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Delving away from the culture of procrastination, there has been a fair amount of psychological research conducted in the field.
According to Dr. Timothy Pychyl of Ottawa’s Carleton University, procrastination is closely related to “avoidant coping styles.” This is psychology lingo for a tendency to neglect problems that cause anxiety rather than confront them.
Apparently, as most college students already know, procrastination has deeper roots than just poor time-management skills. Pychyl explained, “Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up.” He pointed out that procrastinators showed little difference in their perception of time, but were more optimistic about the amount of time remaining.
We – because let’s face it, this is being written under a deadline – also tend to actively look for distractions. Anyone who has logged six weeks on FirstClass can attest to the thought process of “I’ll start this . right after I check my e-mail for the 406th time today.”
As it turns out, slackers actually tend to lie to themselves. Lies like “I’ll feel more like studying tomorrow,” or “I do my best work under pressure,” only work against the chronic procrastinator. In fact, these statements are just rationalizations for the last-minute warriors to allow them to put work off guilt-free.
Interestingly, Dr. Steven Scher of Eastern Illinois University probed the common belief that procrastinators suffer from a “fear of failure.” Scher challenged that belief and found that procrastinators seem to care less than their peers about how others perceive their success or failure.
They also tend to drink more, according to Dr. Joseph Ferrari of De Paul University in Chicago. This appears to be related to a manifestation of generalized problems in self-regulation. They don’t mean to; they simply misjudge the amount of alcohol they’ve taken in, according to Ferrari.
Instead, procrastinators find anxiety in social interactions, according to Scher.
There also seems to be a clear correlation between lower GPA and procrastinators. A study out of Columbus, Ohio shows students who plan ahead consistently achieve higher marks than their slacking counterparts. In fact, the study, conducted by Bruce Tuckman from Ohio State University, showed that the most severe procrastinators garnered about 0.7 GPA points lower than those who planed ahead. As it turns out, studying eight hours before a final exam is not the most efficient manner to study. Who could have imagined?
So a word of advice to all the kin of the procrastination family: don’t put off what could easily be done today. Who hasn’t heard that at least 87 times in the past four years? The difference is, we – those who wait until the last minute – also tend to have more health issues than others. So for your health, spread your studying out over the next week, and, while we’re at it, why not next semester? Make a New Year’s resolution to be more on top of things in 2008. After all, it can’t be as short lived as last year’s resolution to lose five pounds.
