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Differential incidence of procrastination between blue and white-collar workers

Article  in  Current Psychology · January 2002

DOI: 10.1007/s12144-002-1022-y

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Hammer and Ferrari 333

Differential Incidence of
Procrastination Between Blue-
and White-Collar Workers
COREY A. HAMMER AND JOSEPH R. FERRARI
DePaul University

The present study compared chronic procrastination tendencies claimed by “white-

collar” working adults (n = 141) with rated reported by Harriott and Ferrari (1996)
of “blue-collar” working adults (n = 211). Participants completed reliable and
valid measures of everyday procrastination tendencies (decisional, arousal, and
avoidant), and socio-demographic items at one of several public forums. Results
showed no significant difference between classes of working adults on age, gen-
der, marital status, or the number of children, although “white-collar” workers
claimed higher levels of education than “blue-collar” workers. “White-collar”
workers also reported significantly higher scores on all three forms of chronic
procrastination than “blue-collar” workers. It seems that professional employees
report procrastination more frequently than unskilled workers. Further research
is needed to explore the causes and consequences associated with differences in
chronic procrastination by occupational group.

C hronic procrastinators (i.e., persons who frequently delay in starting and/or

completing tasks) tend to make fraudulent excuses for delaying at important
deadlines (Ferrari, 1993), engage in self-handicapping behaviors to protect/enhance
their self-esteem (Ferrari, 1991a; Ferrari & Tice, 2000), favor downward social
comparison strategies (Ferrari, 1991b), and avoid self-relevant of performance
evaluations (Ferrari, 1991c). These studies indicate that procrastination is a
personality variable with important consequences for individuals and is not simply
a “time-management” problem (Ferrari, McCown, & Johnson, 1995). Unfortunately,
little published research has explored the prevalence rates of procrastination among
the general adult public (e.g., Prohaska, Morrill, Atiles, & Perez, 2000).
Using various adult samples, Harriott and Ferrari (1996) investigated three forms
of procrastination: decisional procrastination (a tendency to delay making deci-
sions); arousal procrastination (a behavioral pattern whereby delays make a per-
son experience a “high” when rushing to complete tasks); and, avoidant
procrastination (another behavioral form of task delays such that failure can be
attributed to low self-confidence and self-esteem). See Ferrari et al. (1995) and
Ferrari & Pychyl (2000) for details. Estimates by both men and women of chronic
procrastination tendencies were reported by approximately 20% across various adult
samples. Level of education was a demographic variable associated only with deci-
sional procrastination, such that individuals possessing a college or post-college
Current Psychology: Developmental, Learning, Personality, Social. Winter 2002-2003, Vol. 21,
No. 4, pp. 333-338.
334 Current Psychology / Winter 2002-2003

education reported less indecision than those persons with or without a high school
diploma.
It should be noted that Harriott and Ferrari (1996) reported chronic procrastina-
tion tendencies from samples of “blue-collar” (i.e., unskilled, working class) men
and women. Participants were members of the public invited to attend forums cov-
ering public interest topics, such as procrastination. Posters, flyers, and newspaper
ads placed throughout the local community informed the public about the upcom-
ing speaker series. Because the attendees in Harriott and Ferrari (1996) were drawn
from the public there was no way to examine individual differences between person’s
labeled “blue-collar” and those persons considered “white-collar” (professional and
semi-professional employees). Understanding how frequent procrastination tenden-
cies in the U.S. may differ based on socio-economic level would provide further
insight into “who procrastinates.” Given the relatively high rate of reported chronic
procrastination among 20% of men and women, in this highly exploratory study we
did not expect to find higher levels of chronic procrastination among one group
compared to the other group of workers.

METHODS

All participants (93 women, 61 men; M age = 42.34) were volunteers who at-
tended a public talk on “Procrastination” given by the second author. They were
recruited from chamber of commerce meetings among residents of a large western
suburban city of Chicago, IL, with greater than 90% of residents identified as pro-
fessional “white collar” employees. Prior to the start of the meetings, all attendees
completed demographic items (age, sex, marital status [i.e., divorced, widowed,
separated], number of children, occupation, and length of time at their current job)
and three measures of procrastination, presented in a counterbalanced order. The
measures of chronic procrastination administered in this study were the same three
5-point Likert scales (1 = “not true for me”; 5 = “true for me”) used by Harriott and
Ferrari (1996). Specifically, they were Mann’s (1982) 5-item Decisional Procrasti-
nation Scale, to assess indecision (DP), McCown and Johnson’s (1989) 15-item
Adult Procrastination Inventory, to measure avoidant procrastination tendencies
(AvP), and Lay’s (1986) 20-item General Procrastination Scale, to record arousal
procrastination tendencies (ArP). Each of these research inventories have accept-
able internal consistencies (alpha > .70: for present sample, see Table 1) and con-
struct and predictive validities (Ferrari et al., 1995; Ferrari & Pychyl, 2000). It took
all participants less than 20 minutes to complete all items.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Consistent with previous results (e.g., Ferrari et al., 1995; Harriott & Ferrari,
1996), no significant gender differences were reported in the present sample; and,
bivariate correlates between each procrastination measure were significant although
the magnitude of the coefficients were not especially large (see Table 1). Partial
Hammer and Ferrari 335

TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics, Coefficient Alphas, and Correlations
for the Procrastination Scales

Procrastination M SD DP ArP AvP

Decisional 12.40 5.02 (.87)

Procrastination (DP)
Arousal 62.17 8.65 .47* (.68)
Procrastination (ArP)
Avoidant 44.79 10.42 .46* .67* (.76)
Procrastination (AvP)

n = 141 * p < 0.0005 Values in parentheses are Cronbach alphas

correlations, controlling for age, were not significantly different from bivariate cor-
relates, indicating that age did not contribute a significant amount of variance to
the association between types of procrastination measured in this sample.
Similar to Harriott and Ferrari (1996), the present data were analyzed using sepa-
rate one-way multivariate analyses of variance to explore differences in rates of
procrastination based upon occupational, level of education attained, marital sta-
tus, and the number of children. Table 2 shows the mean scores on each measure of
procrastination across these demographic variables, as well the number of partici-
pants in each analysis. No significant multivariate differences were found on any of
the variables.
Because the present study’s sample was composed of “white-collar” workers,
we next compared procrastination rates with those reported by Harriott and Ferrari
(1996)’s “blue-collar” workers, using three independent sample t-tests. All three
forms of chronic procrastination showed a significant difference between the present
“white-collar” sample and Harriott and Ferrari’s (1996) “blue-collar” sample (see
Table 3). Participants in the present sample reported higher levels of decisional,
avoidant, and arousal procrastination than participants in Harriott and Ferrari (1996).
Within the present sample, participants were all professional, “white-collar” em-
ployees. Harriott and Ferrari (1996) used a sample of adults that were “blue-collar”
working adults. Level of education differed between the sample reported by Harriott
and Ferrari (1996) and the present sample, with the latter sample (college and/or
graduate educated) better educated than the former (high school graduates). Al-
though quite speculative, it seems that there may well be differences in chronic
procrastination rates among economic levels of occupation in the U.S., with rates
higher among college educated professionals than among the high school educated
working-class employees.
Perhaps, “blue-collar” workers feel less secure in their jobs, which in turn prompt
them to work to decrease mistakes and behaviors that may lead to dismissal. In
fact, “blue collar” workers experience less job security and believe that it would
not be easy to find a comparable job if they lose their current position, compared to
336 Current Psychology / Winter 2002-2003

TABLE 2
Mean Procrastination Score by Demographic Characteristics for the Current Sample

Characteristics n DP AvP ArP

Occupation:
commerce 76 15.38 46.85 62.94
education 22 14.20 43.60 60.80
other “white collar” 43 14.00 43.78 63.33

Education:
HS Diploma or Less 31 14.92 49.25 66.17
bachelor’s degree 66 15.20 45.23 62.77
graduate degree 44 14.65 44.60 61.90

Marital Status:
single 97 15.25 38.50 63.00
married 11 14.93 44.96 62.78
was married 33 14.15 49.23 62.38

Number of Children
0 44 13.90 44.35 62.95
1 23 17.80 49.00 70.60
2 52 13.83 43.79 58.33
3 11 17.00 51.20 66.00
4 6 14.50 40.50 59.00
5 5 14.00 52.00 75.25

Note. DP = decisional procrastination; AvP = avoidant procrastination;

ArP = arousal procrastination

TABLE 3
Mean Procrastination Score Reported by Current Participants Compared
to Adults in Harriott & Ferrari (1996)

Present Sample Harriott & Ferrari (1996)

(n = 141) (n = 211) t p
Decisional procrastination 12.41 10.9 –3.01 .01
Arousal procrastination 62.18 48.8 –9.64 .001
Avoidant procrastination 44.80 35.4 –8.87 .001
_______________________________________________________________________
Hammer and Ferrari 337

their “white-collar” employees (Matthews & Weaver, 1996). Job insecurity also
may promote more work effort among employees in order to avoid job termina-
tion (Brockner, Grove, Reed, & DeWitt, 1992). This speculative interpretation
of the present results needs further research investigation. Nevertheless, sig-
nificant differences between occupations in the U.S. on reported chronic pro-
crastination tendencies have important implications for society. As a society,
we need to address what in many or even most circumstances represents a mal-
adaptive lifestyle, and as a culture, we need to identify individuals with this ten-
dency in order to create effective preventive and intervening strategies for
populations within the U.S.

NOTES

Accepted for publication: February 28, 2001. The authors are grateful to Bill Calzaretta, who
facilitated the public presentation where the data were collected.
Address correspondence to: Joseph R. Ferrari, Department of Psychology, DePaul Univer-
sity, 2219 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614. E-mail: jferrari@depaul.edu

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