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A critique of the construct validity of active procrastination
Personality and Individual Differences 120 (2018) 7–12
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Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
A critique of the construct validity of active procrastination
MARK
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Shamarukh F. Chowdhury , Timothy A. Pychyl Department of Psychology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Procrastination Active procrastination Purposeful delay Arousal delay Construct validity Types of delay
Although research demonstrates that procrastination is an instance of self-regulation failure with deleterious consequences, Chu and Choi (2005) have defined a new construct called active procrastination. Active procrastination is the deliberate deferral of tasks to the last minute resulting in positive outcomes despite the delay. The present study examined and challenged the construct validity of active procrastination. We used key defining characteristics of procrastination (e.g., self-regulation, intention-action gap), correlates (e.g., self-efficacy beliefs, conscientiousness) and related outcomes (e.g., stress, depression) as identified in the extant research literature to re-examine the relations that define the construct's nomological network. Results revealed that active procrastination is heterogeneous in nature consisting of two theoretically and empirically distinct constructs: purposeful and arousal delay. Correlations and a Principle Components Analysis failed to replicate the nomological network of active procrastination demonstrated in previous research, and we argue that it is more appropriately construed as a deliberate delay that is purposeful, not procrastination. Limitations associated with the active procrastination construct, empirical evidence and the corresponding inferences in developing the Active Procrastination Scale are discussed.
1. Introduction Procrastination is a form of self-regulation failure (e.g., Steel, 2007; Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000) that is self-defeating in the sense that it is related to negative effects on performance, psychological functioning, well-being and even health. Compiling evidence from both published and unpublished studies in two separate meta-analytic reviews, Van Eerde (2003) and Steel (2007) summarized a whole host of negative outcomes related to procrastination such as low self-control (e.g., Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000), low conscientiousness (e.g., Watson, 2001), low self-efficacy (e.g., Haycock, McCarthy, & Skay, 1998), poor performance (e.g., Tice & Baumeister, 1997), as well as deleterious consequences for well-being and health (e.g., Sirois, MeliaGordon, & Pychyl, 2003). Drawing on the findings from his meta-analysis, Steel (2007) concluded, “Procrastination is usually harmful, sometimes harmless, but never helpful” (p. 80). Given that the extant literature clearly identifies procrastination as a self-regulation failure and a negative form of delay, it is surprising that some researchers have conceptualized a positive form of procrastination labeled “active procrastination” (Choi & Moran, 2009; Chu & Choi, 2005). Active procrastination is defined as a type of procrastination where a decision to delay work to the last minute is deliberately made, and the work is done closer to deadline to seek pressure and enhance motivation to do the work, while the individual remains confident that
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the work will be done well. These researchers explain that active procrastination is not related to the negative outcomes found in previous procrastination research, rather it is associated with positive outcomes such as higher GPA, better performance, better health and mental wellbeing. The fundamental flaw associated with the definition of active procrastination is that Chu and Choi (2005) have misconstrued purposeful, deliberate delay as procrastination. Strong empirical support for different types of delay has been found by Haghbin and Pychyl (2015) who developed a typology of 6 types of delay. Based on this typology of delay, active procrastination may be understood as a combination of purposeful and arousal delay, not procrastination per se. In fact, as Chu and Choi's research reveals, individuals who score high on the measure of active procrastination resemble non-procrastinators who actively choose to delay their tasks by reprioritizing them when necessary to meet the deadline of the scheduled goals. Recent research by Corkin, Yu, and Lindt (2011) and Hensley (2015) has also identified the inconsistency if not incoherence of the notion of active procrastination. They reinforce our argument that active procrastination is in fact active or purposeful delay that possesses the characteristics of adaptive forms of self-regulatory processes. To date, however, no studies have systematically addressed the nomological network of the active procrastination construct. The purpose of our study was to replicate and extend the research conducted by Chu and
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.F. Chowdhury), [email protected] (T.A. Pychyl).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.08.016 Received 20 April 2017; Received in revised form 8 August 2017; Accepted 10 August 2017 0191-8869/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Personality and Individual Differences 120 (2018) 7–12
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interpret a construct (DeVellis, 2003), and endorsing that one is “not unhappy” does not mean that one is happy. Also, reverse-coded items tend to load on a separate factor than the expected factors (Weijters, Baumgartner, & Schillewaet, 2013).
Choi (2005) and Choi and Moran (2009) to demonstrate both the logical and empirical flaws in their research and construct definition. 2. Active procrastination and its conceptualization Chu and Choi (2005) have conceptualized active procrastination using four defining characteristics: preference for pressure, intentional decision to procrastinate, ability to meet deadlines and outcome satisfaction. Based on a self-report questionnaire and factor analysis, Chu and Choi (2005) developed the Active Procrastination Scale (APS) consisting of these four defining factors operationalized by 12-items. To investigate the outcomes hypothesized to be associated with active procrastination, Chu and Choi (2005) categorized procrastinators into three groups: passive-, active- and non-procrastinators. Compared to active procrastinators, they described passive procrastinators as “traditional” procrastinators who do have the intention to complete a task, but engage in the task at the last minute due to indecisiveness and low self-control, and are incapable of managing their time to finish tasks and consequently suffer negative consequences. In contrast, non-procrastinators make effective use of their time, are more organized, and engage in thorough planning to complete tasks. This attempt to differentiate passive procrastination or simply “procrastination” from that of active- and non-procrastination based on having a time-management problem is misplaced, as previous empirical work has shown that procrastinators and non-procrastinators are equally accurate in estimating their study time, and procrastinators are aware that they will study later and study less (Pychyl, Morin, & Salmon, 2000). However, Chu and Choi (2005) misconstrued procrastination as a time-management problem failing to take into account important research findings relating procrastination to the misregulation of emotion (e.g., Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000). Chu and Choi (2005) distinguished active, passive and non-procrastinators using a number of psychological characteristics and correlates. What they found was that active procrastination is not correlated with passive procrastination, and active procrastinators have stronger selfefficacy beliefs, can make purposive use of time, are driven by both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and use proactive coping strategies to deal with stress much as non-procrastinators do and unlike traditional procrastinators. They also found that active procrastinators experience positive outcomes such as better performance, life satisfaction, low stress and depression (Chu & Choi, 2005). Of course, an alternative, more parsimonious interpretation of their non-significant findings between active and passive procrastination, and the pattern of results demonstrated using these correlates, is that active procrastination is not a type of procrastination at all, but rather it is a strategic delay which is purposeful in nature. Additionally, two important limitations of active procrastination research are worthy of discussion. First, Chu and Choi used a median split in distinguishing procrastinators from non-procrastinators in their study. Using a median cut-off score, it is not possible to determine that those who score higher than the median are in fact “procrastinators,” and those who score below the median cannot be guaranteed to be “non-procrastinators.” Another major disadvantage of this procedure is that it involves considerable loss of data (Cohen, 1983). Chu and Choi (2005) also used an arbitrary score of 4.33 to differentiate active from traditional procrastinators. Their reason for using this score was to obtain samples of comparable sizes for active- and traditional- procrastinators. It is important to have a cut-off score based on some theoretically or empirically derived standard, not simply statistical convenience. Second, when Choi and Moran (2009) expanded the Active Procrastination Scale into a 16-item scale loading on to the four defining factors using factor analysis, the items for outcome satisfaction, preference for pressure, and ability to meet deadlines were all reverse coded. Reverse coding nearly all of their items for this construct is a significant shortcoming in their scale construction, as it is conceptually difficult to
3. Construct validity of active procrastination Clearly, the construct of active procrastination creates a semantic debate as to how an individual can “actively” procrastinate. Given that one of the defining features of procrastination is self-regulation failure (e.g., Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000), we might use a substitution of this phrase in their construct as “active self-regulation failure.” When expressed like this, it becomes obvious how active procrastination might be considered an oxymoron. Semantically, Chu and Choi (2005) have confused active procrastination with strategic delay used by non-procrastinators. The basis for this distinction is Pychyl's (2013) argument that “all procrastination is delay, but not all delay is procrastination,” which has been overlooked in the research on active procrastination. There is strong empirical support for a distinction between procrastination and other forms of delay in the work of Haghbin and Pychyl (2015) who developed multidimensional scales to assess and differentiate problematic delay or procrastination from other forms of delay. Among these types of delay, Haghbin and Pychyl's (2015) research demonstrated extensive validation and ample evidence supporting the constructs purposeful and arousal delay. Not surprisingly the definition of active procrastination coincides with the definition of both purposeful and arousal delay making active procrastination a heterogeneous construct. A construct is said to be heterogeneous when it includes features of two separate constructs under one single construct (Edwards, 2001). In the case of active procrastination, the decision to deliberately procrastinate on certain tasks and not others in order to prioritize work according to the external demands resembles purposeful delay. Conversely, delaying tasks to feel the time pressure which then acts as a motivating factor to work more effectively resembles another type of delay, which Haghbin (2015; Haghbin & Pychyl, 2015) identified as arousal delay. Empirically, these researchers provided a clear distinction between purposeful and arousal delay in terms of their own etiologies, consequences and relations to different emotional experiences. Purposeful delay does not include any internal need to postpone tasks, but the reasons are external situational factors, which require people to make rational decisions and reprioritize their tasks. In contrast, arousal delay includes the internal need to experience high arousal, thrill and excitement as a motivation by delaying tasks to the last minute but no external factors are in effect to enforce task completion. Furthermore, both types of delay relate to different personality traits, well-being and personal outcomes. For instance, Haghbin (2015; Haghbin & Pychyl, 2015) found that purposeful delay had a positive relation with conscientiousness, self-control and well-being, whereas the opposite was found with arousal delay. This further questions the conceptualization of active procrastination as it includes only positive outcomes even though it includes arousal delay in its definition, which involves negative outcomes. Additionally, despite being labeled as a type of procrastination, active procrastination does not include any of the defining features of procrastination even though it has been noted as a form of procrastination. Klingsieck (2013) and Haghbin and Pychyl (2015) specified voluntary needless delay, irrational belief, an intention-action gap, delaying despite the probable negative consequences, and delay accompanied by subjective emotional discomfort and/or poor outcomes as the defining characteristics of procrastination. Based on these defining features alone, it is apparent that what Chu and Choi (2005) label as active procrastination is not procrastination at all, as active procrastination is neither needless nor based on irrational beliefs, there is no intentionaction gap (only a delayed intention to act until later), and the outcome is neither negative in terms of performance nor subjective experience. 8
Personality and Individual Differences 120 (2018) 7–12
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4. The present study
Negative Consequences Scale (PNCS), the Negative Emotions Scale (NES), and the Procrastination Duration Scale (PDS). All items were measured on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 6 (always). Intensity of the procrastination problem was measured by calculating an average of the PBS (10 items), PNCS (15 items) and a subscale of NES called taskdelay negative activating emotions (5 items). The validity and reliability (Cronbach's α > .90) of the MMAP has been documented by Haghbin (2015). With our sample, the internal consistencies of the MMAP subscales ranged from .86 to .95. Procrastination was also measured using the 20-item General Procrastination Scale (GPS) developed by Lay (1986), because it is one of the most frequently cited measures of trait or chronic procrastination to date with high internal consistency. Each item was rated on a 1 (false of me) to 5 (true of me) Likert-type scale. The GPS demonstrated an internal consistency of .82 with our sample.
The credibility of a research claim can be questioned for two different reasons – the claim is possibly based on poor science and evidence, or it contradicts previous conceptualizations, theoretical claims and even claims that are commonly known to everyone (Abelson, 1995). In the case of active procrastination, we challenged the credibility of this construct on the account of both methodological issues and contradicting claims made about procrastination. Thus, we hypothesized that active procrastination would show a negative relation to measures of procrastination and a negligible relation with a self-report measure of procrastination behaviour. Conversely, active procrastination would show positive relations with purposeful and arousal delay. We also expected that the factors of outcome satisfaction, preference for pressure and intentional decision to procrastinate would positively relate to arousal delay. In contrast, the factor, ability to meet deadlines, would show a positive relation to purposeful delay. This is expected because on the one hand, there are the definitional similarities between active procrastination and arousal delay in terms of delaying tasks closer to deadlines to seek pressure, which increase motivation to do work without suffering the negative consequences. On the other hand, active procrastinators reprioritize their tasks like purposeful delayers when working on many tasks to ensure all tasks are completed within their respective deadlines. To examine the construct validity of active procrastination, we hypothesized that active procrastination would show a similar pattern of relation to all the correlates of purposeful delay but not to the correlates of procrastination because the etiologies and consequences of active procrastination mostly resemble purposeful delay despite the intentional delay. We hypothesized that with the variables of self-regulation, self-efficacy, conscientiousness, adaptive coping strategies (such as proactive coping and emotional support seeking), active procrastination and purposeful delay would show positive relations; however procrastination would show negative relations to these variables similar to the findings from previous research (e.g., Lay, 1986; Van Eerde, 2003; Watson, 2001). Similarly, both active procrastination and purposeful delay would show negative relations with state orientation (operationalizing the intention-action gap), neuroticism, depression, stress, and avoidance oriented coping; whereas procrastination would show positive relations to these variables as demonstrated in previous research (e.g., Blunt & Pychyl, 2005; Van Eerde, 2003).
5.4. Measure of types of delay We used Haghbin and Pychyl's (2015) Delay Questionnaire (DQ) to measure purposeful delay, arousal delay and procrastination. The DQ captures 6 types of delay: irrational (or procrastination), hedonistic, purposeful, arousal, inevitable, and delay due to emotional problems. The DQ includes a series of vignettes depicting these six types of delay where participants rate these on Likert scales from 1 (not like me at all) to 7 (almost 100% like me). The DQ consists of two sections: 1) the Delay Questionnaire Categorical (DQ-C) and 2) the Delay Questionnaire-Prototype (DQ-P), which were administered together in this study. The DQ-C includes one vignette for each type of delay to determine each participant's specific delay behaviour. Participants were asked to choose one vignette that best describes the type of delay they use at school. In contrast, the DQ-P consists of 18 vignettes where each prototype of delay is measured using three vignettes. The prototype scores of the delay behaviours were measured by calculating the means of the three stories under each prototype. The validity of the DQ has been demonstrated in a series of studies by Haghbin and Pychyl (2015). The internal consistencies of the DQ subscales ranged from .76 to .85 in our study. 5.5. Measure of active procrastination Active procrastination was measured using the 16-item Active Procrastination Scale (APS) developed by Choi and Moran (2009) measuring four dimensions: preference for time pressure, intentional decision to procrastinate, ability to meet deadlines, and outcome satisfaction. Each dimension is assessed using 4 items. All items were rated on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 7 (very true). The level of active procrastination was calculated as an average of all items for the four dimensions; higher scores represented higher levels of active procrastination. The internal consistencies of the APS dimensions ranged from .80 to .89.
5. Method 5.1. Participants A total of 305 undergraduate students (96 males, 206 females; Mage = 19.8 years, SDage = 3.27) from a large research-intensive Canadian university were recruited to participate in this study in exchange for grade-raising credits. Only students were included to replicate the studies by Chu and Choi (2005) and Choi and Moran (2009).
5.6. Other measures 5.2. Procedure Key psychological variables were used to assess the nomological network of active procrastination, including: 1) the Short Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SSRQ; Carey, Neal, & Collins, 2004); 2) the New General Self-Efficacy (NGSE; Ghen, Gully, & Eden, 2001); 3) the Big-Five Personality Inventory (BFI; John & Srivastava, 1999); 4) the Action Control Scale (ACS; Kuhl & Beckmann, 1994); 5) the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977); 6) the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983); and, 7) the three subscales of the Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI; Greenglass, Schwarzer, & Taubert, 1999) – “proactive coping,” “emotional support seeking,” and “avoidance coping.” All measures demonstrated acceptable (Cronbach's α = .77) to excellent (Cronbach's α = .92) level of internal consistencies.
Participants were informed about the study through an online experimental sign-up system where they were provided with a website link hosted by a secure server to access a series of online questionnaires. 5.3. Measures of procrastination Procrastination was assessed using Haghbin and Pychyl's (2015) Multifaceted Measure of Academic Procrastination (MMAP), which quantifies problematic procrastination behaviour on many different aspects important for its conceptualization including the associated emotions and cognitions in academic settings. The MMAP consists of four subscales: the Procrastination Behaviour Scale (PBS), the Perceived 9
Personality and Individual Differences 120 (2018) 7–12 – .17⁎
6. Results
– − .43⁎⁎ .23⁎⁎ − .26⁎⁎ − .66⁎⁎ − .38⁎⁎ .21⁎⁎ .58⁎⁎ − .62⁎⁎ .26⁎⁎ .25⁎⁎ .45⁎⁎ − .40⁎⁎ − .03 .27⁎⁎
– − .01 .20⁎⁎ .42⁎⁎ .21⁎⁎ − .14⁎ − .41⁎⁎ .48⁎⁎ − .20⁎⁎ − .09 − .25⁎⁎ .30⁎⁎ .15⁎ − .06
– .38⁎⁎ − .20⁎⁎ − .05 − .08 − .02 − .22⁎⁎ − .12 .12 .05 − .11 − .14 .15⁎
– .35⁎⁎ .27⁎⁎ −.28⁎⁎ −.35⁎⁎ .23⁎⁎ −.39⁎⁎ −.27⁎⁎ −.43⁎⁎ .22⁎⁎ .09 −.01
– .66⁎⁎ − .30⁎⁎ − .58⁎⁎ .74⁎⁎ − .39⁎⁎ − .40⁎⁎ − .57⁎⁎ .66⁎⁎ .23⁎⁎ − .20⁎⁎
– − .28⁎⁎ − .41⁎⁎ .53⁎⁎ − .30⁎⁎ − .32⁎⁎ − .44⁎⁎ .65⁎⁎ .30⁎⁎ − .06
– .46⁎⁎ − .13 .58⁎⁎ .30⁎⁎ .47⁎⁎ − .28⁎⁎ − .15⁎ − .06
– − .46⁎⁎ .44⁎⁎ .31⁎⁎ .52⁎⁎ − .43⁎⁎ − .16⁎ .19⁎
– −.24⁎⁎ −.28⁎⁎ −.36⁎⁎ .54⁎⁎ .20⁎ −.19⁎
– .46⁎⁎ .62⁎⁎ − .32⁎⁎ − .14⁎ .01
– .63⁎⁎ − .28⁎⁎ − .20⁎⁎ .11
– − .47⁎⁎ − .27⁎⁎ .14⁎
– .36⁎⁎ − .03
Pearson product-moment correlations were calculated between all the variables to examine the pattern of relations with active procrastination (Table 1). We identified multivariate outliers for 5 participants on a number of variables that affected the magnitude of the correlations, so these outliers were deleted (N = 300). Supporting our hypothesis, active procrastination was found to have a significant moderate negative relation with procrastination intensity. Active procrastination also showed significant small to moderate negative relations with general procrastination and irrational delay. In contrast, active procrastination demonstrated a significant small positive relation with purposeful delay and a moderate positive relation with arousal delay. The correlational analysis also showed that active procrastination had no significant relation to procrastination behaviour. In examining the relations of the four factors of active procrastination scale with purposeful and arousal delay, we found support for our hypothesis. The factors, outcome satisfaction, preference for pressure, and intentional decision to procrastinate of the active procrastination scale showed a significant small to moderate positive relations to arousal delay, and ability to meet deadlines showed a significant moderate positive relation to purposeful delay (Table 2). Additionally, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted on the overall scores of active procrastination, purposeful and arousal delay. Visual inspection of the scree plot and orthogonal rotation yielded 2 factors explaining 80.35% of the variance. This analysis showed that active procrastination loaded on two separate factors. On the first factor, active procrastination loaded with arousal delay only and on the second factor, active procrastination loaded with purposeful delay demonstrating the heterogeneous nature of this construct (Table 3). We also examined the nomological network of active procrastination based on our hypothesis that active procrastination would share a pattern of relations to important psychological variables similar to those found for purposeful delay but differing from the pattern with “traditional” procrastination (Table 1). We found support for this hypothesis. Active procrastination showed significant positive relations to self-regulation, self-efficacy, conscientiousness and proactive coping strategy like purposeful delay and contrary to traditional procrastination, which demonstrated significant negative relations to these variables. Among the measures of procrastination, only irrational delay showed no significant relation to proactive coping strategy. A Fisher's z-test between the correlations of purposeful delay and active procrastination with respect to self-efficacy showed that the correlations did not significantly differ from each other, z(298) = −.75, p = .23. Indeed, the results were similar to what Chu and Choi (2005) found, that is, active procrastination has a positive relation to self-efficacy. However, the relation it shared with self-efficacy is no different than the relation between purposeful delay and self-efficacy. With variables such as decision-related state orientation, failure-related state orientation, neuroticism, and stress, both active procrastination and purposeful delay showed significant negative relations, whereas all measures of procrastination showed significant positive relations,
p < 0.01. p < 0.001, two-tailed.
Table 2 Correlations among the four factors of active procrastination scale, purposeful and arousal delay.
1. APS outcome satisfaction 2. APS preference for pressure 3. APS intentional decision to procrastinate 4. APS ability to meet deadlines 5. Purposeful delay 6. Arousal delay
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⁎
– .52⁎⁎ .57⁎⁎ −.40⁎⁎ .13 −.41⁎⁎ −.53⁎⁎ −.29⁎⁎ .30⁎⁎ 0.53⁎⁎ −.43⁎⁎ .34⁎⁎ .41⁎⁎ .52⁎⁎ −.32⁎⁎ −.15⁎ .23⁎⁎ 1. Procrastination behaviour 2. Procrastination intensity 3. Irrational delay 4. General procrastination 5. Purposeful delay 6. Arousal delay 7. Active procrastination 8. Self-regulation 9. Self-efficacy 10. Failure-related state orientation 11. Decision-related state orientation 12. Conscientiousness 13.Neuroticism 14.Depression 15.Stress 16.Proactive coping 17.Emotional coping 18.Avoidance coping
– .72⁎⁎ .44⁎⁎ .61⁎⁎ − .42⁎⁎ .33⁎⁎ − .09 − .48⁎⁎ − .15 .13 .49⁎⁎ − .50⁎⁎ .12 .22⁎⁎ .29⁎⁎ − .24⁎⁎ − .07 .25⁎⁎
– .44⁎⁎ − .18⁎ .09 − .24⁎⁎ − .35⁎⁎ − .11 .22⁎⁎ .44⁎⁎ − .27⁎⁎ .28⁎⁎ .21⁎⁎ .37⁎⁎ − .06 .03 .24⁎⁎
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Table 1 Correlations among types of delay, self-related and personality variables, consequences (emotional well-being) of procrastination, and coping strategies.
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
S.F. Chowdhury, T.A. Pychyl
⁎⁎
10
p < 0.001, two-tailed.
1
2
– .60⁎⁎ − .01
– −.07
⁎⁎
.30 .00 .39⁎⁎
3
⁎⁎
.44 .08 .27⁎⁎
4
5
– .38⁎⁎ − .12
– − .01
– − .24⁎⁎ .03 .41⁎⁎
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procrastination can be conceptualized as an emotion regulation problem, which results in the self-regulation deficits that cause a breakdown of longer-term goal pursuits (Eckert, Ebert, Lehr, Sieland, & Berking, 2016; Pychyl & Sirois, 2016). Consistent with past findings, we also found a considerably strong relation between procrastination and self-regulation failure irrespective of the procrastination measures used. However, the relation between active procrastination and self-regulation was revealed to be in the opposite direction and similar to the relation between purposeful delay and self-regulation. This is not surprising, because active procrastination has been described by Chu and Choi (2005) as a deliberate strategic delay, not a breakdown in volitional action. Similarly, our results demonstrated that active procrastination is not related to other key defining characteristics (i.e., intention-action gap), correlates (i.e., self-efficacy beliefs, conscientiousness, neuroticism), coping strategies (i.e., avoidance coping) and related outcomes (i.e., stress, depression) of procrastination as identified in the extant research literature. The pattern of relations demonstrated in both the correlations and the PCA make it clear that active procrastination is very similar to purposeful delay, not the breakdown in self-regulation that defines procrastination. In fact, if “active procrastinators” are distinct in any way, it may well be they are best defined by their high emotional stability that allows them to work at the last minute and be successful. We found no evidence to support a notion of a positive form of procrastination, but simply delay. This is key, and not distinguishing procrastination from other forms of delay makes the term quite meaningless.
Table 3 Principal component analysis of the overall active procrastination, purposeful and arousal delay scores.
Active procrastination Purposeful delay Arousal delay % of variance Eigenvalues
1
2
.76 .03 .87 44.55 1.14
.36 .96 −.16 35.80 1
consistent with our hypotheses. Interestingly, the negative correlation between active procrastination and neuroticism was of higher magnitude than the correlation between purposeful delay and neuroticism. As such, we ran another Fisher's z-test on the difference between these two correlations which revealed a significant result, z(298) = 2.55, p = .011. With stress, active procrastination also showed a negative relation of higher magnitude than purposeful delay and testing the significance between these correlations showed that they are significantly different from each other, z(298) = 2.49, p = .013. With depression, active procrastination showed a significant negative relation whereas purposeful delay showed no significant relation, contrary to our prediction. However, all measures of procrastination showed a significant positive relation to depression. With emotional support seeking (mistakenly labeled as emotion-oriented coping by Chu and Choi), active procrastination showed no relation, whereas purposeful delay showed a significant positive relation. Only procrastination intensity showed a significant negative relation to emotional support seeking, and general procrastination and irrational delay showed no relation. All measures of procrastination showed significant positive relations to avoidance oriented coping strategy. However, with active procrastination and purposeful delay, avoidance oriented coping showed no significant correlations.
8. Limitation of the present study Despite the careful investigation and strong evidence obtained to demonstrate the poor construct validity of active procrastination, the present study has limitations. One limitation is that the recruitment process was not commenced at the beginning of the semester which increased the possibility of a less representative sample of non-procrastinators or “active procrastinators” in the population. Students who score lower on measures of procrastination are more likely to volunteer for studies early in the term, whereas those who score high on selfreport procrastination measures may leave their participation to later in the term. Notwithstanding this limitation, the present study generated results that matched findings from the study by Haghbin and Pychyl (2015) who collected data throughout all terms across multiple years. Of course, another potential limitation is the reliance on self-report measures, however, as a replication and extension of the previous research, this is appropriate.
7. Discussion Our results provided substantial evidence to argue against the idea that active procrastination is a positive type of procrastination. To make the assertion that active procrastination is a form of procrastination, a basic requirement would be that it relates to the behavioural characteristics of procrastination. Researchers for decades have demonstrated procrastination as a negative, dysfunctional form of delay (e.g., Lay, 1986; Sirois & Pychyl, 2013; Steel, 2007; Van Eerde, 2003). However, active procrastination showed no relation to procrastination behaviour and showed negative relations to all procrastination measures. Active procrastination is a heterogeneous construct as it showed positive relations to two theoretically and empirically distinct constructs: purposeful and arousal delay (e.g., Haghbin, 2015). As Haghbin explained, these two types of delays are not mutually exclusive, an individual can engage in more than one type of delay. Thus, by measuring these constructs separately, a more accurate assessment of people's delay can be obtained which cannot be achieved with a single “active procrastination” construct. Despite the heterogeneous nature of active procrastination, proponents of active procrastination only discussed the positive aspect of this construct, which is very similar to the characteristics and outcomes of purposeful delay and not arousal delay. Overall, we found that the conceptualization of active procrastination is flawed both theoretically and empirically, and both theory and the empirical evidence are central to our discussion. Among the important defining characteristics of procrastination, active procrastination researchers did not assess the role of self-regulation failure in the validation process of active procrastination. Self-regulation failure has received significant attention in procrastination research, because it is an important antecedent to this problematic delay (e.g., Haghbin & Pychyl, 2015; Van Eerde, 2003), with the primacy of mood repair in the short term (Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000). Thus,
9. Conclusion Despite the clear self-defeating nature of procrastination documented in the literature (e.g., Lay, 1986; Steel, 2007; Van Eerde, 2003), Chu & Choi, 2005 and Choi & Moran, 2009 have misappropriately taken an adaptive perspective on procrastination with the creation of the construct “active procrastination.” Clearly, the dichotomy of active and passive procrastination has been oversimplified (Hensley, 2015) and is contributing to nothing but a semantic debate (Haghbin & Pychyl, 2015). By examining the construct validity of active procrastination, we provided evidence that active procrastination may best be conceptualized as a heterogeneous construct that reflects a combination of purposeful and arousal delay, and, consequently, it is inaccurate and misleading to simply label this delay as a form of procrastination. Acknowledgement This research was funded by a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (752-2016-1643) (Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship- Master's) 11
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The role of self-efficacy and anxiety. Journal of Counseling and Development, 76(3), 317–324. Hensley, L. C. (2015). Reconsidering active procrastination: Relation to motivation and achievement in college anatomy. Learning and Individual Difference, 36, 157–164. John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big-Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin, & O. P. John (Vol. Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research. Vol. 2, (pp. 102–138). New York: Guilford Press. Klingsieck, K. B. (2013). Procrastination: When good things don't come to those who wait. European Psychology, 18(1), 24–34. Kuhl, J., & Beckmann, J. (1994). Volition and personality: Action versus state orientation. Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers. Lay, C. H. (1986). At last, my research article on procrastination. Journal of Research in Personality, 20, 474–495. Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Solving the procrastination puzzle: A concise guide to strategies for change. New York: Tarcher/Penguin. Pychyl, T. A., Morin, R. W., & Salmon, B. R. (2000). Procrastination and the planning fallacy: An examination of the study habits of university students. Journal of Social Behaviour and Personality, 15(5), 135–150. Pychyl, T. A., & Sirois, F. M. (2016). Procrastination, emotion-regulation and well-being. In F. M. Sirois, & T. A. Pychyl (Eds.), Procrastination, health and well-being (pp. 163– 184). New York: Elsevier. Radloff, L. S. (1977). The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385–401. Sirois, F., & Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127. Sirois, F. M., Melia-Gordon, M. L., & Pychyl, T. A. (2003). “I'll look after my health later”: An investigation of procrastination and health. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1167–1184. Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 65–94. Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Longitudinal study of procrastination, performance, stress, and health: The costs and benefits of dawdling. Psychological Science, 8, 454–458. Tice, D. M., & Bratslavsky, E. (2000). Giving in to feel good: The place of emotion regulation in the context of general self-control. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 149–159. Van Eerde, W. (2003). A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1401–1418. Watson, D. C. (2001). Procrastination and the five-factor model: A facet level analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 149–158. Weijters, B., Baumgartner, H., & Schillewaet, N. (2013). Reversed item bias: An integrative model. Psychological Methods, 18(3), 320–334.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
A critique of the construct validity of active procrastination
MARK
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Shamarukh F. Chowdhury , Timothy A. Pychyl Department of Psychology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Procrastination Active procrastination Purposeful delay Arousal delay Construct validity Types of delay
Although research demonstrates that procrastination is an instance of self-regulation failure with deleterious consequences, Chu and Choi (2005) have defined a new construct called active procrastination. Active procrastination is the deliberate deferral of tasks to the last minute resulting in positive outcomes despite the delay. The present study examined and challenged the construct validity of active procrastination. We used key defining characteristics of procrastination (e.g., self-regulation, intention-action gap), correlates (e.g., self-efficacy beliefs, conscientiousness) and related outcomes (e.g., stress, depression) as identified in the extant research literature to re-examine the relations that define the construct's nomological network. Results revealed that active procrastination is heterogeneous in nature consisting of two theoretically and empirically distinct constructs: purposeful and arousal delay. Correlations and a Principle Components Analysis failed to replicate the nomological network of active procrastination demonstrated in previous research, and we argue that it is more appropriately construed as a deliberate delay that is purposeful, not procrastination. Limitations associated with the active procrastination construct, empirical evidence and the corresponding inferences in developing the Active Procrastination Scale are discussed.
1. Introduction Procrastination is a form of self-regulation failure (e.g., Steel, 2007; Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000) that is self-defeating in the sense that it is related to negative effects on performance, psychological functioning, well-being and even health. Compiling evidence from both published and unpublished studies in two separate meta-analytic reviews, Van Eerde (2003) and Steel (2007) summarized a whole host of negative outcomes related to procrastination such as low self-control (e.g., Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000), low conscientiousness (e.g., Watson, 2001), low self-efficacy (e.g., Haycock, McCarthy, & Skay, 1998), poor performance (e.g., Tice & Baumeister, 1997), as well as deleterious consequences for well-being and health (e.g., Sirois, MeliaGordon, & Pychyl, 2003). Drawing on the findings from his meta-analysis, Steel (2007) concluded, “Procrastination is usually harmful, sometimes harmless, but never helpful” (p. 80). Given that the extant literature clearly identifies procrastination as a self-regulation failure and a negative form of delay, it is surprising that some researchers have conceptualized a positive form of procrastination labeled “active procrastination” (Choi & Moran, 2009; Chu & Choi, 2005). Active procrastination is defined as a type of procrastination where a decision to delay work to the last minute is deliberately made, and the work is done closer to deadline to seek pressure and enhance motivation to do the work, while the individual remains confident that
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the work will be done well. These researchers explain that active procrastination is not related to the negative outcomes found in previous procrastination research, rather it is associated with positive outcomes such as higher GPA, better performance, better health and mental wellbeing. The fundamental flaw associated with the definition of active procrastination is that Chu and Choi (2005) have misconstrued purposeful, deliberate delay as procrastination. Strong empirical support for different types of delay has been found by Haghbin and Pychyl (2015) who developed a typology of 6 types of delay. Based on this typology of delay, active procrastination may be understood as a combination of purposeful and arousal delay, not procrastination per se. In fact, as Chu and Choi's research reveals, individuals who score high on the measure of active procrastination resemble non-procrastinators who actively choose to delay their tasks by reprioritizing them when necessary to meet the deadline of the scheduled goals. Recent research by Corkin, Yu, and Lindt (2011) and Hensley (2015) has also identified the inconsistency if not incoherence of the notion of active procrastination. They reinforce our argument that active procrastination is in fact active or purposeful delay that possesses the characteristics of adaptive forms of self-regulatory processes. To date, however, no studies have systematically addressed the nomological network of the active procrastination construct. The purpose of our study was to replicate and extend the research conducted by Chu and
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.F. Chowdhury), [email protected] (T.A. Pychyl).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.08.016 Received 20 April 2017; Received in revised form 8 August 2017; Accepted 10 August 2017 0191-8869/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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interpret a construct (DeVellis, 2003), and endorsing that one is “not unhappy” does not mean that one is happy. Also, reverse-coded items tend to load on a separate factor than the expected factors (Weijters, Baumgartner, & Schillewaet, 2013).
Choi (2005) and Choi and Moran (2009) to demonstrate both the logical and empirical flaws in their research and construct definition. 2. Active procrastination and its conceptualization Chu and Choi (2005) have conceptualized active procrastination using four defining characteristics: preference for pressure, intentional decision to procrastinate, ability to meet deadlines and outcome satisfaction. Based on a self-report questionnaire and factor analysis, Chu and Choi (2005) developed the Active Procrastination Scale (APS) consisting of these four defining factors operationalized by 12-items. To investigate the outcomes hypothesized to be associated with active procrastination, Chu and Choi (2005) categorized procrastinators into three groups: passive-, active- and non-procrastinators. Compared to active procrastinators, they described passive procrastinators as “traditional” procrastinators who do have the intention to complete a task, but engage in the task at the last minute due to indecisiveness and low self-control, and are incapable of managing their time to finish tasks and consequently suffer negative consequences. In contrast, non-procrastinators make effective use of their time, are more organized, and engage in thorough planning to complete tasks. This attempt to differentiate passive procrastination or simply “procrastination” from that of active- and non-procrastination based on having a time-management problem is misplaced, as previous empirical work has shown that procrastinators and non-procrastinators are equally accurate in estimating their study time, and procrastinators are aware that they will study later and study less (Pychyl, Morin, & Salmon, 2000). However, Chu and Choi (2005) misconstrued procrastination as a time-management problem failing to take into account important research findings relating procrastination to the misregulation of emotion (e.g., Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000). Chu and Choi (2005) distinguished active, passive and non-procrastinators using a number of psychological characteristics and correlates. What they found was that active procrastination is not correlated with passive procrastination, and active procrastinators have stronger selfefficacy beliefs, can make purposive use of time, are driven by both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and use proactive coping strategies to deal with stress much as non-procrastinators do and unlike traditional procrastinators. They also found that active procrastinators experience positive outcomes such as better performance, life satisfaction, low stress and depression (Chu & Choi, 2005). Of course, an alternative, more parsimonious interpretation of their non-significant findings between active and passive procrastination, and the pattern of results demonstrated using these correlates, is that active procrastination is not a type of procrastination at all, but rather it is a strategic delay which is purposeful in nature. Additionally, two important limitations of active procrastination research are worthy of discussion. First, Chu and Choi used a median split in distinguishing procrastinators from non-procrastinators in their study. Using a median cut-off score, it is not possible to determine that those who score higher than the median are in fact “procrastinators,” and those who score below the median cannot be guaranteed to be “non-procrastinators.” Another major disadvantage of this procedure is that it involves considerable loss of data (Cohen, 1983). Chu and Choi (2005) also used an arbitrary score of 4.33 to differentiate active from traditional procrastinators. Their reason for using this score was to obtain samples of comparable sizes for active- and traditional- procrastinators. It is important to have a cut-off score based on some theoretically or empirically derived standard, not simply statistical convenience. Second, when Choi and Moran (2009) expanded the Active Procrastination Scale into a 16-item scale loading on to the four defining factors using factor analysis, the items for outcome satisfaction, preference for pressure, and ability to meet deadlines were all reverse coded. Reverse coding nearly all of their items for this construct is a significant shortcoming in their scale construction, as it is conceptually difficult to
3. Construct validity of active procrastination Clearly, the construct of active procrastination creates a semantic debate as to how an individual can “actively” procrastinate. Given that one of the defining features of procrastination is self-regulation failure (e.g., Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000), we might use a substitution of this phrase in their construct as “active self-regulation failure.” When expressed like this, it becomes obvious how active procrastination might be considered an oxymoron. Semantically, Chu and Choi (2005) have confused active procrastination with strategic delay used by non-procrastinators. The basis for this distinction is Pychyl's (2013) argument that “all procrastination is delay, but not all delay is procrastination,” which has been overlooked in the research on active procrastination. There is strong empirical support for a distinction between procrastination and other forms of delay in the work of Haghbin and Pychyl (2015) who developed multidimensional scales to assess and differentiate problematic delay or procrastination from other forms of delay. Among these types of delay, Haghbin and Pychyl's (2015) research demonstrated extensive validation and ample evidence supporting the constructs purposeful and arousal delay. Not surprisingly the definition of active procrastination coincides with the definition of both purposeful and arousal delay making active procrastination a heterogeneous construct. A construct is said to be heterogeneous when it includes features of two separate constructs under one single construct (Edwards, 2001). In the case of active procrastination, the decision to deliberately procrastinate on certain tasks and not others in order to prioritize work according to the external demands resembles purposeful delay. Conversely, delaying tasks to feel the time pressure which then acts as a motivating factor to work more effectively resembles another type of delay, which Haghbin (2015; Haghbin & Pychyl, 2015) identified as arousal delay. Empirically, these researchers provided a clear distinction between purposeful and arousal delay in terms of their own etiologies, consequences and relations to different emotional experiences. Purposeful delay does not include any internal need to postpone tasks, but the reasons are external situational factors, which require people to make rational decisions and reprioritize their tasks. In contrast, arousal delay includes the internal need to experience high arousal, thrill and excitement as a motivation by delaying tasks to the last minute but no external factors are in effect to enforce task completion. Furthermore, both types of delay relate to different personality traits, well-being and personal outcomes. For instance, Haghbin (2015; Haghbin & Pychyl, 2015) found that purposeful delay had a positive relation with conscientiousness, self-control and well-being, whereas the opposite was found with arousal delay. This further questions the conceptualization of active procrastination as it includes only positive outcomes even though it includes arousal delay in its definition, which involves negative outcomes. Additionally, despite being labeled as a type of procrastination, active procrastination does not include any of the defining features of procrastination even though it has been noted as a form of procrastination. Klingsieck (2013) and Haghbin and Pychyl (2015) specified voluntary needless delay, irrational belief, an intention-action gap, delaying despite the probable negative consequences, and delay accompanied by subjective emotional discomfort and/or poor outcomes as the defining characteristics of procrastination. Based on these defining features alone, it is apparent that what Chu and Choi (2005) label as active procrastination is not procrastination at all, as active procrastination is neither needless nor based on irrational beliefs, there is no intentionaction gap (only a delayed intention to act until later), and the outcome is neither negative in terms of performance nor subjective experience. 8
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4. The present study
Negative Consequences Scale (PNCS), the Negative Emotions Scale (NES), and the Procrastination Duration Scale (PDS). All items were measured on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 6 (always). Intensity of the procrastination problem was measured by calculating an average of the PBS (10 items), PNCS (15 items) and a subscale of NES called taskdelay negative activating emotions (5 items). The validity and reliability (Cronbach's α > .90) of the MMAP has been documented by Haghbin (2015). With our sample, the internal consistencies of the MMAP subscales ranged from .86 to .95. Procrastination was also measured using the 20-item General Procrastination Scale (GPS) developed by Lay (1986), because it is one of the most frequently cited measures of trait or chronic procrastination to date with high internal consistency. Each item was rated on a 1 (false of me) to 5 (true of me) Likert-type scale. The GPS demonstrated an internal consistency of .82 with our sample.
The credibility of a research claim can be questioned for two different reasons – the claim is possibly based on poor science and evidence, or it contradicts previous conceptualizations, theoretical claims and even claims that are commonly known to everyone (Abelson, 1995). In the case of active procrastination, we challenged the credibility of this construct on the account of both methodological issues and contradicting claims made about procrastination. Thus, we hypothesized that active procrastination would show a negative relation to measures of procrastination and a negligible relation with a self-report measure of procrastination behaviour. Conversely, active procrastination would show positive relations with purposeful and arousal delay. We also expected that the factors of outcome satisfaction, preference for pressure and intentional decision to procrastinate would positively relate to arousal delay. In contrast, the factor, ability to meet deadlines, would show a positive relation to purposeful delay. This is expected because on the one hand, there are the definitional similarities between active procrastination and arousal delay in terms of delaying tasks closer to deadlines to seek pressure, which increase motivation to do work without suffering the negative consequences. On the other hand, active procrastinators reprioritize their tasks like purposeful delayers when working on many tasks to ensure all tasks are completed within their respective deadlines. To examine the construct validity of active procrastination, we hypothesized that active procrastination would show a similar pattern of relation to all the correlates of purposeful delay but not to the correlates of procrastination because the etiologies and consequences of active procrastination mostly resemble purposeful delay despite the intentional delay. We hypothesized that with the variables of self-regulation, self-efficacy, conscientiousness, adaptive coping strategies (such as proactive coping and emotional support seeking), active procrastination and purposeful delay would show positive relations; however procrastination would show negative relations to these variables similar to the findings from previous research (e.g., Lay, 1986; Van Eerde, 2003; Watson, 2001). Similarly, both active procrastination and purposeful delay would show negative relations with state orientation (operationalizing the intention-action gap), neuroticism, depression, stress, and avoidance oriented coping; whereas procrastination would show positive relations to these variables as demonstrated in previous research (e.g., Blunt & Pychyl, 2005; Van Eerde, 2003).
5.4. Measure of types of delay We used Haghbin and Pychyl's (2015) Delay Questionnaire (DQ) to measure purposeful delay, arousal delay and procrastination. The DQ captures 6 types of delay: irrational (or procrastination), hedonistic, purposeful, arousal, inevitable, and delay due to emotional problems. The DQ includes a series of vignettes depicting these six types of delay where participants rate these on Likert scales from 1 (not like me at all) to 7 (almost 100% like me). The DQ consists of two sections: 1) the Delay Questionnaire Categorical (DQ-C) and 2) the Delay Questionnaire-Prototype (DQ-P), which were administered together in this study. The DQ-C includes one vignette for each type of delay to determine each participant's specific delay behaviour. Participants were asked to choose one vignette that best describes the type of delay they use at school. In contrast, the DQ-P consists of 18 vignettes where each prototype of delay is measured using three vignettes. The prototype scores of the delay behaviours were measured by calculating the means of the three stories under each prototype. The validity of the DQ has been demonstrated in a series of studies by Haghbin and Pychyl (2015). The internal consistencies of the DQ subscales ranged from .76 to .85 in our study. 5.5. Measure of active procrastination Active procrastination was measured using the 16-item Active Procrastination Scale (APS) developed by Choi and Moran (2009) measuring four dimensions: preference for time pressure, intentional decision to procrastinate, ability to meet deadlines, and outcome satisfaction. Each dimension is assessed using 4 items. All items were rated on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 7 (very true). The level of active procrastination was calculated as an average of all items for the four dimensions; higher scores represented higher levels of active procrastination. The internal consistencies of the APS dimensions ranged from .80 to .89.
5. Method 5.1. Participants A total of 305 undergraduate students (96 males, 206 females; Mage = 19.8 years, SDage = 3.27) from a large research-intensive Canadian university were recruited to participate in this study in exchange for grade-raising credits. Only students were included to replicate the studies by Chu and Choi (2005) and Choi and Moran (2009).
5.6. Other measures 5.2. Procedure Key psychological variables were used to assess the nomological network of active procrastination, including: 1) the Short Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SSRQ; Carey, Neal, & Collins, 2004); 2) the New General Self-Efficacy (NGSE; Ghen, Gully, & Eden, 2001); 3) the Big-Five Personality Inventory (BFI; John & Srivastava, 1999); 4) the Action Control Scale (ACS; Kuhl & Beckmann, 1994); 5) the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977); 6) the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983); and, 7) the three subscales of the Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI; Greenglass, Schwarzer, & Taubert, 1999) – “proactive coping,” “emotional support seeking,” and “avoidance coping.” All measures demonstrated acceptable (Cronbach's α = .77) to excellent (Cronbach's α = .92) level of internal consistencies.
Participants were informed about the study through an online experimental sign-up system where they were provided with a website link hosted by a secure server to access a series of online questionnaires. 5.3. Measures of procrastination Procrastination was assessed using Haghbin and Pychyl's (2015) Multifaceted Measure of Academic Procrastination (MMAP), which quantifies problematic procrastination behaviour on many different aspects important for its conceptualization including the associated emotions and cognitions in academic settings. The MMAP consists of four subscales: the Procrastination Behaviour Scale (PBS), the Perceived 9
Personality and Individual Differences 120 (2018) 7–12 – .17⁎
6. Results
– − .43⁎⁎ .23⁎⁎ − .26⁎⁎ − .66⁎⁎ − .38⁎⁎ .21⁎⁎ .58⁎⁎ − .62⁎⁎ .26⁎⁎ .25⁎⁎ .45⁎⁎ − .40⁎⁎ − .03 .27⁎⁎
– − .01 .20⁎⁎ .42⁎⁎ .21⁎⁎ − .14⁎ − .41⁎⁎ .48⁎⁎ − .20⁎⁎ − .09 − .25⁎⁎ .30⁎⁎ .15⁎ − .06
– .38⁎⁎ − .20⁎⁎ − .05 − .08 − .02 − .22⁎⁎ − .12 .12 .05 − .11 − .14 .15⁎
– .35⁎⁎ .27⁎⁎ −.28⁎⁎ −.35⁎⁎ .23⁎⁎ −.39⁎⁎ −.27⁎⁎ −.43⁎⁎ .22⁎⁎ .09 −.01
– .66⁎⁎ − .30⁎⁎ − .58⁎⁎ .74⁎⁎ − .39⁎⁎ − .40⁎⁎ − .57⁎⁎ .66⁎⁎ .23⁎⁎ − .20⁎⁎
– − .28⁎⁎ − .41⁎⁎ .53⁎⁎ − .30⁎⁎ − .32⁎⁎ − .44⁎⁎ .65⁎⁎ .30⁎⁎ − .06
– .46⁎⁎ − .13 .58⁎⁎ .30⁎⁎ .47⁎⁎ − .28⁎⁎ − .15⁎ − .06
– − .46⁎⁎ .44⁎⁎ .31⁎⁎ .52⁎⁎ − .43⁎⁎ − .16⁎ .19⁎
– −.24⁎⁎ −.28⁎⁎ −.36⁎⁎ .54⁎⁎ .20⁎ −.19⁎
– .46⁎⁎ .62⁎⁎ − .32⁎⁎ − .14⁎ .01
– .63⁎⁎ − .28⁎⁎ − .20⁎⁎ .11
– − .47⁎⁎ − .27⁎⁎ .14⁎
– .36⁎⁎ − .03
Pearson product-moment correlations were calculated between all the variables to examine the pattern of relations with active procrastination (Table 1). We identified multivariate outliers for 5 participants on a number of variables that affected the magnitude of the correlations, so these outliers were deleted (N = 300). Supporting our hypothesis, active procrastination was found to have a significant moderate negative relation with procrastination intensity. Active procrastination also showed significant small to moderate negative relations with general procrastination and irrational delay. In contrast, active procrastination demonstrated a significant small positive relation with purposeful delay and a moderate positive relation with arousal delay. The correlational analysis also showed that active procrastination had no significant relation to procrastination behaviour. In examining the relations of the four factors of active procrastination scale with purposeful and arousal delay, we found support for our hypothesis. The factors, outcome satisfaction, preference for pressure, and intentional decision to procrastinate of the active procrastination scale showed a significant small to moderate positive relations to arousal delay, and ability to meet deadlines showed a significant moderate positive relation to purposeful delay (Table 2). Additionally, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted on the overall scores of active procrastination, purposeful and arousal delay. Visual inspection of the scree plot and orthogonal rotation yielded 2 factors explaining 80.35% of the variance. This analysis showed that active procrastination loaded on two separate factors. On the first factor, active procrastination loaded with arousal delay only and on the second factor, active procrastination loaded with purposeful delay demonstrating the heterogeneous nature of this construct (Table 3). We also examined the nomological network of active procrastination based on our hypothesis that active procrastination would share a pattern of relations to important psychological variables similar to those found for purposeful delay but differing from the pattern with “traditional” procrastination (Table 1). We found support for this hypothesis. Active procrastination showed significant positive relations to self-regulation, self-efficacy, conscientiousness and proactive coping strategy like purposeful delay and contrary to traditional procrastination, which demonstrated significant negative relations to these variables. Among the measures of procrastination, only irrational delay showed no significant relation to proactive coping strategy. A Fisher's z-test between the correlations of purposeful delay and active procrastination with respect to self-efficacy showed that the correlations did not significantly differ from each other, z(298) = −.75, p = .23. Indeed, the results were similar to what Chu and Choi (2005) found, that is, active procrastination has a positive relation to self-efficacy. However, the relation it shared with self-efficacy is no different than the relation between purposeful delay and self-efficacy. With variables such as decision-related state orientation, failure-related state orientation, neuroticism, and stress, both active procrastination and purposeful delay showed significant negative relations, whereas all measures of procrastination showed significant positive relations,
p < 0.01. p < 0.001, two-tailed.
Table 2 Correlations among the four factors of active procrastination scale, purposeful and arousal delay.
1. APS outcome satisfaction 2. APS preference for pressure 3. APS intentional decision to procrastinate 4. APS ability to meet deadlines 5. Purposeful delay 6. Arousal delay
⁎⁎
⁎
– .52⁎⁎ .57⁎⁎ −.40⁎⁎ .13 −.41⁎⁎ −.53⁎⁎ −.29⁎⁎ .30⁎⁎ 0.53⁎⁎ −.43⁎⁎ .34⁎⁎ .41⁎⁎ .52⁎⁎ −.32⁎⁎ −.15⁎ .23⁎⁎ 1. Procrastination behaviour 2. Procrastination intensity 3. Irrational delay 4. General procrastination 5. Purposeful delay 6. Arousal delay 7. Active procrastination 8. Self-regulation 9. Self-efficacy 10. Failure-related state orientation 11. Decision-related state orientation 12. Conscientiousness 13.Neuroticism 14.Depression 15.Stress 16.Proactive coping 17.Emotional coping 18.Avoidance coping
– .72⁎⁎ .44⁎⁎ .61⁎⁎ − .42⁎⁎ .33⁎⁎ − .09 − .48⁎⁎ − .15 .13 .49⁎⁎ − .50⁎⁎ .12 .22⁎⁎ .29⁎⁎ − .24⁎⁎ − .07 .25⁎⁎
– .44⁎⁎ − .18⁎ .09 − .24⁎⁎ − .35⁎⁎ − .11 .22⁎⁎ .44⁎⁎ − .27⁎⁎ .28⁎⁎ .21⁎⁎ .37⁎⁎ − .06 .03 .24⁎⁎
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Table 1 Correlations among types of delay, self-related and personality variables, consequences (emotional well-being) of procrastination, and coping strategies.
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
S.F. Chowdhury, T.A. Pychyl
⁎⁎
10
p < 0.001, two-tailed.
1
2
– .60⁎⁎ − .01
– −.07
⁎⁎
.30 .00 .39⁎⁎
3
⁎⁎
.44 .08 .27⁎⁎
4
5
– .38⁎⁎ − .12
– − .01
– − .24⁎⁎ .03 .41⁎⁎
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procrastination can be conceptualized as an emotion regulation problem, which results in the self-regulation deficits that cause a breakdown of longer-term goal pursuits (Eckert, Ebert, Lehr, Sieland, & Berking, 2016; Pychyl & Sirois, 2016). Consistent with past findings, we also found a considerably strong relation between procrastination and self-regulation failure irrespective of the procrastination measures used. However, the relation between active procrastination and self-regulation was revealed to be in the opposite direction and similar to the relation between purposeful delay and self-regulation. This is not surprising, because active procrastination has been described by Chu and Choi (2005) as a deliberate strategic delay, not a breakdown in volitional action. Similarly, our results demonstrated that active procrastination is not related to other key defining characteristics (i.e., intention-action gap), correlates (i.e., self-efficacy beliefs, conscientiousness, neuroticism), coping strategies (i.e., avoidance coping) and related outcomes (i.e., stress, depression) of procrastination as identified in the extant research literature. The pattern of relations demonstrated in both the correlations and the PCA make it clear that active procrastination is very similar to purposeful delay, not the breakdown in self-regulation that defines procrastination. In fact, if “active procrastinators” are distinct in any way, it may well be they are best defined by their high emotional stability that allows them to work at the last minute and be successful. We found no evidence to support a notion of a positive form of procrastination, but simply delay. This is key, and not distinguishing procrastination from other forms of delay makes the term quite meaningless.
Table 3 Principal component analysis of the overall active procrastination, purposeful and arousal delay scores.
Active procrastination Purposeful delay Arousal delay % of variance Eigenvalues
1
2
.76 .03 .87 44.55 1.14
.36 .96 −.16 35.80 1
consistent with our hypotheses. Interestingly, the negative correlation between active procrastination and neuroticism was of higher magnitude than the correlation between purposeful delay and neuroticism. As such, we ran another Fisher's z-test on the difference between these two correlations which revealed a significant result, z(298) = 2.55, p = .011. With stress, active procrastination also showed a negative relation of higher magnitude than purposeful delay and testing the significance between these correlations showed that they are significantly different from each other, z(298) = 2.49, p = .013. With depression, active procrastination showed a significant negative relation whereas purposeful delay showed no significant relation, contrary to our prediction. However, all measures of procrastination showed a significant positive relation to depression. With emotional support seeking (mistakenly labeled as emotion-oriented coping by Chu and Choi), active procrastination showed no relation, whereas purposeful delay showed a significant positive relation. Only procrastination intensity showed a significant negative relation to emotional support seeking, and general procrastination and irrational delay showed no relation. All measures of procrastination showed significant positive relations to avoidance oriented coping strategy. However, with active procrastination and purposeful delay, avoidance oriented coping showed no significant correlations.
8. Limitation of the present study Despite the careful investigation and strong evidence obtained to demonstrate the poor construct validity of active procrastination, the present study has limitations. One limitation is that the recruitment process was not commenced at the beginning of the semester which increased the possibility of a less representative sample of non-procrastinators or “active procrastinators” in the population. Students who score lower on measures of procrastination are more likely to volunteer for studies early in the term, whereas those who score high on selfreport procrastination measures may leave their participation to later in the term. Notwithstanding this limitation, the present study generated results that matched findings from the study by Haghbin and Pychyl (2015) who collected data throughout all terms across multiple years. Of course, another potential limitation is the reliance on self-report measures, however, as a replication and extension of the previous research, this is appropriate.
7. Discussion Our results provided substantial evidence to argue against the idea that active procrastination is a positive type of procrastination. To make the assertion that active procrastination is a form of procrastination, a basic requirement would be that it relates to the behavioural characteristics of procrastination. Researchers for decades have demonstrated procrastination as a negative, dysfunctional form of delay (e.g., Lay, 1986; Sirois & Pychyl, 2013; Steel, 2007; Van Eerde, 2003). However, active procrastination showed no relation to procrastination behaviour and showed negative relations to all procrastination measures. Active procrastination is a heterogeneous construct as it showed positive relations to two theoretically and empirically distinct constructs: purposeful and arousal delay (e.g., Haghbin, 2015). As Haghbin explained, these two types of delays are not mutually exclusive, an individual can engage in more than one type of delay. Thus, by measuring these constructs separately, a more accurate assessment of people's delay can be obtained which cannot be achieved with a single “active procrastination” construct. Despite the heterogeneous nature of active procrastination, proponents of active procrastination only discussed the positive aspect of this construct, which is very similar to the characteristics and outcomes of purposeful delay and not arousal delay. Overall, we found that the conceptualization of active procrastination is flawed both theoretically and empirically, and both theory and the empirical evidence are central to our discussion. Among the important defining characteristics of procrastination, active procrastination researchers did not assess the role of self-regulation failure in the validation process of active procrastination. Self-regulation failure has received significant attention in procrastination research, because it is an important antecedent to this problematic delay (e.g., Haghbin & Pychyl, 2015; Van Eerde, 2003), with the primacy of mood repair in the short term (Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000). Thus,
9. Conclusion Despite the clear self-defeating nature of procrastination documented in the literature (e.g., Lay, 1986; Steel, 2007; Van Eerde, 2003), Chu & Choi, 2005 and Choi & Moran, 2009 have misappropriately taken an adaptive perspective on procrastination with the creation of the construct “active procrastination.” Clearly, the dichotomy of active and passive procrastination has been oversimplified (Hensley, 2015) and is contributing to nothing but a semantic debate (Haghbin & Pychyl, 2015). By examining the construct validity of active procrastination, we provided evidence that active procrastination may best be conceptualized as a heterogeneous construct that reflects a combination of purposeful and arousal delay, and, consequently, it is inaccurate and misleading to simply label this delay as a form of procrastination. Acknowledgement This research was funded by a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (752-2016-1643) (Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship- Master's) 11
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