Procrastination In Literature

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Review of Literature The phenomena of procrastination isn’t a recent one, however it’s incidence is increasing with the years. About 70-90% of undergraduates put off tasks.(Whitbourne,2012) This chapter aims to understand this behaviour through studies on procrastination done in or after 2005. Some of the major themes covered include procrastination and its determinants, the relationship between the big five factors and procrastination, influence of gender and educational background on procrastination. Factors Contributing to Procrastination Time is something we are all juggling with, to complete as many tasks as possible and reap maximum benefit. However some of us tend to put off important tasks more often than other despite being completely …show more content…

They quote Ferrari’s concept of chronic procrastination which states that procrastination is a complex phenomena which involves the behavioural, affective and cognitive components. With the support of literature they also state that Procrastination is a measure to avoid negative feelings and used as a defence mechanism. This relationship was established using various tools which included Lay’s General Procrastination Scale, Adult Inventory of Procrastination, the fear of negative evaluation scale, Rosenberg’s self esteem scale, Perfectionism scale, the conscientiousness scale of NEO PI-R scale. Correlational analyses showed that shame was related to procrastination behaviour whereas feelings of guilt were not. Further hierarchical regression analysis showed that shame acts as a mediator between chronic procrastination and perfectionism. It effects as a mediator increase when perfectionism is socially prescribed. Thus this research states that people tend to procrastinate more when ashamed of the negative consequences or failure at a task rather than when they have a generalized feeling of guilt about doing a particular task. However some of the limitations of the study include that it ignores the cognitive aspect or irrational beliefs associated with a particular task. It also overlooks the effect fatigue and lack of interest the subject might experience while completing the large number of questionnaires, which may influence their responses and

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