Procrastination
[Name of the Writer]
[Name of the Institution]
Procrastination
Introduction
Procrastination is the behavior termed for putting off from accomplishing a given task until the very last minute. It frequently unnecessarily defers or defers occasions or goals throughout the life of a person which can impact others. Procrastination is practically similar to a drug in one’s life because once a person starts doing it regularly, it gradually indicates a reliance that later on occurs to be a normal inclination. It is the behavior which is related to the very problem of a person which tends to procrastinate a lot. Besides the issues caused by procrastination in the everyday life of a person, procrastination is beneficial in some connotations. Chronic procrastination has maladaptive functioning. Therefore mild procrastination would not give negative consequences. There are several psychological theories related to procrastination, i.e., copying, stress, biological drives, obedience, and nature-nurture. The following paper will explore procrastination as a real-life problem in light of psychological concepts.
Discussion
According to an article ‘Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control) published in The New York Times, by Charlotte Lieberman, is about procrastination and its reasons for the occurrence. The writer incorporated new meanings to the word procrastination, and it is not about being lazy or delay of work due to less motivation to do it (Nytimes.com). Procrastination means to linger on or postpone action until tomorrow, but this delay is involuntary. Procrastination feels terrible to a person who is more self-aware because that person knows it will have negative consequences. It is a coping way for the negative moods and challenges, which happen due to other negative psychological issues, i.e., anxiety, boredom, frustration, insecurity, self-doubt, etc. therefore, it is considered as a problem related to emotional regulation, not associated with time management. Procrastination refers to rumination according to many studies, as the thoughts about self-blaming often occur to the person who procrastinates — these evil and self-blaming thoughts about procrastination further links to stress and distress. Chronic procrastination is adversely affecting the physical and mental health of a person. This includes stress, low satisfaction, general pain, anxiety, and symptoms of depression, chronic illness, poor health behaviors, and even cardiovascular disease and hypertension.
There are various psychological concepts related to procrastination, i.e., copying, stress, biological drives, obedience, and nature-nurture. The psychologist perceives procrastination as a misplaced mechanism for coping. Therefore people who procrastinate are in reality using the avoidance mechanism of coping to deal with the situation (Beleaua, & Cocoradă, 2016). This is also known as emotion-focused coping, as they feel good or less bad while procrastinating. The procrastination is related to escape-avoidance strategy, as in a person tends to avoid the situation by delaying it until the last moment is a great procrastinator. However, this situation leads to stress and distress, according to psychologists stress is initiated by the failure or just feeling of failure while accomplishing a task. Delaying a vital task will automatically put a strain on the mind of the person leading towards stress, and chronic stress is related to chronic procrastination. The feelings related to bad emotions causes stress and anxiety. Therefore, procrastination has a direct positive relationship with stress, anxiety, and depression (Nair, 2017).
The biological drives are the natural dispositions of the body, like thirst, hunger, temperature, sex, pain, and sleep, etc. According to various studies, procrastination may occur due to these biological drives which are inhibitory forces behind delaying the purpose of delaying the work or task until later. For instance, if a person is a sleep deprived he or she may postpone their work until the last moment so that they can take sleep, therefore this biological drive was the ultimate cause of procrastination. Besides, these biological drives, the other ultimate source for procrastination is obedience, as it has been said that obedience which is delayed comes under the notion of disobedience. There is a significant impact of disobedience on procrastination. When a person delays a task told by the teacher, employer or even parents, it appears as the disobedience. The cognitive processes related to disobedience show the same pattern as for procrastination.
Many types of researches have shown a significant link between genetics with the tendency of procrastination. However, mental health professionals agree that it is a learned behavior to delay a task, but it has some genetic bases to this issue as well. According to a psychologist, the depression and anxiety cause distorted thinking which leads towards the delaying of tasks (Kim, Fernandez, & Terrier, 2017). Therefore, procrastination is linked to the symptomatic of a mental disorder. However it is not solely characterized as a psychological disorder, but it is related to behavioral problems and other pathologies.
People procrastinate to avoid negative feelings, but it usually gives them a bad feeling about themselves after the consequences of procrastination. It is mostly seen in university students and working part of our society. In a research study about decisional procrastination among university students, authors, de Palo, and his peers find out the relationship between procrastination and decisional procrastination with positive and negative metacognitive beliefs. The mediation in this study was done by anxiety and time management. This study involved the learning strategies which are used as a predictor of decisional procrastination and a mediating role between metacognitive beliefs and procrastination.
The research design used in this article is a quantitative method in which the survey was done by using questionnaires that were filled by 273 students from Southern Italy. The questionnaires comprised of the socio-demographic section, the procrastination subscale of the Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire, the Metacognitive Beliefs about Procrastination Questionnaire, and the Time Management, the Anxiety, and subscales of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory, the Information Processing. The descriptive statistics, using SPSS were used for deducing the result of questionnaires. Therefore research design was correlational, and the results examined the relationship between the following variables, i.e., procrastination, metacognitive beliefs, time management, anxiety, and learning strategies. The procrastination is an independent variable, whereas metacognitive belief is the dependent variable. Anxiety and time management are the mediators between the dependent and independent variable.
The study by de Palo and his peers inferred the results by analyzing the relation of metacognitive beliefs with procrastination, decisional procrastination, and learning strategies, through path analysis. The mediation model has been confirmed through the findings, i.e., the anxiety and time management are the mediators, whereas, the relationship of negative beliefs with decisional procrastination and time management was not supported by the analysis (de Palo et al., 2017. The first hypothesis about the study was the relation of procrastination with metacognitive beliefs; the result revealed that these beliefs are predictors of higher anxiety levels. The other hypothesis was the effect of positive beliefs regarding procrastination on time management, and it showed a higher level of difficulty while utilizing the strategies for time management to learn. The decisional procrastination was associated with positive metacognitions. It is related to the belief of procrastination to be a useful strategy for improving the thoughtful enactment. The other hypothesis related to the causal relationship of decisional procrastination and learning strategies was supported by the results.
These findings are in contrast with real-world findings as, initially, procrastination has been utilized for either broken structures or positive or vital types of delay, even though it is useless that it suggests a pointless deferral and negative results concerning the execution and emotional prosperity. Secondly, the development has been meant by the expected possible points of view. From the differential brain science point of view, it has been viewed as a quality or social attitude comprising in the inclination to postpone the culmination of an assignment due to the absence of self-regulation. From the inspirational and volitional point of view, lingering has been viewed as a disappointment in inspiration and volition, prompting the aim activity hole. In this vein, it has been related to self-guideline, poise, the time the board, time introduction, and learning techniques.
Concerning the clinical viewpoint, the attention is on the clinically applicable degree of time-wasting and the connection between delaying and misery, or uneasiness. At last, the situational viewpoint has managed the situational highlights relating to task qualities, for example, task trouble and allure, the believability of the task. Extra methodologies have endeavored to connect procrastination with child-rearing styles, organic clarifications or extraversion as indicated by the naturally based hypothesis. In light of these complex hypothetical methodologies, procrastination can't be clarified by one point of view alone: the mix of the alternate points of view is required to accomplish its idea and elements.
Pretty much everybody puts off finishing errands, obligations, and goals eventually. Possibly it's a piece of our human instinct. Perhaps this is on the grounds that we appreciate the dramatization that accompanies a drifting due date or punishment. Dawdling, the activity of deferring or delaying something is a piece of our day by day lives. Regardless of whether it's not composing that paper until the absolute a minute ago, paying a bill the day it's expected instead of sometime before, or looking for a vacation the day of that occasion, procrastination occurs – and pretty much everybody is blameworthy of it here and there or another. Individuals procrastinate for various reasons. One is an absence of assets. An errand might be postponed until a later date if there is an absence of cash, apparatuses, time, and so on expected to finish the said task. Most occasions, tarrying is because of an absence of cash, as things like bills, installments and budgetary commitments most dependably include cash.
Individuals additionally procrastinate on the grounds that they have increasingly essential activities, maybe because they have more severe issues to illuminate. They don't set out to deliberately put off finishing something; they do it since time is of the pith and they have different things, progressively essential and squeezing targets, confronting them. An understudy may put off chipping away at a composition task in the event that they have to think about for a test or plan for a vital introduction. A parent may procrastinate on fixing something in the house since they have to spend that cash on nourishing their youngsters or paying the home loan or lease. It requires a grown-up choice on a squeezing matter, and it regularly welcomes legitimized delaying.
Different occasions, individuals procrastinate out of fear, also. They decide not to accomplish something since they would prefer not to do it, or on the grounds that the procedure or maybe the impact of doing it isn't so pleasurable or something, they need to do. What's more, it's less demanding to postpone doing it until it's essential to do – like yard work, charges, fixing a home and doing clothing.
Procrastination isn't generally an exceptionally terrible thing; however; there are a few in your life that it could turn out to be more. Whenever done what you needed will be used to doing things a minute ago, which could help you in your vocation with taking care of weight when you supervisor lets you know accomplish something inside a set measure of time. Additionally expanded measures of doing this unfortunate propensity could enable you to figure out how to take weight better, a model when you have a large paper due by the following morning, and you have to keep yourself quiet, or else it will demonstrate when your composition the paper. People procrastinate to avoid negative feelings, but it usually gives them a bad feeling about themselves after the consequences of procrastination.
Conclusions
Consequently, procrastination is a behavior which is related to various emotional and psychological concerns. The paper explored procrastination as a real-life problem in the light of different psychological concepts, i.e., copying, stress, biological drives, obedience, and nature-nurture. Therefore, psychologists perceive procrastination as a misdirected mechanism for coping, people who procrastinate are in real life using the avoidance mechanism of coping to deal with the situation. The summary of the article from the New York Times gives an insight about innovative meanings to the word procrastination, that is, it is not about being lazy or delay of work due to less motivation or self-controlling measures, but it is due to negative psychological issues, i.e., anxiety, boredom, frustration, insecurity, self-doubt, etc. In a research study about decisional procrastination among university students, authors, de Palo, and his peers find out the relationship between procrastination and decisional procrastination with positive and negative metacognitive beliefs. It was further told that according to psychologists stress is initiated by the failure or just feeling of failure while accomplishing a task. Many types of researches have shown a significant link between genetics with the tendency of procrastination. People procrastinate to avoid negative feelings, but it usually gives them a bad feeling about themselves after the consequences of procrastination.
References
Beleaua, R. E., & Cocoradă, E. (2016). Procrastination, Stress and Coping in Students and Employees. Romanian Journal of Experimental Applied Psychology, 7(1), 191-195.
De Palo, V., Monacis, L., Miceli, S., Sinatra, M., & Di Nuovo, S. (2017). Decisional procrastination in academic settings: the role of metacognition and learning strategies. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 973.
Kim, S., Fernandez, S., & Terrier, L. (2017). Procrastination, personality traits, and academic performance: When active and passive procrastination tell a different story. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 154-157.
Nair, S. (2017). Procrastination Behaviour, Stress Tolerance, and Study Habits: A Cross-Culture Analysis. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 25(3).
Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control). (2019). Nytimes.com. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FPsychology%20and%20Psychologists\
