their own triangle that's appropriate with their Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Their theory is based on three fundamental human needs: competence, autonomy and relatedness. Their science (and there has been lots of it) has demonstrated how each need or component contributes to motivation. The art is in addressing each component as part of the curriculum and regulating them in the students' environment to maximize interest and approach behaviors.

Will & Skill
In my own presentations and workshops on this topic, I address SDT, but I simplify it even further in some ways (and complicate it in others - life is like that, isn't it?). My approach is to think about autonomy and relatedness together (with other things like "Need for achievement") as an overall "Will" component, and to think about competence as a "Skill" component (that includes things like knowing strategies appropriate for the task at hand). Will and skill - you need both to light a fire for learning.

This is not a new approach. I adapted and expanded this notion from work published by Wilbert McKeachie and his colleagues. A reference to McKeachie's now quite famous "Teaching Tips" is included below.

Unfortunately, many educators assume that one or the other of these components - will & skill - is simply the students' responsibility. For example, I often hear colleagues lament how students lack motivation. They lack the will for learning. These teachers expect that it is the students' responsibility to come into the classroom on fire for learning. Similarly, others remark that students don't know how to write the essays required in their course or how to read. They lack skills. Of course, students who don't think they can succeed at a task (lack skill) won't feel very motivated to try.

It's true that ultimately the student must be the fuel for the fire, but that doesn't mean that educators don't have a role in lighting this fire. At the very least, we have to spark the students' interest.

Interest - the emotion
Interest is an emotion. In fact, Carroll Izard has identified interest as one of our primary emotions along with fear, joy, anger, for example. Each of these emotions is important as each has motivational properties. You'll understand this best when you think of fear. Fear motivates what we commonly call "fight or flight." Interest is an emotion that motivates approach behaviors, curiosity, learning. Without an emotional response on the part of the student, without sparking the students' interest, it's doubtful there will be a fire for learning.

In my opinion, too many educators think of higher education as a "neck up" process. Learning is all about cognitive activity. It's not about emotions (something we think of as matters of the heart, and below the neck so to speak.) Although they don't necessarily think of "filling a pail" (ok, some certainly do), they act this way creating a situation where "telling is teaching." Where's the fire here without that emotion of interest to ignite it?

The fire for learning depends on educators' addressing both will and skill. We have to attend to things like helping students to: see the value of what they're learning, integrate their learning to their need for social interaction and their need for our mentoring, as well as help them develop the skills they need to succeed coupled with the courage and effort to try. This is the craft, the art, of teaching.

All fires are different
All fires are different. Some just seem to burst into flames and rage (wild fires in California get described this way with what I referred to earlier as the "fire square"). Other fires, while ultimately successful, have to be gently nurtured from remnants of glowing coals or from accessing the inner dry wood in what appears to be a soggy log. Lighting the fire of student engagement is no different, and each student requires a different approach (educators have all had their fair share of what seem like "soggy logs" but eventually burn brightly). The artful approach differs, while the science remains the same.

All of this is my focus for the week ahead. I'll be away from my desk working with faculty at other campuses on issues of student engagement and teaching with technology; some "good talk about good teaching", as I've learned to think of it. So, there will be delay in my next posting for "Don't Delay" (sorry, I had to write that, it was just too easy ☺ ) Until then, I hope to hear back from you with stories about your own engagement in learning. What lights your fire for learning?

Concluding thoughts - "kindling the gift of life"
I'll end with a quote from one of my favorite educators and writers, Parker Palmer. His book, "The Courage to Teach," is simply excellent. Here's what he has to say about fire and learning in some introductory remarks he wrote for a colleague's book.

"Tips, tricks and techniques are not at the heart of education - fire is. I mean finding light in the darkness, staying warm in the cold world, avoiding being burned if you can, and knowing what brings healing if you can cannot. That is the knowledge that our students really want, and that is the knowledge we owe them. Not merely the facts, not merely the theories, but a deep knowing of what it means to kindle the gift of life in ourselves, in others, and in the world" (Palmer, p. x; Foreword to O'Reilley, 1998).

In education, in life, let there be fire!

Have a great week.

References
(there are many of interest, below I've only included a few)

Bain, Ken. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press.

McKeachie, W. (2002). Teaching tips: Strategies, research and theory for college and university teachers (13th edition). New York: Houghton Mifflin.

O'Reilley, M.R. (1998). Radical Presence: Teaching as
contemplative practice. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Palmer, P. (1999). The Courage to Teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.

Where there's a will, there's a . . .

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:57:26 -0700

. . . human being. The recent emphasis about will being merely an illusion is another example of the "baby being thrown out with the bath water." At the least, it's a misunderstanding of the definition of conscious will. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I . . .

A recent graduate from our psychology program, emailed me the other day to say that he'd been reading my blogs, and although he agreed with the various perspectives about why we might procrastinate, he wanted to remind me that procrastination can also be understood as a habit. He's right, of course. Certainly John Bargh would agree. As Bargh and his colleagues argue clearly in their work, we don't need conscious processing to act or make choices. If we make the same decisions or choices in the same circumstances, the process becomes routinized and signaled by the circumstances. In fact, we depend on this process as part of learning. All skills develop this way, as less conscious attention is required for action to be carried out successfully. I depend on this unconscious process now as I type. I don't look at the keyboard, as long hours of practice at a typewriter in high school (and many years since on the computer keyboard) has provided me with an unconscious ability to process thoughts into keystrokes. I also depend on this type of automatic process on the highway every day (perhaps too often at times!).

Bargh, and others (for a review see Chartrand & Bargh, 2002 referenced below), have also argued that this automatic activation is related to goal pursuit. Nonconscious goal pursuit is typical and has the same qualities as conscious goal pursuit in terms of the tendency (or not) of resuming and completing interrupted goals, the mood effects of goal pursuit (e.g., happiness on the successful pursuit), etc., even when we're not really aware of having the goal. Again, we depend on these processes. We're cognitive misers, and our brains are adapted to finding patterns, making meaning and making things automatic. This frees up the limited resources of attention for other tasks.

In this sense, yes, procrastination can be a habit associated with our goal pursuit. Given that this notion of habit is the unconscious routinized behavior signaled by the circumstances (certainly the behaviorists have argued this for years), what does it take to break the procrastination habit? (as popular book titles admonish) Conscious attention and will. But wait, isn't will an illusion? It's certainly a notion that was first rejected in the early 1900's as psychology began its slow birth as a science, and it has been again rejected most vehemently as the remnants of dualistic thought.

Daniel Wegner and colleagues argue that conscious will is an illusion (see references below). In short, neuroscientific evidence (by Benjamin Libet and others) demonstrates that the brain sends signals for action (a "readiness potential") before the individual is conscious of the action that is about to take place. Hence, the later conscious activation is an "effort after meaning" that explains the event in terms of the mental event and will. We can be fooled like this, and in many other ways, all of the time it seems.

But all of this assumes that we define "will" with the notion that our thought is the cause of our action. This is problematic given the unconscious processes of learning that I presented above, and it sets up any notion of will to collapse under the weight of such a definition. Instead, I agree with Richard Ryan & Edward Deci who suggest instead that ". . . the exercise of will and autonomy is different from being an initial cause or stimulus to action. It rather concerns the capacity to effectively evaluate the meaning and fit of potential actions with one's overarching values, needs, and interests" (2004, p. 468).

Will is bringing conscious attention to our action or potential action and taking stock of it in relation to our values, needs and interests. It is facilitated by being mindful, being aware of what is occurring in the moment (see my earlier blog on Mindfulness and procrastination). Bargh agrees, in principle, arguing that becoming aware of the automatic cognitions that trigger or prompt action can be a first step in gaining control over automatic processes. Automatic processes are habitual, efficient and adaptive, but they are not immutable.

Mindful attention is the first step to gaining control, to exercising one's will per se. Baumeister and Heatherton argue the same thing in relation to self-control processes. The self-regulatory processes provide the potential for transcending the immediate situation to make a conscious choice as opposed to enacting the habitual, unconscious choice. Transcending the momentary desire to eat dessert is possible, for example, if one takes a moment to reflect on the consumption of dessert in relation to the goal of weight control or a healthy diet. Without this transcendence, which lies at the heart of the existential definition of the will, we certainly act out automatic processes programmed by a long evolutionary history ("sweet foods are best"), personal history ("this is my comfort food") and automatic processes ("I always eat dessert").

Ah, this is a blog and not a philosophical treatise, so my treatment of these important ideas is a little "light fingered" and cursory, I know, but my comments are true to the basic ideas of the arguments. My point is, conscious will is an essence of being human. Some argue that is it THE essence, but I need not limit myself to this narrower definition in order to underscore the importance of understanding will as the application of conscious attention to my decisions, choices and actions.

Certainly it can be easier to remain on automatic pilot with learned behaviors and scripts for our lives. However, for many of us, these unconscious processes get us into trouble. Any athlete knows this. Practice makes permanent, not perfect. So, to improve our performance, we have to consciously make changes to our stroke or approach, whatever the game entails.

For procrastination, it's the same thing. We can, as my student noted, follow our habits. Alternatively, we can bring conscious attention to our choice to needlessly delay a task and examine this honestly in relation to our values, needs and goals.

Unfortunately, conscious attention is not a panacea, because self-deception looms large. That's why I wrote "honest" examination of our choices in relation to our values. It's quite easy to rationalize our current choice, to make what existentialists call an inauthentic choice, because change of an automatic process is difficult, even scary. Our learned behaviour has served us well in a variety of ways so far, hasn't it?

Again, much like changing your approach to a backhand on the tennis court or your golf swing, old habits die hard, change is difficult, and conscious attentive practice is required. That also means work, and faith in the efficacy of the change. This is part of the human condition, our existence. Not only does it take conscious attention, it takes the courage to follow your values and work for change.

Where there's a will, there's a way. Corny? Perhaps, but true.

Here's another, perhaps corny, way to think of it.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference." Robert Frost (1874-1963).

Your guess as to what I think is the road less traveled. Habits make deep ruts in the trail, that's for sure.

References
Baumeister, R.F,, & Heatherton, T.F. (1996). Self-regulation failure: An overview. Psychological Inquiry, 7, 1-15.

Chartrand, T.L., & Bargh, J.A. (2002). Nonconscious motivations: Their activation, operation, and consequences. In A. Tesser, D.A. Stapel, & J.V. Wood (Eds.), Self and motivation; Emerging psychological perspectives (pp. 13-41). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2004). Autonomy is no illusion: Self-determination theory and the empirical study of authenticity, awareness and will. In J. Greenberg, S.L. Koole, & T. Pyszczynski (Eds.), Handbook of experimental existential psychology (pp. 449-479). New York: The Guilford Press.

Wegner, D.M. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Wegner, D.M., & Wheatley, T. (1999). Apparent mental causation: Sources of the experience of will. American Psychologist, 54, 480-491.

Mañana

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:57:37 -0700

Mañana, tomorrow, the word conjures up a laid-back life style. In fact, we often stereotype some cultures as more laid back - Mañana nations perhaps? Are there national differences in the prevalence rates of chronic procrastination?

A recent study published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology by authors from the U.S., Spain, Britain and Peru, indicate that there are not differences, well not exactly. Joe Ferrari (DePaul University), Juan Francisco Diaz-Morales (Complutense University, Madrid), Jean O'Callaghan (Roehamptom University, London), Karem Diaz & Doris Argumedo (Pontifical Catholic University, Lima) collaborated to collect data from their respective countries as well as Australia and Venezuela. Using a mixture of convenience, snowball and random sampling techniques depending on their circumstances, the authors had 765 women and 582 men complete two measures of procrastination. This was an adult sample with an average age of approximately 40 years, 80% were married with two children, and the authors note that all participants would be labeled as middle-class employed adults by U.S. standards.

Ferrari and his colleagues worked with an assumption based on Ferrari's earlier research (see references below for Ferrari, 1992), that the two procrastination scales, although highly correlated measures of chronic (trait) procrastination, tap avoidance and arousal motivations distinctly. Clarry Lay's 20-item General Procrastination Scale was identified as arousal procrastination, whereas McCown & Johnson's 15-item Adult Inventory of Procrastination was identified as avoidance procrastination. Although Joe and I debate this distinction often, it's important to note this, as these researchers analyze the data to separate what they call "pure" types of procrastination (avoidant and arousal) in their analyses.

Ferrari and colleagues used the "translate, transport and test" method, carefully verifying the translation of the existing measures from English to Spanish for the data collection in Spain, Peru and Venezuela. That said, as the authors note in the concluding comments of their paper this "etic" approach to data analysis does not address the indigenous psychology of each culture, so caution must be taken in the interpretation of the results. For now, what we certainly have is an idea of how samples from each country score on these standard North-American measures.

The Results
At the level of the raw scores on both scales, adults living in the United Kingdom reported significantly higher chronic arousal procrastination compared to adults from Peru, the United States and Spain, with adults from Venezuela and Australia scoring lowest overall. The same results were found for the measure of avoidance procrastination. In fact, the correlation for these scales is typically very high (in the range of 0.65 to 0.75), so the parallel differences are not surprising.

For the Statistically minded readers . . .
Given the significant interrelation between the scales for participants in each country, Ferrari and his colleagues used a technique to examine the non-shared variance between the scales (for the statistically minded, they used standardized z residual scores for each scale by regressing each scale on the other). As they put it, "the use of within-culture z scores allowed us to identify pure interindividual variances within cultures while correcting for between-culture variance" (p. 462) They calculated the percentage of people who obtained a Z residual score of greater than 1.0 for both procrastination types to "purify" the types by eliminating the crossover effects between the distributions.

Once they had created scores for their pure types of avoidant and arousal procrastination for each country, they then repeated their cross-nation comparisons. There were no differences between the countries sampled. The overall percentage of adults sampled who reported procrastination tendencies with the arousal and avoidance motives were 13.5% and 14.6%, respectively.

Concluding comments
The authors report that their study was the first systematic investigation of chronic procrastination with adults across six different nations. Interestingly, although their sample included nations that have been stereotyped as "mañana" lifestyle (Mañana, Spanish for "tomorrow"), the data do not reflect higher procrastination in the Spanish-speaking nations. However, as the authors note, ". . . the causes and consequences within each culture need further investigation to ascertain an indigenous psychology" (p. 463). As I noted above, this will be an important consideration in future research, as this "emic" approach takes into account how each culture defines key psychological constructs.

Overall, this study does clearly indicate that chronic procrastination is a problem for a little over 10% of the adult population. Given the costs associated with chronic procrastination include performance decrements, negative emotions and even poorer health (see previous blog - "I'll look after my health later"), there is cause for concern and a need to better understand how we can deal with chronic procrastination.

Reference
Ferrari, J.R. Diaz-Morales, J.F., O'Callaghan, J., Diaz, K., & Argumedo, D. (2007). Frequent behavioral delay tendencies by adults: International prevalence rates of chronic procrastination. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38, 458-464.

Ferrari, J. R. (1992). Psychometric validation of two procrastination inventories for adults: Arousal and avoidance measures. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 14, 97-110.

Evaluation threat and procrastination

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:58:40 -0700

No surprises here. High evaluation threat makes chronic procrastinators put off their work. The surprise in a recent study was that low threat conditions for people low in chronic procrastination resulted in delay as well. And, get this, the high procrastinators delayed the least if the evaluation threat was low.

A recent paper by Ngoc Bui (University of La Verne, California) presents an interesting challenge in terms of understanding the person by situation interaction related to procrastination.

Ngoc investigated the effects that social evaluation might have on procrastination behaviours, defined specifically as how many days it took to submit an assigned essay as part of her study. She manipulated social evaluation creating 3 levels of this variable: 1) high evaluation threat (participants were told that they may have to read their papers to an audience), 2) low evaluation threat (participants were told that their work may be printed for a public newsletter), and 3) no evaluation threat (participants were simply told to return their essays to the researcher).

In addition to this experimental manipulation, Ngoc measured the participants' "trait" procrastination (an index of how chronic procrastination is in their lives or how typical it is of them). She then split the group into high and low trait procrastinators. This allowed her to explore how the trait might interact with the social evaluation threat explained above.

As you might guess, she hypothesized that those participants in the high evaluation threat group would procrastinate more than the low threat groups, and that the high trait (chronic) procrastinators would procrastinate more than those in the low procrastination group in all evaluation conditions. For those of you who like the language of research design, she expected main effects for threat and procrastination. What she found were two interaction effects. Behavioral delay (behavioral procrastination) depended on both the level of procrastination and the level of evaluation threat.

Just so you have the complete picture, let me explain a little bit more about her study. Ngoc took a relatively small sample of students and randomly assigned them into her three evaluation threat conditions. After they had been told about the essays they had to write and the potential use of the essays (the high, low or no threat condition, respectively), she then collected data on their procrastination. She thanked them for participating and told them that they had 15 days to submit their essay about the advantages and disadvantages of a private college education versus a public college education. They were asked to submit the essay to a designated mailbox on campus when they were done. She checked this box daily.

Overall, her interest was in the behavioral delay (behavioral procrastination as opposed to "trait" procrastination) on the return of the essays. Although her sample was small and not very representative of student populations generally (few men, imbalanced ethic group participation), and her method problematic in a few respects (all of which she acknowledges in her paper), her results are intriguing.

First finding:
For high trait procrastinators, those in the high-threat group delayed returning their essays significantly longer than did those in the low-threat group, 15.83 days vs. 9.92 days, respectively. Threat seems to affect the high trait procrastinators resulting in more delay. Not really that surprising if we assume that threat to self is a key aspect of procrastination (see the earlier blog about self-handicapping for an explanation of procrastination as a strategic approach to protecting self-esteem).

Second finding:
For the low trait procrastinators, those in the low evaluation threat condition delayed returning their essays significantly longer than did those in the high-trait procrastinators, 15.20 days vs. 9.92 days, respectively). This is a surprise. Why would low trait procrastinators delay with low evaluation threat?

What this might mean
Ngoc explains her finding like this: "It may be that the low trait procrastinators are only motivated to work when there is a significant threat of evaluation. Conversely, this same level of threat appears to impair the high trait procrastinators . . . Therefore, it is important for educators to know that different types of procrastinators respond differently to certain levels of evaluation threat" (p. 206).

My concluding thoughts
The most interesting result of this study for me was that the high trait procrastinators in the low threat condition had the fastest overall return time. This is truly intriguing. I would have expected the average fastest time to submission would be an attribute of the low procrastination group. As Ngoc notes, educators need to think about how people respond differently to different levels of evaluation threat.

For me, the message is clear. I can help trait procrastinators with more timely completion if I can keep the evaluation threat low. Certainly, we saw this message earlier from my colleague Joe Ferrari (DePaul University) whose research with Dianne Tice indicated that it may be possible to reduce task avoidance for chronic procrastinators by reducing the perceived threat of the task. This would involve re-labeling the task at hand to be less threatening.

In the end, for procrastinators, perceived threats can invoke avoidance. While we may wait for others to help us by reducing perceived threat, we can take more direct action by thinking about our own attributions and appraisals of the situation. Is it a threat or a challenge? What resources do I have at my disposal to cope with this situation? A little time for reflection will probably reveal that you're very capable of moving ahead. You'll be able to get started in no time!

References
Bui, N.H. (2007). Effect of evaluation threat on procrastination behavior. The Journal of Social Psychology, 147, 197-209.

Ferrari, J.R., & Tice, D.M. (2000). Procrastination as a self-handicap for men and women: A task-avoidance strategy in a laboratory setting. Journal of Research in Personality, 34, 73-83

Procrastination and flow experiences: A tale of opposites

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Mon, 05 May 2008 04:17:05 -0700

Procrastinators rarely engage in their lives in a way that creates the experience of "flow." They're rarely "in the zone" or "find their groove." What's flow? Why are the optimal conditions for flow just the opposite of what promotes task delay?

What is flow?
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi coined the term "flow" to capture the essence of an experience he heard his research participants, athletes, artists, musicians, and a wide variety of others over the years, describe. Csíkszentmihályi defines this state in a number of ways, and there is a great deal written about the topic. In an interview with Wired Magazine (chosen because it's instantly available to you here), he said flow is "Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."

Other blog writers for Psychology Today (e.g., Michael J. Formica or Pavel Somov) might describe these experiences from an Eastern perspective with something like, "being at one with things." It is not a new phenomenon, the notion that ego falls away and that the person becomes intensely present in the moment. Csíkszentmihályi has helped us focus on the experience from a distinctly Western tradition based on his research.

I won't write any more of an explanation of flow, as by now, this is a popular concept, and there is lots more to access on the Web if it's a new concept to you. I'll turn instead to a study of the relation between procrastination and flow. In doing so, I will define flow in terms of how it was measured in the study.

Flow and Procrastination: The research
Eunju Lee (Halla University, South Korea) conducted a study of the flow experience related to academic procrastination. Although his sample is limited in a number of ways (something he notes in his paper), the results are of interest.

Basically, Lee explored the relation among procrastination, flow and motivation as measured by self-report questionnaires in a student sample. His results revealed that flow was related to procrastination negatively, and it was more predictive of procrastination than his measure of motivation. To understand how flow is related to procrastination, we need to review just a little bit more about flow and the measure used.

Csíkszentmihályi defined a number of features of the flow experience, although any particular flow experience need not include all possible features. These include:

Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).

Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.

Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).

Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).

A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging
(Source: Wikipedia)

Lee's measure of flow included these features, but he only included 5 subscales in his study. Here are the five with a sample item, so that you have a better feel for the measure.

Challenge-skill balance "I felt I was competent enough to meet the high demands of the situation."
Clear goals "I knew clearly what I wanted to do."
Unambiguous feedback "I had a good idea while I was performing about how well I was doing."
Concentration on the task at hand "My attention was focused entirely on what I was doing."
Loss of self-consciousness "I was not concerned with what others may have been thinking of me."

The results
Of these five features of flow, loss of self-consciousness and clear goals were the components of flow most highly related to procrastination in his regression analysis. The only other component related to procrastination in the regression was concentration on the task.

Lee summarized his findings like this, "The more students procrastinate in doing their academic work, the less likely they are to experience flow state in the learning processes . . . students who did not have clear goals, did not concentrate on the task at hand and had high self-consciousness showed high procrastination tendencies" (p. 12). Lee then laid out the potential implications of these results for educators in helping students define clear goals, concentrate and not be excessively self-conscious.

Finally, Lee focused on the subscale that he found related most highly to procrastination, namely self-consciousness. "High procrastinators were more likely to be concerned with what others may been thinking of them, how they were presenting themselves, and about their performance during the learning process" (p. 13).

Why?
The prominent role of self-consciousness combined with the issues of goal setting and concentration reflect a couple of psychological issues we've already discussed in this blog. First, self-consciousness speaks to the issue of concern, perhaps over-concern, about self-presentation and protecting one's sense of self. To the extent that this is the case, the negative relation between flow and procrastination may well be explained by self-handicapping. Individuals who are unable to let go of their self-conscious concern about what others might think are not prone to enter a flow state, yet at the same time may be prone to self-handicapping to influence what others think of them. Self-consciousness prevents the individual from losing his- or herself in the task at hand, and at the same time, increases the likelihood that task delay might be used strategically to protect self-esteem.

Self-consciousness also reflects a component of neuroticism. It speaks to the issue of personality. That is, self-consciousness can be seen as a stable individual difference that is related to both a lack of flow experiences and an increase in procrastination. To the extent that you would describe yourself as emotionally unstable and prone to self-consciousness, you're unlikely to experience flow in your activities, and, in fact, you're more likely to put off the task at hand as noted above.

Goal setting and concentration also takes us back to personality issues, particularly the major correlate of procrastination: low conscientiousness. More importantly, both goal setting and concentration are integrally related to volitional skills in our understanding of action (e.g., Kuhl, see the earlier blog on state- vs. action-orientations). It takes well-developed volitional skills to be able to set realistic goals that are challenging but don't exceed our ability, and to be able to maintain a focus (concentration) on achieving these goals. In sum, it takes self-regulatory abilities to avoid procrastination and to foster experiences that might be described as "flow." It's something that can be learned, but it may be easier for some people than others depending on things like your personality.

Concluding thoughts
Although I noted the various dimensions of personality and self-regulation that are involved in the relationship between flow and procrastination as demonstrated in Lee's study, I think it's important to take an even higher-order perspective on his results. His results are not surprising to us because procrastination is antithetical to flow, particularly chronic procrastination.

A life lived with avoidance as a central coping mechanism, a central way of being, is a life that rarely can find the deep joy inherent in a flow experience. The reason for this, as Lee's data seem to indicate, is that the individual clings too closely to a sense of self, a fragile sense of self at that. Self-conscious as an actor in the world, worried perhaps about his or her performance, the chronic procrastinator seeks to avoid failure and undermines a deep sense of being that is possible through "Being completely involved in an activity."

Of course, for dedicated readers of "Don't Delay," these final few words won't surprise you. The key to enriching your life with flow experiences and decreasing procrastination is the courageous act of choice - Choosing consciously to risk, to try, to just get started. Once you begin that task and trust yourself a little bit more, not fearing the "non-being" of the past or future, but allowing yourself to remain deeply focused on the present moment, there won't be any procrastination, there will only be now - you acting in the present.

As is noted in quite a few stories from the Zen Buddhist tradition, when you're finished your rice, wash your bowl. This is it.

References

Procrastination research
Lee, E. (2005). The relationship of motivation and flow experience to academic procrastination in university students. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 166, 5-14.

Background about Flow
Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1988) Optimal Experience Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial.

Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1998). Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life. Basic Books.

Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (2003). Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning. New York: Penguin Books.

Jackson, Susan A. & Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1999). Flow in Sports: The Keys to Optimal Experiences and Performances. Champaign, Illinois: Human Kinetics Publishers.

Second-order procrastination: Another inconvenient truth related to climate change

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:58:01 -0700

You control climate change . . . if you get around to it. The problem is, the immediate costs of behavioral change are high, the effects of individual effort uncertain or at least negligible, and you can't be sure others are also working for change. This is the perfect storm for both first- and second-order procrastination.

Earlier in my blogs, I wrote about Chrisoula Andreou's perspective on procrastination with intransitive preference structures. Today, I am going to take my discussion of her work further with summary of her article, "Environmental Preservation and Second-Order Procrastination" (Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2007, 35, 233-248).

From my perspective, there are two important reasons to discuss her work. First, Chrisoula defines a new level of procrastination, second-order procrastination. This will be very important for anyone who has been struggling with change in life. Second, Chrisoula applies this concept to understanding environmental preservation, specifically the procrastination in our work on acting to implement actions that will benefit us in the long run.

Procrastination and Environmental Preservation
As Chrisoula writes, "As far as potentially catastrophic procrastination problems go, procrastination with respect to environmental preservation is exemplary. Unlike run-of-the-mill cases of procrastination, it really can mean the end of the world" (p. 245). At an individual level, of course, even our everyday, run-of-the-mill cases of procrastination can seem like the end of the world, at least the world as we know it, if it means the end of a job or relationship; but I agree with Chrisoula that procrastination on environmental preservation is not only incredibly important, but certainly different as it is a matter of collective procrastination as well.

I won't repeat a summary of intransitive preferences, as you can quickly access the early blog entry if you're confused. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to review this to grasp her concept of second-order procrastination in any case.

Her argument is fairly straightforward. It goes like this.

Our overall goal is to act in a way that preserves our world. We value clean air, clean water and thriving ecosystems.

However, the preservation of clean air, water and thriving ecosystems has substantial immediate costs. We have to change our behavior now, with concrete immediate costs such as less consumption, less travel or commuting, etc

Our individual action to preserve the environment requires that we refrain, repeatedly, from taking actions (like driving, flying, wasting) whose effects are individually negligible yet cumulatively devastating over time.

The exercise of will to act in an environmentally responsible manner now is tempting to put off, and certainly one more day without action will not be the downfall of the earth, right?

Chrisoula notes,
"As such, procrastination with respect to environmental preservation is (pardon the pun) natural" (p. 240).

In the end, the result is that the immediate costs of acting in an environmentally protective manner now prompts us to keep making exceptions to our plans to act responsibly today. It's the classic, "I'll do it tomorrow."

What we need then is a plan and/or a policy to implement action. As we have seen in earlier blog postings, implementation intentions or even binding early deadlines (Kyoto anyone?) can prompt the desired action despite the tendency to want to excuse behavior now in favor of the short-term gain (another form of temporal discounting which we discussed earlier, and which Chrisoula describes as "discounting-induced preference reversals").

Second-order procrastination defined
Given that we could implement a plan and/or policy, why then do we continue to see procrastination on real action now? This is where Chrisoula's notion of second-order procrastination emerges. (Note: Think of this beyond environmental issues as well. Our everyday procrastination can be described the same way. I prefer to act later as the immediate costs of acting now seem so much larger than the potential later reward.)

Second-order procrastination is procrastinating on implementing the solution to your procrastination.

I know that readers who are chronic procrastinators know exactly what Chrisoula means by this. I like her example to explain this notion.

"If my procrastinating tendencies prompt me to press the snooze button repeatedly when my alarm goes off in the morning, I can, even as a procrastinator, solve my procrastination problem because the tasks of coming up with a plan to solve my procrastination problem and putting the plan into effect do not have high immediate costs. There is a simple and obvious (or at least familiar) solution that I can put into effect with just a few simple movements while I am wide awake the night before I have to get up early. I can simply place the alarm out of arm's reach, so that I am forced to get out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off (to avoid being subjected to the alarm's intolerable ringing)" (pp. 243-244).

This strategy is a "precommitment device" as it commits the self to act promptly by raising the immediate costs (the intolerable ringing) for not acting. Essentially, by raising the immediate costs of not acting, the incentives for procrastinating are reduced.

UNFORTUNATELY, as Chrisoula notes - ". . . for some procrastination problems, simple and obvious solutions are not available. In such cases, the immediate costs of arriving at an implementation intention to solve one's procrastination problem will be high, and so second-order procrastination is likely to be an issue.

Second-order procrastination is procrastinating on solving the first-order procrastination problem. Oh, this is at the heart of so many academic procrastination workshops I do. Students perceive the immediate costs of implementing a plan as so high that they then procrastinate on ending their procrastination. The hopeless feelings are tangible.

The hopelessness is also attached to environmental preservation. Not only are the stakes high for action, but there is great uncertainty about what implementation intention, plan or policy will really have the desired long-term effect. In addition, politicians are aware that the resources required to pay for the uncertain plans associated with environmental action might garner immediate results with other more manageable problems that also have more transparent solutions. The result is a bad case of second-order procrastination for environmental preservation.

Chrisoula summarizes this sad situation writing, "Otherwise put, when it comes to environmental preservation, second-order procrastination is to be expected" (p. 246).

The solution to this thorny problem?
"To discourage second-order procrastination we need a strategy for increasing its immediate costs that is not itself subject to yet higher-order procrastination" (p. 246). Chrisoula considers how laws (e.g., federal clean air laws) might work in this regard as they not only set future deadlines, but also require state implementation plans and include penalties for inaction (increasing immediate costs). Laws like these might add a strong incentive for timely action.

Unfortunately, Chrisoula notes again, "there is still plenty of cause for worry . . . current legislation concerning environmental preservation is insufficient in terms of preventing severe damage" (p. 247). The overly optimistic assumptions of the proposed strategies are one example of why this legislation and related implementation plans leave cause for concern. As well, in a global environment (it can be no other with respect to pollution), international implementation plans are a necessity; lacking these undermines local action.

Chrisoula closes her paper with,
"The moral with respect to environmental preservation is that, even given genuine collective concern with preservation, without required implementation intentions and binding deadlines, both first-order and second-order procrastination threaten to trap serious efforts at preservation on our agenda, close but not close enough to the world of action" (p. 248).

My closing comment on this insightful and thought-provoking paper is that implementation intentions and binding deadlines serve to take us out of the world of habit or automatic processes to more conscious action (e.g., Bargh, 2004). Forming an implementation intention is a conscious acknowledgement of the desire to act differently. The strategy of the implementation intention or a binding deadline or any precommitment device is a conscious choice.

To be most effective, conscious choice requires consciousness to be fully present, lacking deception. Where implementation strategies, or the "way," may fall short, the "will" or our unflinching conscious awareness of the real costs of not acting now must close the gap between intention and action. Ultimately, with an issue as life-threatening as global climate change, the existential reality of our choice, freedom and responsibility must be brought into this dialogue. Policy, implementation intentions and any other "techniques" will only work to the extent that it truly serves our collective choice and courage. "The Courage to Be" as described by Paul Tillich is an essential, if not the essential, element missing in this story of second-order procrastination. Without this conscious, courageous choice, laws and policies will always fall short. We're just too good at deceiving ourselves.

References
Andreou, C. (2007). Environmental preservation and second-order procrastination. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 35, 233-248.

Bargh, J.A. (2004). Being here now: Is consciousness necessary for human freedom. In J. Greenberg, S.L. Koole, & T. Pyszczynski (Eds.), Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology (pp. 385-397). New York: The Guilford Press.

Delay as a self-handicapping strategy: I can protect my self-image by procrastinating?

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:12:18 -0700

"Do people always want to know precisely who they are and exactly what they are capable of accomplishing at their best? We doubt it . . ."

The opening quote is taken from a study published by Edward Jones (New York Times obituary) & Steven Berglas (1978, p. 200). Usually, I'm summarizing very recent publications. This paper is 30 years old, short and insightful. It set the stage for a great deal of subsequent research.

Interestingly, Jones and Berglas begin their article, "Control of attributions about the self through self-handicapping strategies: The appeal of alcohol and the role of underachievement" by challenging the notion that we always want to know precisely who we are and what we're capable of accomplishing. In fact, as quoted above, they say, "we doubt it." They argue that we have a "need for certain kinds of ambiguity to allow room for self-sustaining and self-embellishing fantasies" (p. 200). Unfortunately, these self-embellishing fantasies get us into trouble with procrastination in particular.

What is self-handicapping?
Although their focus was specifically on alcohol use, Jones and Berglas set the foundation for the concept of self-handicapping. They argued that some people turn to alcohol to avoid the implications of negative feedback for failure and to enhance the impact of positive feedback for success. This is based, they note, on the public assumption that alcohol generally interferes with or disrupts performance. This assumption, "paves the way for what we shall call self-handicapping strategies."

SELF-HANDICAPPING
"By finding or creating impediments that make good performance less likely, the strategist nicely protects his [or her] sense of self-competence" (p. 201).

In sum, if you self-handicap (with alcohol or any other strategy known to undermine performance - ah, yes, procrastination) and you fail, you protect your sense of competence, because you can externalize the blame to the alcohol or procrastination (on the college campus, it could well be both!).

As well, if you self-handicap and succeed, you have succeeded in spite of less than optimum conditions, enhancing the internal attributions for success and boosting self-competence (actually, not really, as you're well aware of the self-deception and even uncertain of how you managed to pull it off, and research has indicated that this self-doubt just serves to set up more self-handicapping in the future - you just may find, you can't pull it off again and you're not so smart or competent, and you won't risk that!).

The thing is, irrespective of the outcome, it would seem that the self-handicapper can't lose - "at least in those settings where the attributional implications of performance are more important than the success of the performance itself" (Jones & Berglas, 1978; p. 201) - and there's the rub! We'll come back to this problem later, as it smacks of the self-deception I have written about before in terms of procrastination. It is in effect "living in bad faith," and Jones & Berglas provide plenty of examples from sports through to mental illness of how even illness becomes a "cover story" for our potential failures.

Self-handicapping and Procrastination
Since the publication of this article by Jones and Berglas, there have been many studies focused on self-handicapping, including self-handicapping and procrastination specifically. In fact, there have been two doctoral dissertations (Joe Ferrari, 1990 and Cheryl Meyer, 1991) and about 20 research articles that address the relation between procrastination and self-handicapping over the past 20 years. My focus today is on the work of Joseph Ferrari, and the most recent publication he has on the topic with Dianne Tice, as well as the work of Dr. Clarry Lay (retired, York University, Toronto). Ferrari and Lay in particular have laid a foundation of research related to procrastination, and Joe Ferrari has simply been prolific. He has numerous studies published on self-handicapping and procrastination alone, as well as many others on various other aspects of procrastination. I'll certainly return to his research over and over again in blogs to come.

So what do we know about self-handicapping and procrastination specifically?
Wendelien van Eerde's meta-analysis of procrastination research provides the broadest overview of the relation between self-handicapping and procrastination, as she reports that across all of the studies there is an average correlation of 0.46 between measures of these two variables. They are strongly related. In order to understand the nature of this relation, we need to look at some of the research that has been done, particularly experimental work. Although they are highly related, these are not the same thing. Clarry Lay's research in particular makes this clear.

Research Summary - 4 Studies
Ferrari & Tice (2000) conducted two studies with an experimental design to empirically demonstrate many of the things that Jones and Berglas set out in their original theory. Specifically, Ferrari and Tice found that people who scored high on a measure of chronic procrastination were more likely than others to self-handicap by procrastinating, and chronic procrastinators engaged in procrastination only when the task at hand was evaluative and potentially threatening.

Clarry Lay, Steven Knish and Rita Zanatta approached the relation of procrastination and self-handicapping by noting that the self-handicapping of procrastinators with temporal delay may be seen as a subset of self-handicapping overall. That is, a trait self-handicapper may use a wide range of behaviors strategically to protect self-esteem, whereas the procrastinator may be limited to temporal delay (and not always with the motive of protecting self-esteem). They conducted two studies using high school students: one in the classroom during class time, and the other outside of class during a 5-day period prior to an anticipated intelligence test. In both cases, the students were to practice for the test. To heighten the potential for failure, Lay and his colleagues also manipulated the level of difficulty of the practice questions, assuming that the students who got the difficult as opposed to the easy practice questions would expect failure prompting more self-protective handicapping. Finally, they also assessed the students' perceived task ability as this was expected to affect test preparation (i.e., self-handicappers who perceived themselves as less than competent would anticipate poorer performance and my increase their self-handicapping behavior).

Interestingly, Lay and his colleagues used a similar approach as Ferrari and Tice in the design. In Study 1, they asked participants to use the available time to practice for the upcoming test, but they also provided an irrelevant task as an option. And, similar to Ferrari and Tice, Lay explained that practice made a difference on performance for this test, which was a test that reflected ability. The difference in Study 2 is that the participants didn't just use the 40 minutes of class time. They had 5 days for independent work at home, and they were instructed to indicate when and how much they practiced, if at all, on each day.

The results of Study 1 clearly delineated between procrastination and self-handicapping. High trait self-handicappers practiced less, however trait procrastinators did not self-handicap through reduced effort or practice. The results of Study 2 were more complex. I've listed the main findings below.

Participants with greater ability started practice earlier and practiced on more days than participants with less ability.
Both high self-handicappers and high procrastinators reported starting practice later than participants who scored low on these measures, respectively.
Participants with the more difficult practice items answered and worked on fewer items in the actual test and guessed at more items.
As predicted, there were some interactions among the variables. Procrastinators with the difficult practice items reported a sharp increase in time spent preparing when they had high task ability.

Interestingly, although both self-handicappers and procrastinators delayed the practice, Lay and his colleagues still argue that behavioral delay may have served different functions for each group. They write, "Such behavior may have been a self-handicapping strategy for traits self-handicappers and a means of avoiding a task deemed aversive for trait procrastinators" (p. 254).

In sum, they believe that their results underscore the fact that chronic procrastinators may not share the self-handicapper's motives in all cases. Whereas procrastination may be a self-handicapping strategy, it is not always serving this motive. Procrastinators may be simply avoiding an aversive task, for example, not protecting self. This is an important distinction that deserves further research.

Implications of the relationship between self-handicapping and procrastination?
To the extent that procrastinators may be delaying tasks unnecessarily in order to build in an external excuse for failure, Ferrari and Tice argue that it may be possible to reduce task avoidance for chronic procrastinators by reducing the perceived threat of the task. This would involve re-labeling the task at hand to be less threatening; something that "low procrastinators" may already be very good at. For example, Ferrari and Tice note that "It is also possible that one reason nonprocrastinators do not avoid working on an unpleasant or evaluative task is that they are better than procrastinators at making a game out of the task or relabeling the task in a less threatening manner" (p. 80).

I know from studies that my students and I have conducted on psychological "hardiness" (see The Hardiness Institute for details), that research participants who scored higher on a measure of hardiness scored significantly lower on procrastination. This may well be because one attribute of hardy individuals is that they see potentially stressful situations as a challenge not a threat. We'll return to this concept in a later blog.

Alternatively, given Lay and colleagues' results, a focus on ensuring that we build our ability and self-efficacy for the tasks at hand will reduce our procrastination and our tendency to delay to protect self-esteem. Certainly, other research indicating that uncertainty about what to do is highly correlated with procrastination underscores the important role ability and self-efficacy play in procrastination.

Concluding thoughts . . .
Taken together, what the research indicates is that in an effort to protect our self-esteem, we may engage in deception of both others and self. We will manage our self-presentation by finding impediments to our performance to avoid facing feedback that we know can only be based on our competence. This self-handicapping strategy may well be at the heart of procrastination for many people.

Of course, this self-deception is yet another example of how procrastination is a deeply existential issue in terms of not facing life with the courage to choose. The self-deception of self-handicapping is terribly problematic in most situations because, as Jones and Berglas noted, self-handicapping is only offers a strategic advantage "in those settings where the attributional implications of performance are more important than the success of the performance itself" (Jones & Berglas, 1978; p. 201). Unfortunately, many times when we self-handicap to avoid self-evaluative feedback, the success of the performance really does matter. I know this, because I have received emails from people for over 15 years that document how their procrastination continues to undermine their success.

Food for thought the next time we're needlessly delaying a task. It's time for some honest self reflection with the question, "Am I doing this to build in an excuse for potential failure?" If there is any hint that the answer might be yes, you know what to do next. Just get started!

References

Jones, E.E., & Berglas, S. (1978). Control of attributions about the self through self-handicapping strategies: The appeal of alcohol and the role of under achievement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 200-206.

Ferrari, J.R., & Tice, D.M. (2000). Procrastination as a self-handicap for men and women: A task-avoidance strategy in a laboratory setting. Journal of Research in Personality, 34, 73-83.

Lay, C.H., Knish, S., & Zanatta, R. (1992). Self-handicappers and procrastinators: A comparison of their practice behavior prior to an evaluation. Journal of Research in Personality, 26, 242-257.

Van Eerde, W. (2003). A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1401-1418.

What flavor of perfectionist are you? It matters!

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:26:20 -0700

Perfectionism comes in at least two flavours: adaptive and maladaptive. The maladaptive flavor seems to have social roots. (Take the self-test at the end of the blog.)

We've been discussing personality traits and procrastination in the last couple of blog entries, but these have been considered at the highest level of the personality trait taxonomy. Today, I want to consider a lower-order trait, perfectionism. It's not formally part of the Big-Five personality traits that we've discussed.

It was originally assumed, as the diagram implies, that perfectionism undermines our action; all perfectionism was seen as maladaptive. It's not that simple. Perfectionism is multi-dimensional, or there's more than one flavor.

My focus today is on a relatively recent study reported by Jeffrey Kilbert (Oklahoma State), Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling and Motoko Saito (University of South Alabama). They report on adaptive and maladaptive aspects of self-oriented versus socially-prescribed perfectionism. In doing this, they summarize key aspects of the literature. Let me begin by defining some terms.

Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett developed a multidimensional perfectionism scale with three subscales or types of perfectionism: self-oriented, other-oriented and socially-prescribed. Here's a brief description of each:

Self-oriented perfectionists: Adhere to strict standards while maintaining strong motivation to attain perfection and avoid failure; engage in stringent self-evaluation.

Other-oriented perfectionists: set unrealistic standards for significant others (e.g., partners, children, co-workers) coupled with a stringent evaluation of others' performances.

Socially-prescribed perfectionists: believe that others hold unrealistic expectations for their behavior (and that they can't live up to this); experience external pressure to be perfect, believe others evaluate them critically.

Of the three, my focus will be on self-oriented and socially-prescribed perfectionism as these have shown different relations with measures of procrastination in past research, and they are differentially related to what has been labeled adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. (If you're interested in other-oriented perfectionism, I'd recommend reading "The no asshole rule" by Robert Sutton as there is quite a bit of overlap here, I think).

Conceptually, perfectionism had been considered a maladaptive trait overall. It didn't matter what form it took, perfectionism was seen to be detrimental (hence the figure I chose for this blog entry). However, another multidimensional perfectionism scale developed by Randy Frost revealed two underlying dimensions for his six subscales of perfectionism: concern over mistakes, personal standards, parental expectations, parental criticism, doubting of actions and organization. These two broad dimensions of perfectionism were labeled: positive strivings and maladaptive evaluation concerns.

In terms of Hewitt and Flett's three types, Frost found that the broad "positive strivings" dimension was related to self- and other-oriented perfectionism, as well as his own subscales of high standards and organization. Frost's research also demonstrated that positive strivings was related to increased positive emotions and it was not correlated with depression.

The second broad dimension of maladaptive concerns was related to Hewitt and Flett's socially-prescribed perfectionism, as well as Frost's own subscales of concern over mistakes, parental criticism and expectations, and doubts over actions. This dimension of maladaptive concerns was found to be related to higher levels of negative affect (emotions) and depression, and other research has shown that maladaptive concerns (socially-prescribe perfectionism) is related to procrastination, depression, suicidal ideation, lower self-esteem, anxiety, loss of self-control and shame.

In sum, there is some clear evidence that perfectionism is not one maladaptive flavour, and that a key distinction is between what we can see as perfectionism set by self and perfectionism imposed, or prescribed, socially. Given this past research, Kilbert and his colleagues wanted to explore the extent to which self-oriented perfectionism might be related to other adaptive traits such as self-esteem, perceived self-control and achievement motivation. At the same time, they wished to further explore the potential negative associations with socially-prescribed perfectionism

Their Research
Kilbert and colleagues used a battery of measures with a sample of 475 students. As you might expect given the concepts listed above, they measured things like perfectionism, self-esteem, achievement tendency, depression, anxiety, shame, guilt and procrastination. In their analyses, they also distinguished "types" of perfectionists in an unique fashion. They created types by using scores for both self-oriented and socially-prescribed perfectionism in combination. This resulted in four possible types: Low-Low (low on both forms of perfectionism), Self-oriented perfectionism only, Socially-prescribed perfectionism only and finally high on both scales. You can see that this 4-type continuum basically goes from not perfectionistic at all to having high scores on both types of perfectionism.

Their Results
Given the variety of groupings and variables, it's not surprising that their results varied. Because the blog is about procrastination, I'll simplify things by keeping my focus on this aspect of their results. As they summarize the findings, "Regarding procrastination, results indicated that SOCIALLY Prescribed ONLY participants reported a tendency to procrastinate more than SELF Oriented ONLY and Generally Perfectionistic participants. Additionallly, Non-Perfectionistic students procrastinated more than did the SELF Oriented ONLY participants" (p. 152).

I find this very interesting, of course, as it clearly delineates socially-prescribed from self-oriented perfectionism in relation to procrastination. Not only do individuals who report higher socially-prescribed perfectionism procrastinate more, but individuals who are described as self-oriented perfectionists actually procrastinate less than non-perfectionists! Clearly, at least in terms of procrastination, there are adaptive and maladaptive forms of perfectionism.

And, just because it helps round out the story, I want to add that the results of this study also revealed that self-oriented perfectionism was associated with higher levels of self-control and achievement motivation, whereas socially-prescribed perfectionism was associated negatively with self-esteem, self-control and achievement motivation, and this maladaptive form of perfectionism was significantly related to higher levels of depression, suicide proneness, anxiety, shame and guilt. The distinction between these two types of perfectionism is very clear.

The implication of these findings for perfectionism and procrastination
Here is how Kilbert and colleagues make sense of the results overall.

Self-oriented Perfectionists
". . . self-oriented perfectionists are those who derive a sense of pleasure from their labors and efforts, which in turn enhances their self-esteem and motivation to succeed and eventually helps them to develop a sense of control over their environment. Self-oriented perfectionists may then use their pleasure in their accomplishments as encouragement to continue and even improve their work" (p. 154).

Socially-prescribed perfectionists
"In contrast, socially prescribed perfectionists may be compared to neurotic perfectionists [a term originally coined by Hamachek] in that they do not derive pleasure from their labors and efforts and tend to view their work as inadequate or inferior. Furthermore, they report experiencing external pressure and or coercion to accomplish tasks. Therefore, the maladaptive symptoms of the socially prescribed perfectionist emerge not from an internally felt desire to be their best, but more from a fear of failure and/or a desire to avoid embarrassment, shame and guilt" (p. 154).

So, what kind of perfectionist are you? It seems to make a big difference!

How do you know if you're a perfectionist? Check out Psychology Today tests to learn more. This 44-item test will give you personal feedback for your overall perfectionism score. If you want specific feedback for each of the three types of perfectionism discussed in this blog entry, there is a fee (Note: This is not my test, and I am not promoting its use. I'm simply making you aware of this option if you want to know more).

Reference
Kilbert, J.J., Langhinrichsen-Rohling, J., & Saito, M. (2005). Adaptive and maladaptive aspects of self-oriented versus socially prescribed perfectionism. Journal of College Student Development, 46, 141-156.

Other papers
Hewitt, P.L., & Flett, G.L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts: Conceptualization, assessment and association with psychopathology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60. 456-470.

Frost, R.O., Heimberg, C.S., Holt, C.S., Mattia. J. I., & Neubauer, A.L. (1993). A comparison of two measures of perfectionism. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 119-126.

Personality: A risk and resilience factor for procrastination

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:29:10 -0700

So what do we know about the major personality traits and procrastination?

Not surprisingly, the answer varies from study to study, but the major themes are informative, at least a place to start.

Blogger's notes:

We're discussing personality traits right now, but this does not mean that we'll ignore the situation. We'll discuss situation shortly and then think about the interaction of Person by Situation - something that we have to consider when we think about any behavior.
I tend to write a lot in these blogs. Some readers really like this. Others don't have the time to digest it all. So, I'm going to structure the longer blogs into sections. Skim down through the sections if you want to skip over the research for example. I'll always pull it together near the end to discuss the relevance or implications of the research. I hope this helps all of us.

Background
Over the past 2 decades, there have been a number of studies exploring the relation between the "Big 3" or the "Big 5" trait models and a variety of measures of procrastination. You may recall from the last blog entry that the Big 3 and Big 5 refer to the major traits of personality, the highest level of a taxonomy of personality traits.

Hans Eysenck defined the three-factor solution with Neuroticism, Extraversion and Psychoticism. Costa & McCrae, among others, championed the five-factor model: Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience and Extraversion (CANOE). You may also recall that the debate goes on in personality psychology about what the best taxonomy of traits is, but we're working with what we have here. (If you want to read the previous blog entry about personality traits, here's quick link to it.

Important Caveat ("warning")
In preface to summarizing the findings from the various studies, I want to quote from a colleague at Grant MacEwan College (Edmonton, Alberta - the "oil province" of Canada), David Watson, who writes,

"The results indicate the complexity of procrastination as a psychological phenomenon"
(p. 156, 2001, note full reference below).

I couldn't agree more, the relation between personality and procrastination is complex, and yet some colleagues and researchers want to gloss over the complexity in favor of simple "procrastination equations." There simply isn't enough research done to date to rule out personality traits or limit our understanding to the few broad relations we've found. The point is, the results are complex because quite a number of traits and interactions between traits are related to procrastination. Any counselor can tell you this. In any case, I'll stick to some of the main trends in my blog today.

Executive Summary of the Research Results
Below is my executive summary of a number of studies. These data are mainly based on the 5-factor model, as the few studies using the 3-factor model revealed similar overall trends. In sum, aspects of all traits except Agreeableness are related to procrastination. To date the research indicates whether you're a "nice" person (trustworthy, compliant, altruistic) doesn't seem to be related to irrational delay (So, nice people procrastinate too! ☺ )

Low conscientiousness is the strongest predictor of procrastination. The lower your conscientiousness score, the higher your procrastination. In fact, all of the facets of conscientiousness are correlated with lower procrastination, including: Competence (efficient), Order (organized), Dutifulness (not careless), Achievement striving (thorough), Self-discipline (not lazy), and Deliberation (not impulsive).
(Lack of) Self-discipline is the strongest facet-level predictor of procrastination. Given the very strong relation between Conscientiousness and procrastination, Clarry Lay (retired, pioneer researcher in the area) has referred to Conscientiousness as the "source trait" of the lower-order trait of procrastination.

Neuroticism is the next most important predictor, although neuroticism's role in predicting procrastination has varied, with the strongest facet-level predictors being impulsiveness and vulnerability.

(Just to confuse things a little, both self-discipline and impulsivity have been reported to be related to [cross-load on] both Conscientiousness & Neuroticism. There's something interesting happening here. In addition, not all studies use the same measures of the Big-Five traits, so facets are defined slightly different from study to study.)

For Openness to Experience, the fantasy facet has been found to be positively related to procrastination: the more fantasy, the higher the procrastination.

For Extraversion, the activity facet was found to be negatively correlated with procrastination in one study: the higher energy of extraverts is related to less procrastination.

What does all this mean? Personality - Risk or Resilience Factor?
At the highest level of the personality taxonomy of traits, we see some interesting relations. First and foremost, individuals who would be described as not very conscientious are most prone to procrastination. Put the other way, if you're conscientious "by nature," you have an important resilience to irrational and needless task delay. This finding is a focus for intervention, which I discuss in a moment.

But it's more than just conscientiousness. Sticking to just the two consistent and major findings across the various studies, we also need to take into account Neuroticism. There are a number of studies that report that worry, fear of failure, vulnerability and anxiety are predictors of procrastination. In addition, a very important risk factor in terms of personality is impulsivity. To the extent that you tend to be an impulsive person, you're less able to guard one intention from another. You're more likely to drop the task at hand impulsively.

So, our tendency to be self-disciplined and structured help us defeat procrastination on the one hand, and for some of us, the tendency to worry and fear failure, or impulsively move from one task to another leads to more task avoidance on the other.

But remember, these are just broad trends based on over-arching traits. There's more to take into account.

Why this is only a partial answer
That was relatively easy to summarize, but it is an oversimplification. It's true, but not the whole story. In fact, that's what I like most about David Watson's study of traits and procrastination; he "digs around" defining various components of procrastination like fear of failure, rebellion against control as well as procrastination on various types of academic tasks such as writing essays, taking exams, etc. (all academic tasks given the context of his research). In splitting out personality to the facet level of the major traits and then exploring components of academic procrastination within various tasks, his data hint at the complex interactions that are important to understand.

He explains, for example, that we might not see a large relationship of extraversion with procrastination when considered as broad traits, but his finding that "low assertiveness" (an introverted characteristic) correlated with procrastination on some academic tasks (e.g., exam preparation) may indicate how the more introverted students are less inclined to ask professors or other students for help. It's at this level of understanding that we might be able to identify the contribution of personality to procrastination.

In addition, one of the most recent papers that addresses personality traits and procrastination by Dong-gwi Lee, Kevin Kelly and Jodi Edwards (Purdue University), begins to address the relation among personality traits. Although it is beyond the scope of this blog to explain their work with structural equation modeling, I can summarize their findings by noting that their results support Clarry Lay's argument that Conscientiousness is a higher-order trait that is likely to influence trait (chronic) procrastination.

Implications for intervention
Finally, can we conclude anything about how we might deal with procrastination based on these results? Given the prominent relation with Conscientiousness, Lee and colleagues think that the focus needs to be on raising levels of organization and goal-directedness. They put less attention on regulating negative emotions, and I agree. As we discussed in a previous blog, "giving in to feeling good," is often associated with regulating emotions, and it ends up undermining our other self-regulatory acts, like getting the task done. In fact, Lee and colleagues argue that we can think about this as a need for more problem-focused coping. It's a question of, what can I do to solve the problem at hand? - not - What can I do to feel better?

What can I do to make the task more manageable? What's the next step I can take to make progress on this task? These are good questions to focus on to reduce procrastination in our lives. Then, "just get started!"

________________________________________________________

Blogger's Note: We'll also consider other ways to think about personality other than just traits. For example, does coping style relate to procrastination?

References

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.

Lee, D., Kelly, K.R., & Edwards, J.K. (2006). A closer look at the relationships among trait procrastination, neuroticism and conscientiousness. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 27-37.

Schouwenberg, H.C., & Lay, C. L. (1995). Trait procrastination and the big-five factors of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 18, 481-490.

Watson, D.C. (2001). Procrastination and the five-factor model: A facet level analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 149-158.

Van Eerde, W. (2003). A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination. Personality and Individual Difference, 35, 1401-1418.

Is procrastination a personality problem? What is personality?

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:58:31 -0700

Does personality matter?

Is there a procrastination personality?

The simple answers to the questions above are, yes and no, respectively. To understand why, we first have to consider what we mean by personality. So, I'll answer this question about personality and procrastination in a series of blog entries.

The thing with this blog is that I could just summarize the results of research here about personality and procrastination. However, I don't think it would mean a great deal without first understanding something about personality. I'm going to assume if you're reading this blog, you're interested in learning more, so here we go (the teacher side of me is happy ☺ ).

Today, I'll begin by discussing personality at its highest level. We'll simply define it and think about the implications of this definition for understanding how personality might affect procrastination.

I teach both undergraduate and graduate courses in personality psychology. The undergraduate class is a second-year, large lecture-based course. The graduate course is an intimate seminar setting. Although the undergrad class is an introductory survey and the grad seminar focuses on a careful reading of recent research for selected topics, students in both courses grapple with one common question - What is personality?

I'm telling you this, because it's tempting to think that definitions are only for beginners, too simple for serious consideration and your time here. I disagree. We need to think carefully about our definition and, most importantly, the assumptions in the definition.

Two of my favourite personality psychologists, leaders in the field and the authors of the text I use for my undergrad class, are Randy Larsen and David Buss. They are prolific researchers, and both have made significant contributions to the field. Randy Larsen is well known for his research with emotions (among other things). David Buss is most widely known for his work in evolutionary psychology, a topic near and dear to this blog space with Satoshi Kanazawa's writing.

Randy and David propose the following definition of personality in their text, "Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical and social environments" (p. 4; 2008, emphasis added). I think it's an excellent place to begin any discussion of personality.

At its heart, personality is a set of psychological traits and mechanisms. We need to consider what these traits are first and perhaps how they're organized. Then we can turn to this notion of "mechanism" (e.g., coping). After that, we can also consider how enduring or "set in stone" personality is. All of this will add to our understanding of procrastination.

What traits?
This has been one of the key questions for personality psychologists who are interested in individual differences. What are the fundamental traits? How many are there?

Beginning with a presidential address to the American Psychological Association in 1933 by Louis Thurstone and culminating in a flood of publications in the 1990's, the answer to the question of how many traits is: five. That is, the "big" five: Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience and Extraversion (CANOE - I'm Canadian, eh? It's a good way to remember them).

Ok, so there is still debate about this. There have been models proposing as few as 3 super-traits, others with as many as 16 fundamental individual differences, and a recent analysis has a focus on 6 (essentially adding an "honesty-humility" factor to the big five). The debate will continue in basic research of course, but we'll work with what we have.

Each of the five traits have sub-traits or facets. Basically, the 5 traits can be understood as a taxonomy of personality at the highest level. Other lower-order traits (facets) are components of these "super traits." The super traits provide bandwidth to understand major trends in personality. The facets or sub-traits provide higher fidelity as we try to tune into the finer aspects of personality and how it functions.

In some ways, you can consider these traits as the "color wheel" of personality. Although these are held to be universal traits, common in each of us and basic elements of human personality, how much of each trait we possess varies. The blend of these traits in each of us creates our individuality (as well as other factors, of course, related to the situation in our lives, culture, gender, cohort, etc. It's always an interaction of person and situation or nature and nurture!). This will make more sense as we begin to consider procrastination.

I'll end today by listing the facets or sub-traits of each of the five factors as proposed by Paul Costa and Robert McCrae. This will help define each of these basic traits of our personalities.

After reading these, predict which traits and sub-traits (facets) you think would be related to procrastination. When I write again, I'll discuss which traits research demonstrates are associated with procrastination and what this means to us in terms of understanding our behavior.

The "Big Five" and their facets
For each major trait, I have listed the facet related to one "pole" of the trait. For example, extraversion has a extraversion and an introversion "pole" or opposite. In brackets after each facet is a descriptor term. More details about the Five-factor model can be found here.

Neuroticism vs. emotional stability
• Anxiety (tense)
• Angry hostility (irritable)
• Depression (not contented)
• Self-consciousness (shy)
• Impulsive (moody)
• Vulnerability (not self-confident)

Extraversion vs. Introversion
• Gregariousness (sociable)
• Assertiveness (forceful)
• Activity (energetic)
• Excitement-seeking (adventurous)
• Positive emotions (enthusiastic)
• Warmth (outgoing)

Openness vs. closedness to experience
• Ideas (curious)
• Fantasy (imaginative)
• Aesthetics (artistic)
• Actions (wide interests)
• Feelings (excitable)
• Values (unconventional)

Agreeableness vs. antagonism
• Trust (forgiving)
• Straightforwardness (not demanding)
• Altruism (warm)
• Compliance (not stubborn)
• Modesty (not show off)
• Tender-mindedness (sympathetic)

Conscientiousness vs. lack of direction
• Competence (efficient)
• Order (organized)
• Dutifulness (not careless)
• Achievement striving (thorough)
• Self-discipline (not lazy)
• Deliberation (not impulsive)

So which traits and which of their facets do you think predict or are related to procrastination? I'll come back soon with a summary of the major research findings.