Specter 6 Ferrari

Specter & Ferrari PROCRASTINATION AND TIME ORIENTATION 197

Author Info: Joseph R. Ferrari, Department of Psychology, DePaul University, 2219 NorthKenmore Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614-3504; (773) 325-7887; e-mail [email protected].

Ferrari, J.R., & Pychyl, T.A. (Eds.). Procrastination: Current Issues and New Directions.[Special Issue]. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 2000, Vol. 15, No. 5, 197–202.

©2000 Select Press, Corte Madera, CA, 415/209-9838.

Time Orientations of Procrastinators:Focusing on the Past, Present, or Future?

Marc H. SpecterJoseph R. FerrariDePaul University

The relationship between cognitive and behavioral forms of procrastina-tion and perceptions of time were assessed from self-reported measures.Participants (N = 215) completed measures of decisional procrastina-tion, avoidant procrastination, and temporal orientation (i.e., past, present,or future focused). Zero order correlates showed that both decisional andavoidant procrastination tendencies were related significantly posi-tively to past orientation and negatively to future orientation. Further-more, maximum likelihood factor analyses (varimax rotations) revealeda three factor structure with eigenvalues greater than one that explained68% of the common variance. Both decisional and avoidant procrastina-tion tendencies loaded negatively with future orientation. Past andpresent orientations each loaded on independent factors.

Procrastination is the tendency to delay one’s actions or decisions,and is reported to be a very common occurrence among many normal,nonclinical adult populations (Ellis & Kraus, 1977; Harriot & Ferrari,1996). Research indicates that persons identified as chronic procrastina-tors, compared to nonprocrastinators, spent less preparation time ontasks that were likely to succeed, more time on projects likely to fail, andtended to underestimate the overall time required to complete tasks (Lay,1990; McCown, Johnson & Rupert, 1987). The frequent association ofprocrastination with a number of affective, behavioral, and cognitivecharacteristics suggests that it comprises more than inefficient timemanagement (Ferrari, Johnson, & McCown, 1995). For instance, fre-quent delays result in self-imposed health and stress problems (Ferrari &Tice, 1999).

Correlational studies report that chronic procrastination tendencieshave been related to low self-confidence and low self-esteem, as well asto states of high anxiety, neurosis, diffuse identity, forgetfulness, self-

198 PROCRASTINATION: CURRENT ISSUES AND NEW DIRECTIONS

presentation concerns, perfectionism, disorganization, and non-competitiveness (Beswick, Rothblum, & Mann, 1988; Effert & Ferrari,1989; Ferrari, 1991c, 1991d, 1992; Lay, 1986, 1987, 1988; McCown,Johnson, & Petzel, 1989). When compared with nonprocrastinators,chronic procrastinators also reported significantly greater levels of pub-lic self-consciousness, excuse-making, social anxiety, illness, and self-handicapping tendencies (Ferrari, 1991a; Ferrari & Beck, 1998; Ferrari& Tice, 1999).

Procrastinators also attempt behavioral self-handicapping (Ferrari,1991b,) engage in impression management (Ferrari, 1991c; Ferrari &Tice, 1999), actively avoid receiving self-relevant information (Ferrari,1991d), and behave in a perfectionist manner for ingratiation purposes(Ferrari, 1992) more than nonprocrastinators. In general, these studiesdemonstrate that procrastinators tend to have substantially moremaladaptive behavior patterns and personality tendencies thannonprocrastinators.

Baumeister (1997) claimed that deficiencies incurred by procrasti-nators were due to inefficient self-regulation. A theory of action versusstate orientation proposed by Kuhl and Beckman (1994) provides furthersupport for this idea. One characteristic of state-oriented individuals incomparison with action-oriented individuals is a tendency towards sym-bolic representation of goals, an invasion of working memory that Kuhlrefers to as preoccupation. This constant interruption creates a disasso-ciation between working memory and the task at hand. The current studyattempts to provide some insight into the types of preoccupations ondealing with tasks associated with temporal aspects by chronic procras-tinators in comparison to nonprocrastinators.

METHODParticipants

A total of 215 college students (174 female, 41 male; M age = 21.18,SD = 6.06) attending a private, urban university participated in thisstudy. All participants were enrolled in an introductory psychology classand received course credit for their involvement.

Psychometric InventoriesAll participants completed the following three measures designed

for research purposes:Mann’s (1982) Decisional Procrastination (DP) Scale. This item is

a 5-item, 5-point scale taken from a set of measures on coping patterns(see Janis & Mann, 1977). High scores indicate a tendency to put offdecisions by doing other tasks. Procrastination items include “I delay inmaking decisions until it is too late” and “I put off making decisions.”


The scale has a Cronbach alpha of .80 (retest .69; Effert & Ferrari, 1989). McCown & Johnson’s Adult Inventory of Procrastination (AP)

(available in Ferrari et al, 1995).. This inventory consists of 15 items,each measured on a 5-point scale that assesses an individual’s behavioraltendency to delay the beginning or completion of tasks. High scores wereindicative of frequent behavioral procrastination. Sample items include“I don’t get things done on time” and “I am not very good at meetingdeadlines.” The scale has a coefficient alpha of .79 (retest .71; Ferrari etal., 1995).

Jones, Banicky, Lasane, and Pomare’s (1996) Temporal Orienta-tion Scale. This is a 26-item inventory comprising three subscalesmeasuring past (10 items), present (7 items), and future (9 items)orientation. Sample items include “I often think about things I used todo,” “I try to live one day at a time,” and “I take care of what needs to bedone before having fun.” Lasane and Jones (1996) report this measure islinked to academic success including high grade point averages. Thissample obtained alphas of .89, .50, and .77, respectively, for the past,present, and future orientation subscales.

ProcedureAt a large prescreening session during the first week of classes,

students enrolled in introductory psychology signed and returned aconsent form and then completed a demographic questionnaire and thedecisional (DP) and avoidant (AP) procrastination measures (embeddedamong several scales). Students completed the time orientation scale aspart of a set of follow-up measures in another experiment. It tookparticipants a total of 25–30 minutes to complete all of these measures. APearson correlation and factory analysis were performed.

RESULTS

T-tests for independent samples were computed between men andwomen to ascertain whether there were significant gender differences onself-report measures. There were no significant gender differences onprocrastination or time orientation variables; therefore, all further analy-ses collapsed across gender.

Zero-order CorrelatesTable 1 presents the mean scores, coefficient alphas, and zero-order

correlates between self-reported measures. As noted from the table, mostvariables had acceptable internal consistency for research purposes.Consistent with previous research (see Ferrari et al., 1995), decisionaland avoidant procrastination tendencies were significantly related. More-over, both forms of procrastination tendencies were significantly posi-


tively related to past orientation and negatively to future orientation.Fischer t-tests then were performed to determine whether there was asignificant difference in the magnitude between DP and AP coefficientsat past and future orientations. There were no significant differences inthese pairs of values. Decisional procrastination also was significantlynegatively related to present orientation, and present and future timeorientations were significantly positively related.

Factor Analysis of Self-reported VariablesA factor analysis of the procrastination and time orientation mea-

sures was conducted. Maximum likelihood analysis revealed a threefactor solution with eigenvalues greater than one, explaining 68% of thecommon variance. A varimax rotation then was performed in order toobtain orthogonal factor loadings. Table 2 presents the varimax factorstructure loadings. As noted from the table, using a criterion of .50 orgreater for factor loadings, future time orientation loaded negatively ona factor with both decisional and avoidant procrastination tendencies.Present and past time orientations each loaded on separate factors.

DISCUSSION

The results of this brief study indicate that men and women witheither cognitive or behavioral procrastination tendencies report that they

Table 1 Mean Score, Coefficient Alpha, and BivariateCorrelation Coefficients Between ProcrastinationTendencies and Time Orientation Variables (N = 215)

M alpha DP AP PAST PRST

Decisional 12 .53 .83 .—procrastination (DP) (4.69)

Avoidant 40.29 .70 .42** .—procrastination (AP) (10.17)

Time Orientation:

past (PAST) 4.08 .89 .32* .17 .—(1.25)

present (PRST) 4.54 .50 -.17 -.02 -.07(0.93)

future 4.72 .77 -.45** -.37** .08 .15(1.02)

Note: Values in parentheses are standard deviation.* = p < .01; ** = p < .001.


focus more on the past and less on the future. These results are consistentwith the work by Lay (1988; 1990) with college students who delay theirexamination preparations partly because they make poor judgements oftime . Moreover, this study sheds some light on why persons withfrequent procrastination tendencies may fail at working to schedule onpersonal projects. Perhaps, these individuals attend more to their pastaccomplishments and less to future goals. Procrastinators may be unableto delay future gratifications (Ferrari & Emmons, 1995) because they aretoo preoccupied with reminiscing about the past and are not futureoriented. Alternatively, since procrastinators seem to be “good excuse-makers” or why they are unable to complete a present task (Ferrari &Beck, 1998). It may be that they recall past events where their tendencytoward delaying resulted in successful task completion. Each of thesehypotheses needs further exploration. They raise interesting avenues forfuture research.

REFERENCESBaumeister, R.F. (1997). Esteem threat, self-regulation, breakdown, and emo-

tional distress as a function of self-defeating behavior. Review in GeneralPsychology, 1, 145–174.

Beswick, G., Rothblum, E.D., & Mann, L. (1988). Psychological antecedents tostudent procrastination. Australian Psychologist, 23, 207-217.

Effert, B., & Ferrari, J.R. (1989). Decisional procrastination: Examining person-ality correlates. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 4, 151-156.

Ellis, A., & Kraus, K. (1997). On procrastination. New York: Free Press.Ferrari, J.R. (1991a). Compulsive procrastinations: Some self-reported charac-

teristics. Psychological Reports, 68, 455-458.

TABLE 2 Standard Regression Analysis (Varimax Rotation)(N = 215)

Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

Future time orientation -.80 .35 .17

Decisional procrastination .70 .01 .26

Avoidant procrastination .53 -.43 .49

Present time orientation .03 .80 .11

Past time orientation .02 .05 .89

Eigenvalues 2.39 1.33 1.05 Percentage of variance 34.1 19.0 14.9

Note:Values in bold are loadings > .50.


Ferrari, J.R. (1991b). Self-handicapping by procrastinators: Protecting self-esteem, social-esteem, or both? Journal of Research in Personality, 25, 245-261.

Ferrari, J.R. (1991c). A preference for a favorable public impression by procras-tinators: Selecting among cognitive and social tasks. Personality andIndividual Differences, 12,1233-1237.

Ferrari, J.R. (1991d). Procrastination and project creation: Choosing easy, non-diagnostic items to avoid self-relevant information. Journal of SocialBehavior and Personality, 6, 619-628.

Ferrari, J.R. (1992). Procrastination and perfect behavior: An exploratory factoranalysis of self-presentation, self-awareness, and self-handicapping com-ponents. Journal of Research in Personality, 26, 75-84.

Ferrari, J.R., & Beck, B.L. (1998). Affective consequences of procrastinationbefore, during, and after fraudulent excuses. Education, 118, 529-537.

Ferrari, J.R., & Emmons, R. (1995). Methods of procrastination and their relationto self-control and self-reinforcement. Journal of Social Behavior andPersonality, 10, 135–142.

Ferrari, J.R., Johnson, J., & McCown, W. (Eds.). (1995). Procrastination andtask avoidance: Theory, research, and treatment. New York: Plenum.

Ferrari, J.R., & Tice, D.M. (1999). Procrastination as a self-handicap for menand women: A task avoidance strategy in a laboratory setting. Unpublishedmanuscript.

Harriot, J., & Ferrari, J.R. (1996). Prevalence of procrastination among samplesof adults. Psychological Bulletin, 78, 611-616.

Kuhl, J., & Beckmann, J. (1994). Volition and personality: Action versus stateorientation. Germany: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.

Jones, J.M., Banicky, L., Lasane, T., Pomare, M. (1996). The temporal orienta-tion scale. Unpublished measure available from T. Lasane, Dept. of Psy-chology, St. Mary’s College, St. Mary’s City, MD, 20618

Lasane, T.P. & Jones, J.M. (1996). Criterion validity of a measure of temporalorientation. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psycho-logical Association, Philadelphia, PA.

Lay, C.H. (1986). At last, my research in procrastination. Journal of Research inPersonality, 20, 479-495.

Lay, C.H. (1987). A model profile procrastinators: A search for types. Person-ality and Individual Differences, 8, 705-714.

Lay, C.H. (1988). The relationship of procrastination and optimism to judge-ments of time to complete an essay anticipation of setback. Journal of SocialBehavior and Personality, 3, 201-214.

Lay, C.H. (1990). Working to schedule on personal projects: An assessment ofperson-object characteristics and trait procrastination. Journal of SocialBehavior and Personality, 5, 91-104.

McCown, W., Johnson, J., & Petzel, T. (1989). Procrastination, a principalcomponent analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 10, 197-202.

McCown, W., Johnson, J., & Rupert, P. (1987). An experimental study of somehypothesized behaviors and personality variables of college student pro-crastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 781-786.

Tice, D.M., & Baumeister, R.F. (1997). Longitudinal study of procrastination,performance, stress, and health: The costs and benefits of dawdling. Psycho-logical Science, 8, 454–458.

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Specter 6 Ferrari