Students’ Anticipated Negative Consequences of Procrastination Behavior and Momentary Affective Experiences

Abstract: Procrastination involves unnecessarily postponing planned tasks, although it is experienced as unpleasant and possible negative consequences are cognitively represented. There is little research on the effect of these anticipated negative consequences on the long-term relationship between procrastination behavior and affect. Therefore, we analyzed this relationship using an experience-sampling design. Fifty-six students (75 % female, M age = 22.34, SD age = 3.51) participated in the study over 14 days (1,188 measurements). We analyzed the relationships between the anticipated negative consequences of procrastination behavior and affect using Bayesian hierarchical cross-lagged modeling, controlling for gender, age, and procrastination tendency. The results suggest that anticipating negative consequences significantly determined procrastination behavior and negative affect over time. In addition, we found significant cross-lagged effects between procrastination behavior and negative affect: Procrastination behavior determined a weaker experienced negative affect, while a more robust experienced negative affect determined more procrastination behavior. Procrastination behavior and negative affect were interrelated over time. Procrastination behavior predicted less negative affect, while experienced negative affect predicted a higher likelihood of procrastination behavior. We found no significant associations with experienced positive affect. One conclusion is that anticipating the negative consequences of procrastination can stimulate procrastination behavior and experienced negative affect rather than stimulating action on the planned task. Accordingly, cognitively anticipated negative consequences and experienced negative affect are relevant for future procrastination research, especially for procrastination prevention and the application of adaptive regulation strategies.