Exploring the Time Preferences by Procrastinators: Night or Day, Which is the One?

Abstract

In study 1, trait procrastinators compared to nonprocrastinators claimed they werè night persons', individuals who are most alert and active in the late afternoon and evening hours. However, there were no significant individual differences in time preference for a set of social and individual activities considered pleasurable. In study 2, participants kept daily records for six straight days of when they had engaged in activities. Proneness toward behavioral (but not decisional) procrastination was significantly related to number of activities performed in the evening. Together, these studies suggest that procrastinators may be`late starters' who prefer to engage in daily activities later in the day rather than early in the morning.

Morningness‐Eveningness Preference, Time Perspective, and Passage of Time Judgments

“…Interestingly, we also found that evening‐types attributed higher scores to future temporal expressions when indicating to what extent these words were used in a near or remote future context. This response pattern could be related to previous studies showing a relationship between morningness‐eveningness and procrastination (Díaz‐Morales et al., 2008; Digdon & Howell, 2008; Ferrari et al., 1997). The tendency of evening‐types to indicate that temporal expressions related to the future were “more future” could show a tendency to avoid certain obligations during the day.…”

Toward an understanding of academic and nonacademic tasks procrastinated by students: The use of daily logs

“…Chronic procrastinators avoid activities that may contain information concerning their true abilities (Ferrari, 1991a) and prefer to work on easy, unchallenging tasks (Ferrari, 1991b;Scher & Ferrari, 1999). Procrastinators make poor estimates about the amount of time needed to complete activities (Lay, 1988), do not act on their intentions to perform a task (Lay & Burns, 1991), and prefer to engage in pleasurable activities earlier in the day, postponing unpleasant tasks until the evening (Ferrari, Harriott, Evans, Lecik--Michna, & Wenger, 1997). The present study extends this research by examining whether students are more likely to delay completion of academic or nonacademic tasks.…”

Academic Procrastination: Associations with Personal, School, and Family Variables

“…Corroborating many other research findings (Blunt & Pylchyl, 2005;Ferrari, et al, 1997;Ferrari & Scher, 2002), adolescents usually avoid difficult and disagreeable tasks that involve high demand of effort and for which they feel unprepared, and that could explain why procrastination increases with the number of course years failed (Blunt & Pylchyl, 2005;Boice, 1993Boice, , 1995Costa, 2007;Onwuegbuzie, 2000;Walker, 2004…”