A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination

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1 Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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.: ;fax: address: w.v.eerde@tm.tue.nl (W. van Eerde) /03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S (02)

2 1402 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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 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

3 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 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 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 Self-image W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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.

4 1404 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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 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 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.

5 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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 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.

6 1406 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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 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.

7 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) Table 1 Average effect sizes Number of studies k Sample total n Average weighted r 95% Confidence interval w 2 (k 1) Demographic/ability Age to *** Gender 54 10, to *** Intellectual Ability to Scholastic Aptitude Test to Personality Conscientiousness to *** Neuroticism to *** Trait Anxiety to ** Pessimism to *** Self-image Self Esteem to *** Self-Efficacy to *** Motives Fear of Failure to Perfectionism to *** Self-Handicapping to Affect State Anxiety to *** Depression to Performance Missing Deadline to Task Preparation Time to Task Completion Time to ** Task Delay to *** Course Grade to *** Grade Point Average to *** Gender: men=0;women =1. ** P<0.01. *** P< Demographic/cognitive ability antecedents Age was negatively related to procrastination, that is, procrastinators are somewhat more likely to be found in a younger age group. Also, gender was related to procrastination: it is slightly less likely to find female procrastinators than male. As this is contrary to what most of the individual studies report, I took a closer look at the results. After leaving out the studies that only report nonsignificant results of gender, there appears to be a bias in the data: instead of always reporting an effect size, these were only reported for larger samples, most probably when gender differences

8 1408 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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<0.05). This means that the effect size in this meta-analysis is a very conservative one, considering that over half of the number of studies reported nonsignificant gender differences. However, the nonsignificance may only have been due to the lack of power in the smaller samples. Leaving the studies out that report nonsignificant gender differences leads to an effect size of almost double magnitude [r= 0.09, w 2 (1, 24)=68.5, P<0.001]. Note that both the age and gender categories were heterogeneous according to the w 2 test, indicating that it is possible that other variables may explain the variation in effect sizes. Convincingly, intellectual ability was not related to procrastination, as the confidence interval included the zero. The scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test were positively related to procrastination, but with a small effect size (r=0.10) Traits The largest average effect size was found for conscientiousness (r= 0.63). Neuroticism showed an effect size of a moderate magnitude, and the effect size indicating the relation with trait anxiety was of a similar magnitude (r=0.24). Pessimism had only a small relation to procrastination Self-image Self-image appears to be an important variable in relation to procrastination, resulting in effect sizes for self esteem (r= 0.28) and self-efficacy (r= 0.44) Motives The effect sizes of fear of failure and perfectionism were small. Note that the effect sizes for fear of failure were homogeneous. The self-handicapping motive appears to be more important, showing an average correlation with procrastination of r= Affect Both state anxiety and depression were moderately related to procrastination. Depression was found to be consistently related in all 11 studies, whereas the relation between anxiety and procrastination appears to be moderated, as indicated by the high w 2 value Performance The effect categories missing a deadline (r=0.29) and task preparation (r= 0.20) were homogeneous, suggesting a direct relation between procrastination and these variables. The grades were negatively and moderately related to procrastination, and the time needed to complete a task was not, as indicated by the inclusion of the zero in the confidence interval.

9 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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

10 1410 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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

11 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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

12 1412 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 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, and self-handicapping. In J. R. Ferrari, & Pychyl, T. A. (Eds.), Procrastination: current issues and new directions (special issue). Journal of Social Behavior and Personality. 15, *Berzonsky, M. D., & Ferrari, J. R. (1996). Identity orientation and decisional strategies. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, *Beswick, G., & Mann, L. (1994). State orientation and procrastination. In J. Kuhl, & J. Beckmann (Eds.), Volition and personality: action versus state orientation (pp ). Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber. *Beswick, G., Rothblum, E. D., & Mann, L. (1988). Psychological antecedents of student procrastination. Australian Psychologist, 23, *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, *Bridges, K. R., & Roig, M. (1997). Academic procrastination and irrational thinking: a reexamination with context controlled. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, *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,

13 W. van Eerde / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) *Chissom, B., & Iran-Nejad, A. (1992). Development of an instrument to assess learning strategies. Psychological Reports, 71, *Dewitte, S., & Lens, W. (2000). Exploring volitional problems in academic procrastinators. Paper presented at the 7th Workshop on Achievement and Task Motivation, Leuven, Belgium, May *Dewitte, S., & Lens, W. (2000). Procrastinators lack a broad action perspective. European Journal of Personality, 14, *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, *Ferrari, J. R. (1991). A preference for a favorable public impression by procrastinators: selecting among cognitive and social tasks. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, *Ferrari, J. R. (1991). Compulsive procrastination: some self-reported characteristics. Psychological Reports, 68, *Ferrari, J. R. (1991). Self-handicapping by procrastinators: protecting self-esteem, social esteem, or both? Journal of Research in Personality, 25, *Ferrari, J. R. (1991). Procrastination and project creation: choosing easy, nondiagnostic items to avoid self-relevant information. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6, *Ferrari, J. R. (1992). Procrastination in the workplace: attributions for failure among individuals with similar behavioral tendencies. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, *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, *Ferrari, J. R. (1992). Psychometric validation of two procrastination inventories for adults: arousal and avoidance measures. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 14, *Ferrari, J. R. (1993). Christmas and procrastination: explaining lack of diligence at a realworld task deadline. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, *Ferrari, J. R. (1994). Dysfunctional procrastination and its relationship with self-esteem, interpersonal dependency, and self-defeating behaviors. Personality and Individual Differences, 17, *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, *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, *Ferrari, J. R., & Beck, B. L. (1998). Affective responses before and after fraudulent excuses by academic procrastinators. Education, 118, *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,

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