مقایسه اجتماعی توسط تعویق کنندگان:رتبه بندی همسالان با تمایلات تاخیر مشابه و یا متفاوت

Abstract This study examined how procrastinators judge a peer who delays academic or everyday real-world activities. Participants (103 women, 57 men) previously self-reported procrastination tendencies and then read a brief hypothetical conversation between a procrastinator or a non-procrastinator focusing on either academic tasks (declaring a major, studying, and working on an assignment) or everyday tasks (buying tickets for a concert, making vacation travel plans, getting a summer job). Participants then were asked to allocate monetary resources, via choice matrices, and to complete rating and attribution scales regarding both persons in the conversations. Results indicated that across academic and everyday activities procrastinators favored non-procrastinators by attributing to similar procrastinating peers fewer resources, lower character ratings, and more internal attributes for performance. Implications related to the social perceptions of procrastinators suggest that persons with high rates of task delays are dissatisfied with the delay tendencies of other procrastinators, perhaps reflecting a dislike of their own behavior style.

1. Introduction Procrastination may be defined as a needless delay of a relevant and timely task, estimated to be as high as 20% among normal adult men and women (see Ferrari, Johnson, & McCown, 1995; Harriott & Ferrari, 1996). People who self-report frequent procrastination are more likely to engage in self-handicapping behaviors ( Ferrari, 1991b; Ferrari & Tice, 2000), positive impression management ( Ferrari, 1991a), avoidance of self-relevant evaluations ( Ferrari, 1991c), and fraudulent excuses attributing task delays to factors other than themseleves ( Ferrari, 1993; Ferrari, Keane, Wolfe, & Beck, 1998). Chronic procrastination is related to a host of traits, including low states of self-confidence and self-esteem and high states of depression, neurosis, public self-consciousness, social anxiety, forgetfulness, disorganization, non-competitiveness, dysfunctional impulsiveness, behavioral rigidity, and lack of energy ( Beswick, Rothblum, & Mann, 1988; Effert & Ferrari, 1989; Ferrari, 1991a, Ferrari, 1991b, Ferrari, 1991c, Ferrari, 1992, Ferrari, 1993 and Ferrari, 1994; Lay, 1986; Senecal, Koestner, & Vallerand, 1995). Studies have found that fear of failure may be a primary motive for procrastination (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984), and people report they delay more on tasks they perceive as unpleasant, boring, or difficult (Milgram, Sroloff, & Rosenbaum, 1988). Baumeister and Scher (1988) classified procrastination as self-defeating behavior that reflects the person’s willingness to perform tasks poorly (i.e., exam failure) in exchange for its short-term advantages (i.e., reduced amount of effort). Ferrari (2001) found that procrastination may be considered as ineffective self-regulation of performance. In short, procrastination is a complex phenomenon. While situational task delays may appear to be a breakdown in structural components of action, for persons who report chronic procrastination purposive delays may be a motivated deficit. Burka and Yuen (1983) observed that most chronic procrastinators are unhappy with their frequent delay tendencies and attribute their failures to themselves. Little is known, however, how procrastinators perceive peers with similar delaying tendencies. A study conducted by Ferrari (1992) may yield some insights in this area. Working adults self-reported their tendency toward frequent avoidant procrastination (i.e., a tendency to delay tasks motivated by avoidance of performance valuation, as opposed to delays designed to heighten arousal from “rushing”). At a later point, procrastinators and non-procrastinators evaluated the poor performance of a fictitious employee described either as a “procrastinator” or a “perfectionist.” All participants agreed that the employee’s performance delays would adversely affect the company’s productivity. However, only procrastinators deemed it necessary to have this employee penalized by not performing his usual duties and should be fired from his position (regardless of whether the employee was labeled either a procrastinator or perfectionist). Both men and women procrastinators evaluated the fictitious employee’s delaying performance as a direct reflection of the person’s abilities as opposed to some external factor. This study by Ferrari suggests that procrastinators, perhaps, “project” resentment of their own inadequacies onto peers who thereby deserve to be punished for their delay tendencies, despite the fact that they are similar to themselves. These findings have implications for the way people perceive others who are similar to themselves. Demonstrating that procrastinators are viewed negatively by their peers has implications for understanding the dynamics of public perceptions of task delays, and may be useful when designing interventions to reduce this maladaptive life style among chronic procrastinators. In the current study, participants formed impressions of two strangers from reading (bogus) conversation transcripts or narratives, a procedure similar to Khan and Lambert’s (1998) “get acquainted paradigm”. In that study participants read a conversation between two students whose gender was apparent only by name (i.e. “Ann” and “Jim”). The present study asked participants to read a conversation between the two strangers given gender-neutral names (“Pat” and “Chris”), but one character was described as a “procrastinator” while the other a “non-procrastinator”. Conversation transcripts involved either academic-related or everyday activities. Participants then rated each character and allocated monetary resources via choice-matrices (see Turner, Brown, & Tajfel, 1979). Because negative traits may be related to procrastinators (see Ferrari et al., 1995), and procrastinators tend to suggest harsh reprimands to other procrastinators (Ferrari, 1992), it is hypothesized that the stronger a person’s self-reported procrastination tendencies the less resources would be allocated to someone described as similar to themselves (i.e., another procrastinator).

3. Results 3.1. Manipulation checks Initially, independent sample t tests for gender and narrative group differences on AIP scores were performed. There was no significant gender difference on AIP scores, p=0.79 (M male score=37.33, SD=9.74 ; M female score=36.74, SD= 11.24). There also was no significant difference on AIP scores, p=0.60, between respondents in the academic narrative (M score=36.56, SD=11.61) and respondents in the everyday narrative (M score=35.68, SD=9.92). A chi square analysis for frequencies on perceptions of the sex of each character indicated that participants did not consider Pat to be significantly more a woman (48%) than a man (52%), p=0.22, nor Chris to be significantly more a woman (47%) than a man (53%), p=0.18. These results suggest that both characters were perceived as gender-neutral persons. An independent sample t test between conversation narratives assessed whether participants believed one story was more or less realistic than another. There was no significant difference in perceptions between narratives, p=0.58; overall, participants claimed the narratives they read were realistic conversations (M=5.11, SD=1.02). Independent sample t tests also were performed between conversation narratives on the percentage of peers participants knew matched behaviors of Pat or Chris. For Pat’s behaviors, there were no significant percentage differences between narratives, p=0.19; participants indicated they knew peers whose behaviors matched this “non-procrastinator” for academic tasks (M=46.9%, SD=21.9%) and the summer setting (M=51.5%, SD=20.7%). For Chris’s behaviors, there also were no significant percentage differences between narratives, p=0.22; participants knew peers whose behaviors matched this “procrastinator” for academic tasks (M=52.8%, SD=22.5%) and the summer setting (M=48.6%, SD=20.5%). 3.2. Character impression scales Zero-order correlates between AIP scores and ratings on the character impression scales for Pat (the non-procrastinator) and Chris (the procrastinator) were performed separately for the academic and everyday narratives. As can be noted from Table 1, for the academic-related narrative, there was a significant negative coefficient between AIP scores and a perception that Pat was similar to the participant, but a significant positive coefficient with the perception that Chris is similar to the participant. For the everyday narrative, there was a significant positive relation between perceived similarity with the procrastinator character and AIP scores. These results imply that procrastinators identified less with the non-procrastinator character and more with the non-procrastinator character, respectively. Furthermore, across characters and narratives, there were significant positive relations between AIP scores and the perception that both characters were responsible for their actions (or, non-acts in the case of Chris). Table 1 also indicates that for Pat there were no significant relations across narratives between AIP scores and whether this character was perceived as someone who was annoying or a pleasure to know. However, across narratives Chris was perceived as someone who was annoying to know. In addition, the significant negative relation between AIP scores and ratings on how pleasurable it was to know this character suggests that Chris was perceived as someone whom it was not a pleasure to know in either the academic or everyday narratives. Table 1. Zero-order correlates between self-reported procrastination scores and character impression ratings across narratives Procrastination scores Academic Everyday Narrative (n=80) Narrative (n=80) Pat [a non-procrastinator] is: …similar to me −0.429** 0.017 …responsible for behaviors 0.542** 0.563** …an annoying person to know 0.189 −0.040 …a pleasure to know −0.139 −0.184 Chris [a procrastinator] is: …similar to me 0.383** 0.343** …responsible for behaviors 0.655** 0.691** …an annoying person to know 0.230* 0.301* …a pleasure to know −0.283* −0.376** n=160 (103 women, 57 men). * p<0.05. ** p<0.01. Table options 3.3. Attribution scales Table 2 presents zero-order correlates between AIP scores and attribution ratings for Pat (the non-procrastinator) and Chris (the procrastinator) in both academic and everyday task situations. As noted from the table, there were no significant correlates between AIP scores and internal or external attributes for Pat on either narrative. However, for Chris AIP scores were significantly negatively related to attributes of ability and task difficulty, and positively related to attributes of effort (but not luck) in both academic and everyday narratives. These results indicate that procrastinators perceived a peer described as someone who delays task completions to have greater internal (but unstable and changeable) than external attributes as a cause for his/her actions. Table 2. Zero-order correlates between self-reported procrastination scores and character attribution ratings across narratives Procrastination scores Academic Everyday Narrative (n=80) Narrative (n=80) The actions by Pat [a non-procrastinator] is attributed to: …ability 0.117 0.137 …effort 0.201 0.199 …task difficulty 0.218 0.135 …luck 0.060 0.103 The actions by Chris [a procrastinator] is attributed to: …ability −0.290* −0.238* …effort 0.244* 0.321** …task difficulty −0.366** −0.313** …luck −0.150 −0.133 n=160 (103 women, 57 men). * p<0.05. ** p<0.01. Table options 3.4. Allocation of monetary resources Finally, zero-order correlates were performed between AIP scores and allocation of resources for Pat (the non-procrastinator) and Chris (the procrastinator) in both academic and everyday tasks. For the academic narrative, AIP scores were significantly positively related to allocations offered to Pat (r=0.370, p<0.01), and were significantly negatively related to allocations provided to Chris (r=−0.390, p<0.01). Participants in this condition allowed, on average, 14.07 resources (SD=1.55) to Pat and 11.09 resources (SD=2.01) to Chris. For the everyday (summer) narrative, AIP scores were not significantly related to allocations to Pat (r=0.159), but were significantly negatively related to allocations to Chris (r=−0.571, p<0.01). Participants in this condition allowed, on average, 12.05 resources (SD=1.28) to Pat and 10.01 resources (SD=1.15) to Chris. These results indicated that procrastinators allocate fewer resources to a similar peer, described as a procrastinator, across different situations.