xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cause and Effect Essay page 1 of 6

What Lead to Students’ Procrastination?

At the end of the winter vacation, some students efficiently finish their assignments.

And yet the same students cannot complete their homework in the first half of the holiday.

Similar things happen when a deadline is approaching. But these phenomena are not

coincidences. According to Tim Urban (2016), the short period right before the due date is

when people work with the highest efficiency (p.1). This phenomenon is caused by

procrastination, an action of frequent delaying with the awareness of the negative outcome.

Procrastination has two components, the task to be done and the performer of the task. The

task itself is often objective, therefore, the person’s attitude has stronger effects on his

behavior. Generally, people procrastinate for three reasons: inaccurate personal evaluation of

the task, poor time management, and the lack of conscientiousness.

People will evaluate their tasks at the first sight, but the evaluation differs from person

to person. Self-efficacy is a key factor that affects people’s judgement. According to Albert

Bandura’s (1997) definition, “Perceived self‐efficacy is concerned with people's beliefs in

their ability to influence events that affect their lives” (p.1). He then stated that this

fundamental thought motivates people to finish the work and to pursue emotional well-being

(p.1). In other words, when a task is rewarding enough, the performer will

have stronger incentive to complete the task immediately. The executioner will have little

motivation if the payback cannot match his expectation. To pursue success, people tend to

avoid tasks that have higher risks of failure. If a mission is unavoidable, people will then

delay the task in order to psychologically comfort themselves. This is how ordinary people
 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cause and Effect Essay page 1 of 6

become procrastinators. As L.A. Haycock (1998) says in his research, efficacy can greatly

influence procrastination (p.317).

Accurate self-assessment is another aspect of personal task evaluation. On the one

hand, overconfidence always results in not reserving enough time for preparation. On the

other hand, lack of confidence may induce the intention to escape due to fear, anxiety or

concern etc. For example, if a student is too confident about his writing, he would consider a

writing assignment as a dull, meaningless process. Thus, the student might postpone this

writing assignment until deadline. However, he would spend much longer than he had

planned because he overestimates his true capability. Since the time is extremely limited, the

student could only muddle through his work and the result is naturally unsatisfying. This

negative feedback can be a blow to his confidence. The same process will repeat at next

writing assignment, not because of his arrogance, but because of his lack of confidence. The

longer the student procrastinates, the less confident the student becomes. This vicious circle

will not end until the student is able to estimate his true capability. So, reasonable evaluation

of a task lays the foundation of solving the task.

Even with a reasonable evaluation of the task, some students still procrastinate due to

their poor time management. Procrastinators may fail to manage their time because they don’t

have several abilities. First, procrastinators may not correctly analyze the priority of all affairs

within a certain time period. For instance, students should consider that an academic research

paper due next Sunday is superior to the vlog due next month. However, many students don’t

apply this rule when making plans. They simply list out all the affairs and stuff those affairs
 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cause and Effect Essay page 1 of 6

casually into the calendar. This kind of planning only leaves performers a vague impression of

“I’ve got a lot of things to do”. Thoughts like this can cause anxiety and increase the intension

of delaying the task.

Second, procrastinators often fail to break a complicated entirety into small pieces that

are easier to cope with. Thus, students cannot make methodically detailed schedules. If a plan

is not detailed enough, its performers won’t clearly know when to do what and for how long.

However, things are very different if students reasonably make their plans step by step. If a

student postpones one step, he will probably postpone the next step as well. The influence

between steps forces a student to strictly follow his plan. Otherwise, the whole plan will be

affected seriously. Therefore, students will have less room to procrastinate.

Third, the ability to execute the plan is also important. Time management is not only

about making a plan, it is more about carrying it out. Students should work efficiently to

finish every step they arranged on time. Working with low efficiency is a waste of time and

will influence performers’ judgement when dividing the steps next time. But it is not easy for

students to ensure their work efficiency because they always face abundant external

interference. Therefore, students must know how to keep concentrated on their work. The key

is conscientiousness, an important internal factor that most procrastinators are lack of.

According to Piers Steel (2007), conscientiousness greatly affects procrastination. Its

facets, including self-discipline, distraction and achievement motivation are all essential. He

wrote that procrastination has physiological origin because of two parts in the brain. (p.65-94)
 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cause and Effect Essay page 1 of 6

One is the prefrontal cortex that helps human think in the long run and make plans. The other

is the cerebral limbic system that governs what people do at present. When our brains

develop, the cerebral limbic system completes its evolution earlier than the prefrontal cortex,

and is more powerful because it relies on human instinct. The cerebral limbic system creates

instinctive impulse such as physical needs including hunger and thirst as well as mental

requirements such as playing computer games. If students fail to resist the instinctive urge,

they would put aside their tasks to satisfy their instant needs first. However, every time a

student gives in to his impulse, his working efficiency drops. The student will then spend

longer time finishing the task. The delayed completion cannot increase the happiness of

completing the task. Instead, it arouses a sense of guilty because of his failure in self-

discipline. The guiltiness reduces achievement motivation.

Besides mental suppression, reduced achievement motivation also weakens the

student’s ability of concentration so that he is easier to be distracted. The less concentrated a

student is, the more likely the student is to delay his completion. The struggle between “the

eagerness to improve concentration” and “being unable to concentrate” strikes the student’s

self-esteem. Low self-esteem influences his view of the world around him and finally leads to

his inaccurate evaluation of his task. This vicious circle makes procrastinators procrastinate.

However, things are very different if students have strong conscientiousness. Being

conscientious provides students with internal motivation and help them resist their instinctive

impulse. Thus, the vicious circle is broken and procrastinating is stopped.

 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cause and Effect Essay page 1 of 6

Due to wrong evaluation of the task, students procrastinate to escape from the fear and

anxiety temporarily. Because of their poor time management, students procrastinate without

precise arrangements. Without enough conscientiousness, procrastinators are easy to be

interrupted due to the lack of self-discipline and the reduced achievement motivation. But

procrastinating solves nothing. We should be aware of this and face the task directly doing

scientific evaluation, time management, and be responsible for our tasks.

References
 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cause and Effect Essay page 1 of 6

Bandura, A. (2010). Self‐efficacy. The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology, 1-3.

Haycock, L. A., McCarthy, P., & Skay, C. L. (1998). Procrastination in college students: The

role of self‐efficacy and anxiety. Journal of counseling & development, 76(3), 317-324

Klingsieck, K. B. (2013). Procrastination. European Psychologist (2013), 18, pp. 24-34.

Steel, P (2007). The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of

Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure. Psychological Bulletin 2007, Vol. 133, No 1,

65–94

Urban, T. (2016). Inside the mind of a master procrastinator. [online] Ted. com.