Committed action: An initial study on its association to procrastination in academic settings

Abstract

Despite the relevance of the notion of committed action in the study of procrastination, this construct and theoretical approach has been largely absent in past research. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the variable of committed action from the Psychological Flexibility (PF) model drawn from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy would add incremental variance in the prediction of self-reported procrastination over and above the variables of: psychological distress, acceptance, cognitive fusion, and attention to the present-moment. The sample was comprised of 323 (82.7% female) French-Canadian university students. Results from a three-stage hierarchical multiple regression revealed that committed action added unique and significant variance in the prediction of self-reported procrastination. Moreover, committed action was the strongest predictor in our model contributing more to the prediction of procrastination than psychological distress, acceptance, cognitive fusion, and attention to the present-moment. The unique contribution of committed action brings additional evidence on the applicability of the PF model in the study of procrastination among university students and illustrates the importance of taking into account the behavioral processes from the engaged axis of the PF model in the study of procrastination among university students.