Self-Efficacy as a Common Pathway: How Non-Cognitive Individual Differences Shape Academic Procrastination

Academic procrastination is a widespread self-regulatory failure among university students and a costly one for both academic achievement and psychological well-being. In this study, procrastination was examined within the framework of non-cognitive individual differences. The model tested here posits that perfectionism and locus of control affect procrastination through negative automatic thoughts and general self-efficacy. These variable-centered analyses were then complemented with a person-centered approach in order to capture distinct risk profiles. Cross-sectional data were collected from 1003 Turkish university students (71.5% women; Mage = 21.93 years) and analyzed with structural equation modeling, latent profile analysis (LPA), and random forest regression. The structural model accounted for 62% of variance in procrastination (CFI = 0.958, RMSEA = 0.074). Based on these results, general self-efficacy was identified as a common pathway through which distal non-cognitive influences converge on procrastination. The direct effect of automatic thoughts was non-significant, whereas the indirect effect through self-efficacy was strong (indirect effect = 0.51, 95% CI [0.44, 0.58]). LPA identified three profiles: adaptive, average, and vulnerable; the vulnerable profile showed markedly higher procrastination than the adaptive profile (d = 1.21). Random forest analysis indicated no meaningful nonlinearity, with self-efficacy as the dominant predictor. These findings suggest that interventions may benefit from prioritizing general self-efficacy beliefs.