A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination

A meta-analytically derived nomological network 

of procrastination 

Wendelien van Eerde* 

Faculty of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology, 

PO Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, the Netherlands 

Received 7 February 2002;received in revised form 3 September 2002;accepted 6 November 2002 

Abstract 

This meta-analysis contains the correlations of 121 studies examining the relation between procrastination 

and personality variables, motives, affect, and performance. The largest negative effect sizes were 

found in relation to conscientiousness and self-efficacy, and the largest positive relation was found with 

self-handicapping. Affect was moderately related, as well as performance outcomes, and motives were 

weakly correlated. Many of the effect size categories were heterogeneous, indicating that moderators may 

play a role. However, the majority of studies did not account for moderators. It is argued that this is a 

serious shortcoming and that a different type of research is needed to study procrastination in a meaningful 

way. 

# 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 

Keywords: Procrastination;Meta-analysis 

1. Introduction 

This article aims to assess the phenomenon of procrastination systematically by integrating the 

results of previous studies in a meta-analysis. Based upon this analysis, an overview will be given 

of the current knowledge in the area, and suggestions for future research will be presented. Most 

of the research on procrastination is not driven by a commonly shared theory. The aim would be 

to address the processes that play a role in procrastination, and it would imply a shift in focus in 

the research, from a strict individual differences to a broader view on intra-individual processes 

and social context. Also, a second, further removed and perhaps more idealistic aim, is to eventually 

disprove some of the claims as presented in self-help books in the popular literature that 

essentially stress the problematic nature of procrastination. 

* Tel.: +31-40-247-2023;fax: +31-40-243-7161. 

E-mail address: w.v.eerde@tm.tue.nl (W. van Eerde). 

Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1401–1418 

0191-8869/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 

PII: S0191-8869(02)00358-6 

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1402 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1401–1418 

1.1. Procrastination as a trait 

Procrastination has typically been defined as a trait or behavioural disposition to postpone or 

delay performing a task or making decisions (Milgram, Mey-Tal, & Levison, 1998). Defining 

procrastination is problematic in the sense that it is an intra-individual process that is regulated 

by internal norms of delay. To others, delay may or may not appear to be procrastination (cf. Milgram, 

Sroloff, & Rosenbaum, 1988), depending on their own norms and attributions. Delay can be 

purposely planned, and it can be a wise strategy. However, procrastination can be distinguished from 

planning because the delay is not purposely planned, but rather postponing the implementation of 

what was planned. Everyone may procrastinate at some occasion, but the trait definition appears to 

indicate that the individual delays actions or decisions whether it is appropriate to a particular situation 

or not. Why would an individual have this tendency? It appears to be the inability to delay 

gratification, also called the lack of impulse control. Impulse control is the ability to give up shortterm 

outcomes—usually seen as more pleasant—for long-term outcomes. Mischel and colleagues 

(e.g. Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988) showed the positive effects of impulse control over many years 

(for an example relating self-control to procrastination see also Ferrari & Emmons, 1995). 

In an historical overview of procrastination (Ferrari, Johnson, & McCown, 1995) it was noted 

that the Latin verb procrastinare, meaning ‘‘putting forward until tomorrow’’, did not have 

negative connotation until the mid-18th century, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 

To this day, procrastination has moral connotations (Sabini & Silver, 1982);it implies not living 

up to others’ or one’s own obligations, which can lead to feelings of guilt. In general, it is seen as 

a dysfunctional habit, with psychological consequences such as experienced guilt or negative 

affective well-being, and a decrease in performance outcomes, and social consequences such as an 

image of undependability. This moral connotation may be part of, or may in fact be, the problem 

experienced. In other cultures, not as influenced by a protestant work ethic, characterized by a 

different pace of life (cf. Levine & Norenzayan, 1999), there may not be a problem. But in an 

achievement oriented society, where individuals are expected to meet obligations within a certain 

time span, procrastination may be a serious problem, as demonstrated by the number of books 

and programs related to help individuals to stop procrastinating, notably in the United States. 

1.2. Previous studies on procrastination 

With the exception of a few studies, research on procrastination has been performed in these 

cultures that stress the undesirability of procrastination. Another limitation of most previous 

studies is that, due to the intra-individual nature of procrastination, it is measured through selfreports. 

Although reports from others could be used, assuming that others would know whether 

the behaviour was purposely delayed or not, this has not been done often. However, several 

validated self-report scales are in existence (see Ferrari et al., 1995, for an overview and items). 

Differences in operationalisation can be observed, with a focus on procrastination measured as 

postponing actions, i.e. behavioural procrastination, for example the General Procrastination 

Scale (Lay, 1986), a 20-item scale with items such as ‘‘I usually buy even an essential item at the 

last minute’’, or the Adult Inventory of Procrastination (McCown & Johnson, 1989 in Ferrari et 

al., 1995). Another scale emphasizes postponing decisions, i.e., decisional procrastination, as a 

subscale of decisions making styles (Mann et al., 1998), a 5-item subscale with items such as ‘‘I

waste a lot of time on trivial matters before getting to the final decision’’. Other authors focus on 

the domain in which it is assessed, i.e. general procrastination, academic procrastination, and 

procrastination in daily life (e.g. Milgram et al., 1998). 

These scales aim to assess the tendency to postpone actions or decisions, from an individual 

difference perspective. That is, differences between individuals are assessed with respect to this 

tendency or trait, and most studies compare procrastinators versus nonprocrastinators, using a 

median split on the self-report scale. Most studies have been conducted using a cross-sectional 

correlational design, and some involved the measurement of the variables at several occasions, 

such as class sessions. 

The focus has been on individual differences, rather than task or context. Although procrastination 

as a behaviour may be seen as an outcome of several processes, determined by personality, 

motives, task, and context as antecedents, procrastination has been studied as an independent 

trait variable, and the relations with other traits, motives, affect, and performance have been 

assessed concurrently or at a later point in time. These relations will be discussed below. 

1.3. Demographics and cognitive ability 

One may assume that characteristics such as age, gender or education may have an impact on 

procrastination, due to different values or experiences within a subpopulation. There may be 

different values or attributional processes that play a role for men or women. Regarding age, it is 

possible that individuals may overcome their procrastination tendency as they grow older. Or 

conversely, one may argue that a habit becomes stronger and more difficult to change over time. 

Cognitive ability may perhaps play a role, in that tasks are simply too difficult to perform are postponed 

because of it. Or assuming that both cognitive ability would enhance on-task attention and 

procrastination implies off-task attention, this would assume a negative relation between cognitive 

ability and procrastination. In previous research, intellectual capacity and ability tests, such as the 

Scholastic Aptitude Test, used as a college entrance criterion, have been related to procrastination. 

1.4. Personality 

One of the questions that this review addresses is to what extent procrastination is related to 

other personality traits. Do people who have a tendency to procrastinate differ on other traits 

from those who report they do not? 

In previous research, several claims have been made with respect to the personality of those who 

report procrastination: first, they are low on conscientiousness, and second, high on neuroticism 

(see for a meta-analysis on the complete Big Five Model of Personality, Van Eerde, in press). For 

similar reasons as neuroticism, trait anxiety has also been assessed as related to procrastination. 

Pessimism, implying low generalized expectancies, would also be related to procrastination. 

1.5. Self-image 

W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1401–1418 1403 

In much research, it is assumed that procrastination is related to low self-esteem, either as a 

determinant or a consequence. Self-efficacy, the extent to which one is confident that a certain 

task can be successfully accomplished, is also assumed to be negatively related to procrastination.


1.6. Motives 

Fear of failure and perfectionism have been proposed as motives to avoid certain tasks. In other 

words, procrastinators do not want to be confronted with negative feedback on their performance. 

This may even result in so-called self-handicapping, the creation of impediments to successful 

performance (cf. Urdan & Midgley, 2001). That is, procrastination is helpful to create the 

idea that one could have done better, if only one had started earlier. Now, performing worse can 

be attributed to the delay and not to one’s own ability, a so-called ego-defensive strategy. 

1.7. Affect 

How is procrastination related to affect? Not all individuals appear to be concerned about their 

procrastination, but some may realize they have not adhered to their obligation. Attributions of 

the procrastination and resulting time pressure will play a role in the experience of outcomes, that 

is, when the time pressure is seen as exceeding one’s resources, and is self-attributed, it may 

increase feelings of guilt, anxiety, and depression. When the time pressure is still seen as manageable, 

and if it can be attributed to sources outside oneself, negative psychological outcomes 

need not occur. Time pressure may even lead to positive outcomes, such as increased stimulation, 

especially for tasks that are experienced as boring (Freedman & Edwards, 1988). 

In previous research, procrastination has been viewed as a dysfunctional tendency only, and it 

has been examined in combination with low affective well-being, in particular anxiety and 

depression, which was also a claim in the case of neuroticism, which includes both. Although 

these two variables are just as likely to be antecedents as outcomes of procrastination—when 

depressed or anxious, one procrastinates, or procrastination leads to depression or anxiety—there 

is no indication from previous studies whether to consider them as antecedents or consequences. 

1.8. Performance 

As procrastination is defined as postponing or delay on performing a task or decision, it can be 

assumed to influence performance, as the time pressure caused by the delay can decrease punctuality 

or accuracy. Not only task performance, but broader functioning may be affected by 

procrastination as well, depending on the task or context (see Van Eerde, 2000). However, there 

may be positive effects of delay, whether it was purposely or not, for example, more information 

or thinking can improve the quality of a decision. One of the important moderators can be 

assumed to be the difficulty of the task. Increasing time pressure in difficult tasks is likely to lead 

to decreased quality and/or punctuality, but time pressure in performing easy tasks may lead to 

increased efficiency. Here it may be important to consider how general someone’s tendency to 

procrastinate is. Whereas procrastinating occasionally in a particular context may not be dysfunctional, 

performance may be affected negatively when procrastination is so general that it 

occurs with any task. 

Most studies in the literature are concerned with academic procrastination of students, i.e. 

related to studying and behaviour in school or university. The performance measures included 

grades, grade point average, missing deadlines, the time spent on preparing a task, and completing 

tasks, such as assignments.

Summarizing, the aim of this meta-analysis is to systematically assess and integrate the research 

on procrastination. The variables included are classified as personality;self-image;motives;affect; 

and performance. 

2. Method 

2.1. Study selection 

A search for empirical studies on procrastination was conducted, using PsycLIT of the American 

Psychological Association, limiting the search by using ‘‘procrastination’’ in the key phrase 

or descriptor fields, and limiting publication type by empirical studies, in order to find the studies 

in which procrastination was actually measured. This search resulted in 104 articles. Also, this 

computer search was supplemented by a so-called ancestry approach: articles were traced by 

references, and where possible obtained. Retrieved studies were included in the meta-analysis if 

they met the following three criteria: 

1. A self-report scale of procrastination was used. This selection criterion was chosen to 

increase the probability that procrastination was assessed in a valid way. Practically, this 

limited the studies to those conducted after 1982, after which scales were used to measure 

procrastination. 

2. An effect size could be found in the article that indicated the direct relation between 

procrastination and the variable. When a relation was called ‘‘nonsignificant’’ in the article, 

a conservative estimation, an effect size of zero, was included. 

3. Independent subgroups reported within an article were analysed separately. If more than 

one effect size pertaining to an effect category was available, the more encompassing criterion 

was chosen (e.g. overall course grade, rather than grades for each part of a course). If 

several effect sizes applying to the same effect category were available, then these were 

averaged (via a Fisher’s z transformation) before inclusion. 

2.2. Variables 


The effect sizes were correlations, or other indicators of effects (F, t, w 2 ) transformed to correlations 

(see Mullen, 1989). The effect sizes were grouped into six main categories containing the 

correlations between procrastination and: 

1. Demographics and cognitive ability, i.e. age;gender;scores on intellectual ability tests;and 

scores on the Scholastic Aptitudes Test. 

2. Personality variables: correlations between scores on a procrastination self-report scale 

with self-reports of other traits (a) conscientiousness;(b) neuroticism (c) trait anxiety;and 

(d) pessimism. 

3. Self-image, including (a) self-esteem and (b) self-efficacy. 

4. Motives: (a) fear of failure;(b) perfectionism;and (c) self-handicapping.


5. Affect: (a) state anxiety, including test anxiety and agitation;(b) depression, including 

dejection. 

6. Performance: self-reports or independent measures of (a) whether a deadline was missed or 

not;(b) how much time was spent on preparing a task;(c) how much time was spent on 

performing a task, such as an assignment;(d) grades obtained in a specific course;and (e) 

grade point average. 

2.3. Integration of effect sizes 

The Rosenthal (1978, 1991) meta-analytic procedures were used to compare and combine 

the effect sizes (for a comparison with two other meta-analytic approaches, see Johnson, 

Mullen, & Salas, 1995). The correlations were transformed to Fisher’s zs and multiplied by 

their degrees of freedom (n 3). These weighted Fisher’s zs were summed across studies within 

each effect category and divided by the total degrees of freedom in the category to obtain the 

average weighted Fisher’s z of each effect category. This Fisher’s z was transformed back into 

r to obtain the weighted mean correlation for the effect category, and 95% confidence intervals 

were computed for the weighted means. Subsequently, the w 2 for homogeneity of results 

was computed within each effect category (Hedges & Olkin, 1985;Rosenthal, 1991) to establish 

whether the findings can be interpreted as belonging to the same population of effect 

sizes. 

3. Results 

After examination of the articles, the selection described above resulted in 88 articles, given in 

the Appendix, from which I retrieved the effect sizes of 121 independent samples, with a total of 

18,196 subjects. Sample sizes in the studies ranged from 32 to 618, with an average of 172. The 

percentage of women in the samples ranged between 0 and 100%, with an average of 84%, indicating 

that women were overrepresented in the studies. 

The total range of ages in the samples ran from 16 to 43. In 60 samples, the age of the samples 

was reported as mean or median. Averaging these statistics in the 60 samples resulted in a mean 

age of 23, which indicates that the participants were relatively young. 

The type of participants was recorded, to obtain an impression of their identity: 60 samples 

consisted of college psychology students;29 were identified as college students with other majors 

than psychology;seven of the samples included (high) school children;six contained non-student 

adults;and in three samples the identity was not reported. 

Many studies only mentioned one effect size, so that many of the categories contained 

few correlations. The number of studies (k), total sample size per category, the average 

results of each category weighted by the degrees of freedom of the total sample size in that 

category, the 95% confidence interval around the average, and the homogeneity of the 

findings, tested using a w 2 test, are presented in Table 1. The effect sizes can be considered 

to be significantly different from zero when the confidence interval does not include the 

zero.

Table 1 

Average effect sizes 

Number of 

studies k 

Sample 

total n 

3.1. Demographic/cognitive ability antecedents 

Average 

weighted r 

95% Confidence 

interval 

w 2 (k 1) 

Demographic/ability 

Age 11 2929 0.06 0.10 to 0.02 27.99*** 

Gender 54 10,948 0.05 0.05 to 0.05 90.98*** 

Intellectual Ability 4 678 0.00 0.08 to 0.08 0.80 

Scholastic Aptitude Test 4 476 0.10 0.01 to 0.19 3.38 

Personality 

Conscientiousness 10 2496 0.63 0.67 to 0.59 46.34*** 

Neuroticism 10 2590 0.26 0.22 to 0.30 35.20*** 

Trait Anxiety 10 2271 0.24 0.20 to 0.28 23.01** 

Pessimism 5 1027 0.19 0.13 to 0.25 33.87*** 

Self-image 

Self Esteem 21 3683 0.28 0.31 to 0.25 48.66*** 

Self-Efficacy 11 2882 0.44 0.47 to 0.41 55.09*** 

Motives 

Fear of Failure 5 1541 0.18 0.13 to 0.23 7.12 

Perfectionism 7 1064 0.12 0.06 to 0.18 31.74*** 

Self-Handicapping 7 1262 0.46 0.41 to 0.51 19.06 

Affect 

State Anxiety 19 3730 0.22 0.19 to 0.25 46.94*** 

Depression 11 2245 0.30 0.26 to 0.33 12.22 

Performance 

Missing Deadline 10 848 0.29 0.23 to 0.35 4.59 

Task Preparation Time 5 596 0.20 0.28 to 0.12 4.73 

Task Completion Time 4 300 0.06 0.05 to 0.17 15.19** 

Task Delay 22 3736 0.35 0.32 to 0.37 117.05*** 

Course Grade 15 2303 0.17 0.21 to 0.13 51.95*** 

Grade Point Average 9 1522 0.28 0.33 to 0.23 26.35*** 

Gender: men=0;women =1. 

** P


were significant (effect sizes reported k=25, n=247 vs. effect sizes reported as nonsignificant 

k=28, n =160; t(35.60)=2.62, P

4. Discussion 


This meta-analysis provided a nomological network for the construct procrastination, by systematically 

relating age and gender, intellectual ability, personality variables, motives, affect, and 

performance to procrastination. The largest average correlations were found of procrastination 

with the personality factor conscientiousness (negative), self-efficacy (negative), and self-handicapping. 

How should these results be interpreted? The very large effect size indicating the negative 

relation between conscientiousness and procrastination leads to doubts whether procrastination 

can be distinguished from conscientiousness. Looking at the facets of conscientiousness, self-discipline 

has been shown to have the highest negative correlation with procrastination (e.g. Johnson 

& Bloom, 1995, p. 130, r= 0.75), and this correlation is just as high as was found for the facet 

self-discipline and the total scale of conscientiousness (e.g. Griffin & Hesketh, 2001, r=0.76). This 

would be an argument to consider procrastination a facet of conscientiousness, and to measure 

self-discipline, rather than procrastination, as an individual difference variable. 

Self-efficacy and self-handicapping were suggested to be indicative of the tendency to avoid 

negative performance feedback. However, this idea was not confirmed by the results for fear of 

failure and perfectionism, which would also relate to this tendency, but for which much lower 

effect sizes were found. Thus, procrastination appears be related to a higher extent to one’s selfimage 

than to the threat of receiving negative performance feedback. However, the larger effect 

size for self-handicapping may also be the result of the artefact that the constructs self-handicapping 

and procrastination overlap considerably. Conceptually, procrastination has been 

defined as one of the ways to self-handicap (Urdan & Midgley, 2001). And empirically, a recent 

study (Ross, Canada, & Rauss, 2002) also demonstrated the similarity between procrastination 

and self-handicapping in relation to the Big Five Model of Personality. 

Another finding in this meta-analysis is that it is more likely that younger rather than older people 

procrastinate, even within this restricted sample of a majority of college students. It may indicate that 

one learns to procrastinate less, or that students who did not improve may have dropped out of college. 

Also, contrary to the individual studies, these results indicate that it is slightly more likely that 

men procrastinate more than women, even within this sample with a majority of women. Still, this is 

a small effect size, and a heterogeneous one, but it indicates a significant difference between the sexes. 

Considering that the majority of categories of the effect sizes in this meta-analysis is heterogeneous, 

the search for moderators is important. Some of the possible moderators that need to be 

investigated are task characteristics, especially the difference between tasks that are too challenging 

or not challenging enough. Theoretically, the relation between procrastination and performance 

should be moderated by ability, and task characteristics such as autonomy, difficulty, and 

the degree to which one should be flexible and adaptable (see also Griffin & Hesketh, 2001, for 

these arguments relating to conscientiousness). Delay should not have the same effect on all performance 

measures, and that is indeed what the results of this analysis demonstrate. That is, 

missing a deadline and using less time to prepare are directly related to procrastination, but 

completing a task has no relation with procrastination, and the other performance categories 

were heterogeneous, indicating that other moderating factors may play a role. Different courses 

with different requirements may affect the relation. 

The extent to which performance outcomes are affected should theoretically be (partly) mediated 

by the degree of dysfunctional psychological outcomes. That is, if individuals are concerned


with the fact that they procrastinated, they may not give full attention to the task, possibly 

affecting performance negatively. As not everyone is equally affected emotionally by procrastination 

(cf. Milgram & Naaman, 1996), those who are not affected should not be performing 

worse. 

One of the limitations is that the performance measures were necessarily restricted to student 

performance. In other contexts, the results may be different. This calls for research on a wider 

range of behaviours. The influence of procrastination on some everyday behaviours have been 

studied, such as returning surveys (Ferrari, 1992), or cashing in gift certificates (Ferrari, 1993). 

But there are no studies that related procrastination to work performance. 

Another limitation may be the scales used in some of the research that may have confounded 

procrastination with the feelings about procrastination, such as the Procrastination Assessment 

Scale for Students (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984) in particular (cf. Milgram & Naaman, 1996), so 

that the correlations of procrastination with affect may be somewhat inflated (see van Eerde, in 

press). 

The nonexperimental designs do not allow a conclusion as to whether procrastination is preceded 

or followed by, confounded with, or spuriously correlated with, a certain variable. A more 

general limitation involves the use of self-reports. If one admits to doing these so-called irrational 

things, perhaps admitting to procrastination is more likely. In most of the studies included, 

common method bias may have caused the correlations to be inflated. These limitations may have 

been reflected in the effect sizes between procrastination and neuroticism, trait anxiety, and state 

anxiety, which are highly similar in magnitude. 

The research in this review has been conducted from a dispositional point of view, and the 

interaction with situational or other important variables could not be assessed. It is unclear to 

what extent the effect sizes may generalize to tasks other than studying and to other populations 

than students. As stated before in the model, the psychologically relevant dimensions of situations 

that trigger procrastination should be studied. Some authors addressed this issue by 

exploring the dimensions relevant to task perception, in particular task aversiveness (e.g. Blunt & 

Pychyl, 2000;Lay, 1992;Milgram, Marchevsky, & Sadeh, 1995), but these studies are the exception 

rather than the rule, and there are not enough to combine meta-analytically. 

Overall, the correlations give a dysfunctional view on procrastination, but given the limitations 

of previous studies, can anything be concluded from this meta-analysis on how procrastination 

affects performance? The high negative correlation between procrastination and conscientiousness 

and self-efficacy may indicate that procrastination is a predictor of poor performance, 

because conscientiousness (Barrick & Mount, 1991) has been demonstrated to be a predictor of 

performance at work, and self-efficacy has been shown to be positively related to performance 

(Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). However, the relation may also be in the opposite direction: poor 

performance may lead to anxiety, depression, lower self-efficacy and conscientiousness and a 

higher degree of procrastination to escape from the negative consequences. Also, ability can be 

expected to moderate the relation: procrastination may have a different effect on performance for 

individuals with high ability on the specific task than for individuals with low ability. Additionally, 

the same type of moderators may apply to conscientiousness and procrastination, that is, the 

extent to which a job requires accuracy and punctuality. For example, in professions such as 

accountancy, missing deadlines may have important financial consequences, whereas it may be 

less relevant in creative professions, where a good solution may be more important than getting it


exactly on time. There is some empirical indication that this argument is supported within the job 

of scientist. Feist (1998) concluded in his meta-analysis on personality and creativity that scientists 

are more conscientious than nonscientists. That is, there are distinctions between those who 

become scientists and those who do not. However, he also concluded that within the profession, 

less creative scientists, compared with more creative ones ‘‘...are more conscientious, conventional, 

and closed-minded’’ (p. 300). Also, conscientiousness was negatively related to behavioural 

flexibility (Griffin & Hesketh, 2001), which may not be useful in all performance 

situations, particularly those that require innovative solutions. Also, other studies have found a 

negative relation between creative behaviour and conscientiousness (Wolfradt & Pretz, 2001), 

although one study only found it for persons with high creative ability (King, McKee-Walker, & 

Broyles, 1996). Perhaps procrastination is functional to creativity because it may serve to incubate 

ideas. This may be enhanced by the paradoxical effect found for thought suppression 

(Wegner, 1994), i.e. actively avoiding or not thinking of something, may lead to intensified 

thinking of these suppressed thoughts, which may ultimately lead to better ideas. 

Another functional aspect of procrastination may also be the temporary relief from pressures 

experienced, useful to balancing one’s energy. Tice and Baumeister’s study (1997) showed that 

procrastination had short term benefits and long term costs in terms of health. Early in the 

semester, symptom checklists, weekly measures of stress, and recorded visits to health-care professionals 

were correlated negatively with procrastination, but late in the semester, the correlations 

were positive. On the other hand, the students’ grades during the semester were all 

correlated negatively with procrastination, and in total, total health was worse for those who 

procrastinated, and it may be concluded that the early benefits were outweighed by the later costs. 

The authors concluded that further work is needed, because those who admit they procrastinated 

were self-selected. For example, it is possible that those who admit that they procrastinate may be 

more emotional or anxious to start with. Only random assignment of people in conditions that 

allow them to procrastinate can rule out this alternative explanation. 

Some more recent studies have broadened the scope and addressed procrastination in different 

designs, such as longitudinally over the phases in personal projects (Blunt & Pychyl, 2000), or 

over the duration of a semester (Tice & Baumeister, 1997;Wang & Jentsch, 1998). Also, some 

experiments have been conducted that demonstrated that procrastination may be evoked experimentally 

(e.g. Ferrari & Tice, 2000;Senécal, Lavoie, & Koestner, 1997), but these are difficult to 

combine, as each experiment addresses a different question. 

A different type of research on procrastination is needed that should pay attention to the processes 

involved in procrastination, as well as the relevant dimensions of the situation, its development 

over time, and what task and social influences may play a role in dysfunctional and 

functional effects. Diary studies may be used in studying procrastination (cf. Scher & Ferrari, 

2000), with distinct advantages such as the relative short interval between events and reporting, 

the possibility of studying processes over time, and of analysing phenomena at the within-person 

level, in addition to the between-person level. More useful insights can be gained by using different 

methods, such as event sampling (Pychyl, Lee, Thibodeau, & Blunt, 2000). Pychyl et al.’s 

study provides interesting information on how the respondents experienced their tasks over time 

while procrastinating. 

In future research, the emotion associated with procrastination may be organized in a theoretical 

framework of affective well-being. Daniels (2000) presented and supported empirically a


model of affective well-being at work. In addition to the commonly found factors, negative and 

positive affectivity, five lower order factors were presented. Two of these factors have been 

researched in relation to procrastination: Anxiety–comfort and depression–pleasure. In contrast, 

the three remaining factors, anger–placidity;boredom–enthusiasm;and tiredness–vigour have 

been neglected. Particularly the latter two would seem to be important to investigate with respect 

to procrastination. 

Also, an important field of study is procrastination in groups, because student and work groups 

are often used for increasingly complex tasks. Questions such as ‘do groups regulate procrastination 

of their members?’, ‘is social loafing the same as procrastination?’, or ‘is procrastination a 

phenomenon at the group level?’ would be interesting to answer in future research. 

A different approach to studying procrastination may lead to more specific insights that can be 

used in interventions, be it by training or reorganizing tasks, teams, or procedures, to overcome 

the dysfunctional aspects of procrastination, and perhaps enhance potential functional aspects. 

In everyday life, deadlines are extremely important, and where there are deadlines, people procrastinate. 

A realistic view on procrastination is more important than a moral judgment. Instead 

of labelling persons procrastinators and nonprocrastinators, it would be wiser to think of contextual 

and process variables that induce procrastination and that moderate the outcomes. Future 

studies should reflect this more often. Although the results of this meta-analysis provides insight 

into individual differences, a more comprehensive theoretical framework of procrastination is still 

needed. 

Appendix. Studies included in the meta-analysis 

*Beck, B. L., Koons, S. R., & Milgrim, D. L. (2000). Correlates and consequences of behavioral 

procrastination: the effects of academic procrastination, self-consciousness, self-esteem, 

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*Berzonsky, M. D., & Ferrari, J. R. (1996). Identity orientation and decisional strategies. Personality 

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*Blunt, A., & Pychyl, T. A. (1998). Volitional action and inaction in the lives of undergraduate 

students: state orientation, procrastination, and proneness to boredom. Personality and Individual 

Differences, 24, 837–846. 

*Bridges, K. R., & Roig, M. (1997). Academic procrastination and irrational thinking: a reexamination 

with context controlled. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 941–944. 

*Burns, L. R., Dittmann, K., Nguyen, N. L., & Mitchelson, J. K. (2000). Academic procrastination, 

perfectionism, and control: associations with vigilant and avoidant coping. In J. R. Ferrari, 

& T. A. Pychyl (Eds.), Procrastination: current issues and new directions (special issue). 

Journal of Social Behavior and Personality. 15, 35–46.


*Chissom, B., & Iran-Nejad, A. (1992). Development of an instrument to assess learning strategies. 

Psychological Reports, 71, 1001–1002. 

*Dewitte, S., & Lens, W. (2000). Exploring volitional problems in academic procrastinators. 

Paper presented at the 7th Workshop on Achievement and Task Motivation, Leuven, Belgium, 

12–15 May 2000. 

*Dewitte, S., & Lens, W. (2000). Procrastinators lack a broad action perspective. European 

Journal of Personality, 14, 121–140. 

*Effert, B. R., & Ferrari, J. R. (1989). Decisional procrastination: examining personality correlates. 

Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 4, 151:¼156. 

*Fee, R. L., & Tangney, J. P. (2000). Procrastination: a means of avoinding shame or guilt? In 

J. R. Ferrari, & T. A. Pychyl (Eds.), Procrastination: current issues and new directions (special 

issue). Journal of Social Behavior and Personality. 15, 167–184. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (1991). A preference for a favorable public impression by procrastinators: 

selecting among cognitive and social tasks. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 1233–1237. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (1991). Compulsive procrastination: some self-reported characteristics. Psychological 

Reports, 68, 455–458. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (1991). Self-handicapping by procrastinators: protecting self-esteem, social 

esteem, or both? Journal of Research in Personality, 25, 245–261. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (1991). Procrastination and project creation: choosing easy, nondiagnostic items 

to avoid self-relevant information. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6, 619–628. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (1992). Procrastination in the workplace: attributions for failure among individuals 

with similar behavioral tendencies. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 315–319. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (1992). Procrastinators and perfect behavior: an exploratory factor analysis of 

self-presentation, self-awareness, and self-handicapping components. Journal of Research in Personality, 

26, 75–84. 

*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. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (1993). Christmas and procrastination: explaining lack of diligence at a ‘‘realworld’’ 

task deadline. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 25–33. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (1994). Dysfunctional procrastination and its relationship with self-esteem, 

interpersonal dependency, and self-defeating behaviors. Personality and Individual Differences, 17, 

673–679. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (2000). Procrastination and attention: factor analysis of attention deficit, boredomness, 

intelligence, self-esteem, and task delay frequencies. In J. R. Ferrari, & T. A. Pychyl 

(Eds.), Procrastination: current issues and new directions (special issue). Journal of Social Behavior 

and Personality. 15, 185–197. 

*Ferrari, J. R. (2001). Procrastination as self-regulation failure of performance: effects of cognitive 

load, self-awareness, and time limits on ‘working best under pressure’. European Journal of 

Psychology, 15, 391–406. 

*Ferrari, J. R., & Beck, B. L. (1998). Affective responses before and after fraudulent excuses by 

academic procrastinators. Education, 118, 529–537. 

*Ferrari, J. R., & Dovidio, J. F. (1997). Some experimental assessments of indecisives: support 

for a non-cognitive failures hypothesis. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 12, 527–538.


*Ferrari, J. R., & Dovidio, J. F. (2000). Examining behavioral processes in indecision: Decisional 

procrastination and decision-making style. Journal of Research in Personality, 34, 127–137. 

*Ferrari, J. R., & Dovidio, J. F. (2001). Behavioral information search by indecisives. Personality 


*Ferrari, J. R., & Emmons, R. A. (1995). Methods of procrastination and their relation to selfcontrol 

and self-reinforcement. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10, 135–142. 

*Ferrari, J. R., Harriott, J. S., Evans, L., Lecik-Michna, D. M., & Wenger, J. M. (1997). 

Exploring the time preferences of procrastinators: night or day, which is the one? European 

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*Ferrari, J. R., Parker, J. T., & Ware, C. B. (1992). Academic procrastination: personality 

correlates with Myers-Briggs Types, self-efficacy, and academic locus of control. Journal of Social 

Behavior and Personality, 7, 495–502. 

*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. 

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Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14, 449–468. 

*Harriott, J., & Ferrari, J. R. (1996). Prevalence of procrastination among samples of adults. 


*Harriott, J., Ferrari, J. R., & Dovidio, J. F. (1996). Distractibility, daydreaming, and self-critical 

cognitions as determinants of indecision. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 11, 337–344. 

*Haycock, L. A., McCarthy, P., & Skay, C. L. (1998). Procrastination in college students: the 

role of self-efficacy and anxiety. Journal of Counseling and Development, 76, 317–324. 

*Hess, B., Sherman, M. F., & Goodman, M. (2000). Eveningness predicts academic procrastination: 

the mediating role of neuroticism. In J. R. Ferrari, & T. A. Pychyl (Eds.), Procrastination: 

current issues and new directions (special issue). Journal of Social Behavior and Personality. 15, 

61–74. 

*Jackson, T., Weiss, K. E., & Lundquist, J. J. (2000). Does procrastination mediate the relationship 

between optimism and subsequent stress? In J. R. Ferrari, & T. A. Pychyl (Eds.), Procrastination: 

current issues and new directions (special issue). Journal of Social Behavior and 

Personality. 15, 203–212. 

*Johnson, J. L., & Bloom, A. M. (1995). An analysis of the contribution of the five factors of 

personality to variance in academic procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 18, 

127–133. 

*Lay, C., & Silverman, S. (1996). Trait procrastination, anxiety, and dilatory behavior. Personality 


*Lay, C. H. (1986). At last, my research article on procrastination. Journal of Research in Personality, 

20, 474–495. 

*Lay, C. H. (1988). The relationship of procrastination and optimism to judgment of time to 

complete an essay and anticipation of setbacks. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 3, 

201–214. 

*Lay, C. H. (1990). Working to schedule on personal projects: an assessment of person-project 

characteristics and trait procrastination. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 5, 91–103. 

*Lay, C. H. (1992). Trait procrastination and the perception of person-task characteristics. 

Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 7, 483–494.


*Lay, C. H. (1994). Trait procrastination and affective experiences: describing past study 

behavior and its relation to agitation and dejection. Motivation and Emotion, 18, 269–284. 

*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, 869–887. 

*Lay, C. H., & Brokenshire, R. (1997). Conscientiousness, procrastination, and person-task 

characteristics in job searching by unemployed adults. Current Psychology: Developmental, 

learning, personality, social, 16, 83–96. 

*Lay, C. H., & Burns, P. (1991). Intentions and behavior in studying for and examination: the 

role of trait procrastination and its interaction with optimism. Journal of Social Behavior and 

Personality, 6, 605–617. 

*Lay, C. H., Edwards, J. M., Parker, J. D. A., & Endler, N. S. (1989). An assessment of 

appraisal, anxiety, coping, and procrastination during an examination period. European Journal 

of Personality, 3, 195–208. 

*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. 

*Lay, C. H., Kovacs, A., & Danto, D. (1998). The relation of trait procrastination to the bigfive 

factor conscientiousness: an assessment with primary-junior school children based on selfreports. 

Personality and Individual Differences, 25, 187–193. 

*Lay, C. H., & Schouwenburg, H. C. (1993). Trait procrastination, time management, and 

academic behavior. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 8, 647–662. 

*Mann, L., Radford, M., Burnett, P., Ford, S., Bond, M., Leung, K., Nakamura, H., Vaughan, 

G., & Yang, K. S. (1998). Cross-cultural differences in self-reported decision-making style and 

confidence. International Journal of Psychology, 33, 325–335. 

*Martin, T. R., Flett, G. L., Hewitt, P. L., Krames, L., & Szanto, G. (1996). Personality correlates 

of depression and health symptoms: a test of a self-regulation model. Journal of Research 

in Personality, 31, 264–277. 

*McCown, W., Johnson, J., & Petzel, T. (1989). Procrastination, a principal components analysis. 

Personality and Individual Differences, 10, 197–202. 

*McCown, W., Petzel, T., & Rupert, P. (1987). An experimental study of some hypothesized 

behaviors and personality variables of college student procrastinators. Personality and Individual 

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*Milgram, N., Marshevsky, S., & Sadeh, C. (1995). Correlates of academic procrastination: 

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European Journal of Personality, 14, 141–156. 

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345–361. 

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typological model. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 1307–1313.


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*Roig, M., & DeTommaso, L. (1995). Are college cheating and plagiarism related to academic 

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A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination

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