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Procrastination - a new study confirms what we know
You can read a brief overview of the apa journal study, but the points are pretty familiar, and accurate:
:: Quote :: Overall, though, Steel found four factors that determine procrastination, or its opposite (the desire (U) to complete the task):
(1) Expectation (E) of Success (how confident a person is at completing a task successfully); (2) Personal Sensitivity to Delay (D) (how easily a person is distracted by the task); (3) Value (V) of Completion (how undesirable, unpleasant, boring, menial, agonizing the task is viewed by the person); and (4) Immediacy (I) of Task (how quickly or delayed is the reward for performing the task). I find that item 3 is the major trigger for me, and boring client work, which is most work clients think up, most definitely is unpleasant, boring, menial, and most certainly agonizing. Glad to see what we all know confirmed by those who find it interesting to study such things. You can't see the actual article without paying, but who needs to? We all know what it feels like to hate the idea of doing something so much it makes our skins crawl, don't we? :: Quote :: (abstract)Title The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure.
Abstract Procrastination is a prevalent and pernicious form of self-regulatory failure that is not entirely understood. Hence, the relevant conceptual, theoretical, and empirical work is reviewed, drawing upon correlational, experimental, and qualitative findings. A meta-analysis of procrastination's possible causes and effects, based on 691 correlations, reveals that neuroticism, rebelliousness, and sensation seeking show only a weak connection. Strong and consistent predictors of procrastination were task aversiveness, task delay, self-efficacy, and impulsiveness, as well as conscientiousness and its facets of self-control, distractibility, organization, and achievement motivation. These effects prove consistent with temporal motivation theory, an integrative hybrid of expectancy theory and hyperbolic discounting. Continued research into procrastination should not be delayed, especially because its prevalence appears to be growing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved) Authors Steel, Piers Affiliations Steel, Piers: University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Source Psychological Bulletin. 2007 Jan Vol 133(1) 65-94 I especially like the note on: its prevalence seems to be growing. Gee, really? maybe this high tech garbage world we are making isn't as great and liberating as we'd like to pretend... Here's some more on the subject. But the real question is, of course: why am I posting this topic now, today? And the answer, of course, is that I am in fact procrastinating, for the reasons outlined so clearly above. Back to top |
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