THE ROLE OF AN INDIVIDUAL’S TEMPORAL PERSPECTIVE PECULIARITIES IN PROCRASTINATION PROPENSITY FORMATION

Abstract

Because of the dynamism and rapid pace of social reality transformations, an individual should effectively manage his/her own time, which is a prerequisite for his/her success in various spheres of life. Therefore, the phenomenon of procrastination, that is, irrational postponement of important matters, which is a cause of many negative consequences, is increasingly in the focus of scholars. Trying to find the determinants of procrastination development, scientists focus on relationships of this concept with different individual human properties. Scientists often indicate the specificity of an individual’s time perspective as one of the important characteristics that may predispose his/her dilatory behaviour. Therefore, the article purpose is to empirically study the relationship of features of an individual's time perspective with his/her propensity for procrastination. The following methods were used as methods of investigation: the technique of procrastination diagnostics proposed by O. Zhuravlova and O. Zhuravlov; P. Steel’s Pure Procrastination Scale; F. Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory. The sample consisted of 347 people from 18 to 47 year old. Among them, 20.7 % were men and 79.3 % were women. The most pronounced was the relationship between the general level of procrastination and the future temporal orientation (r = -0.389, p <0.01). This correlation was negative, which meant that the growth of one indicators was proportional to the decrease of the other. The results of the empirical study indicated decreased expressiveness of the respondents’ future perspective (r = -0.389, p <0.01) with stronger negative past orientation (r = 0.264, p <0.01). This suggests that dilatory behaviour is based on traumatic experiences in situations when an individual's activities were evaluated. O. Sennyk’ idea is interesting in the outlined context, according to which, in the case of an individual’s fixation on his/her own negative past experience, he/she develops a fatalistic orientation to the present. This hypothesis is confirmed by the results of empirical research, indicating a direct correlation (r = 0.273, p <0.01) between the scales of general procrastination and the present fatalistic attitude. A close correlation was found out between the present hedonistic time perspective and the integral index of procrastination formation (r = 0.268, p <0.01). The implemented regression analysis showed that the predictors of procrastination were orientation to the negative past (at p <0.05, β = 0.18), orientation to the hedonistic present (at p <0.05, β = 0.15) and temporal orientation to the future (at p <0.05, β = 0.38). Thus, referring to the outlined patterns, we can say that the features of an individual’s temporal perspective are important for predicting an individual’s inclination to procrastination.