Sometimes it might feel like you’re the only one procrastinating, that you’re the only one who doesn’t start working in time. A look at the procrastination research shows that most people procrastinate to a degree and that procrastination is a major problem for a large part of the population.
academic procrastination
For many students procrastination is an essential part of the college lifestyle. We’ve all heard the anecdotes about the all-nighters, the late term papers and the creative excuses people come up with. According to Ellis & Knaus [1977] around 70% of all college students procrastinate. That’s a huge percentage of the student population.
pre-internet procrastination
It’s worth noting that these figures are from the late 70s. I wasn’t around back then, but I’m pretty sure that ubiquitous internet connections, cell phones and computers weren’t available for the students of that time. Despite that , those who were students then, procrastinated — a lot.
That tells us something about the problem of procrastination — it’s not about the distractions around us. Yes, you might be spending a lot of time on Facebook, on Youtube or on reading blogs, but that doesn’t mean that those things are the cause of your procrastination. They are merely the symptoms, the displacement activities you use. [displacement activity = the thing you do instead of doing what you should be doing]
More recent studies confirm that procrastination is common. One study from 1984 (still pre-ubiquitous-internet) reports that half of all students say that procrastination is a moderately or highly problematic problem for them [Solomon et al]. Day gives a similar picture, reporting that about 50% of college students procrastinate chronically [Day et al. 2000].
procrastination is normally distributed
Schouwenburg — editor of the the book Counseling the Procrastinator in Academic Settings
– writes about procrastination in a conference paper from 2005. He discusses the results of a procrastination survey that was given to two thousand students. When the data from the survey is plotted on a diagram, you see that procrastination is normally distributed among students. The base rate of procrasination is high, that is, most students procrastinate to at least some degree.
problematic procrastination?
Schouwenburg notes that there’s no clear definition of when procrastination should be classified as problematic or chronic. Many arbitrary conventions are used. For example, if you define people who according to the survey procrastinate one standard deviation more than the mean as problematic procrastinators, you end up with a figure of about 10%. In other words, for about 200 of the two thousand students who participated in the survey, procrastination is a major problem.
the rest of the population
That students procrastinate a lot is hardly surprising. But what about the rest of the population? Are adults, working in ‘real’ jobs with ‘real’ deadlines, and where postponements result in ‘real’ consequences doing any better? Perhaps, but not by a large degree.
Depending a bit on which data you look at, it looks like about one in five have major problems with procrastination. That’s what McCown and Johnson reported in a paper from 1989. It’s worth noting that for forty percent of the people, procrastination had caused significant financial loss. Schouwenburg writes that one fifth of all students say that they procrastinate when it comes to doing routine tasks such as paying the bills or the taxes, or visiting the doctor’s office (Schouwenburg, 2004).
summary
It’s clear that procrastination is prevalent, especially among college students. This can be comforting to know while you’re struggling with getting started. It also means that if you manage to reduce or eliminate your procrastination behavior, you’ll be far ahead of a large part of the population.
References
Ellis, A., & Knaus, W. J. (1977). Overcoming procrastination. New York: Signet Books.
Day, V., Mensink, D., & O’Sullivan, M. (2000). Patterns of academic procrastination. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 30, 120–134.
McCown, W., & Johnson, J. (1989). Validation of an adult inventory of procrastination. Paper presented at the Society for Personality Assessment, New York.
Solomon, L. J., & Rothblum, E. D. (1984). Academic procrastination: Frequency and
cognitive-behavioral correlates. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 31, 503-509.
Schouwenburg, H. C. (2004). Trait procrastination in academic settings: An overview of students who engage in task delays. In H.C. Schouwenburg, C. Lay, T. Pylchyl, & J. Ferrari, (Eds.), Counselling the procrastinator in academic settings (pp. 3-18). Washington: American Psychological Association.
Schouwenburg. On Counselling the Procrastinator in Academic settings. Fedora Psyche Conference. June, 2005.