The Relationship Between Procrastination and Emotions

Procrastination is conceptualized as an emotion regulation strategy that provides short-term mood repair. Yet research into how emotions function with respect to procrastination has focused mainly on negative emotions, with less research on positive and mixed emotions. Adopting the mood-repair conceptualization of procrastination as a theoretical framework, this thesis offers three studies that examined how procrastination is associated with negative, positive and mixed emotions, as well as which factors may influence these relationships. Study 1 (reported in Chapter 2) demonstrates the findings of a cross-sectional study, which found that procrastination, as a trait-like quality, was associated with higher levels of negative and mixed emotions, and lower levels of positive emotions. Sequential mediation analysis showed that less perceived social support and high threat appraisals explained the positive relationship between trait procrastination and negative emotions. Study 2 (reported in Chapter 3) demonstrates the findings of an experience-sampling study that examined the dynamic relationships between situational procrastination and emotions, and what role goal characteristics (i.e., goal motivation, goal focus and goal conflict) might play in these relationships. Results revealed that procrastination was positively associated with momentary negative and mixed emotions but not with positive emotions. Multilevel logistic regression analysis showed that controlled motivation and outcome focus exacerbated the effect of negative emotions in prompting procrastination. The experience of mixed emotions explained why people procrastinated more when faced with daily goal conflict. Study 3 (reported in Chapter 4) presents the findings of an experimental study that investigated whether adaptively regulating emotions is beneficial for reducing procrastination. When faced with aversive goals that elicit negative emotions, reappraising the goals by assigning meaning or cultivating positive emotions were both effective in reducing procrastination. Overall, this thesis provides strong evidence that emotional distress (e.g., the experience of negative or mixed emotions) associated with performing intended goals is a root cause of procrastination. In addition, loss of positive emotions associated with goal achievement may contribute to procrastination. The implications of these findings and avenues for future research are discussed in Chapter 5.