Psychological and Behavioral Predictors of Procrastination in Undergraduates

Abstract

Utilizing previous work in personality theory, implicit theory of intelligence, goal orientation, and self-efficacy theory, we conducted this exploratory study to identify predictors of general procrastination tendencies among undergraduates. We analyzed a sample of 267 undergraduate students from introductory psychology courses at a public rural university. A standard multiple regression analysis using IBM SPSS Statistics was performed on 16 psychological variables and 1 behavioral variable to identify presence of predictive influence on the dependent variable of procrastination as measured by Lay (1986) for college student populations. Regression analysis revealed that the model achieved significance at predicting procrastination in undergraduate students, F(17, 249) = 14.73, p < .001, r2 = .50, adj r2 = .47. The resultant model identified 4 significant predictors and 9 additional significant correlates, 7 of which were significant at p < .01. Positive predictors included growth mindset beliefs (β=. 16, p = .003) and academic entitlement beliefs (β = .12, p = .023). Negative predictors included conscientiousness (β = –.55, p < .001) and college student efficacy beliefs (β=– .17, p = .011). These findings are consistent with previous work and further support the roles and directional influences of conscientiousness, college student efficacy beliefs, and implicit theory of intelligence beliefs on procrastination, and add to the growing literature on academic entitlement beliefs.