Via this blog comes this report:
Procrastinators Get Poorer Grades in College Class, Study FindsThe worst procrastinators received significantly lower grades in a college course with many deadlines than did low or moderate-level procrastinators, a new study found.
The worst procrastinators were also more likely than others to use rationalizations -- such as saying "I work best under pressure" --- to justify their behavior in school.
However, the lower grades received by the worst procrastinators show that these rationalizations are nothing more than wishful thinking, said Bruce Tuckman, author of the study and a professor of education at Ohio State University.
"The results show that procrastinators don't work better under pressure, but it may be the only way they work," Tuckman said. "They don't have any idea how well they might do if they didn't procrastinate."
The most severe procrastinators earned an average grade in the class of 2.9 on a 4.0 scale. Moderate procrastinators had average grades of 3.4, while low procrastinators scored an average of 3.6.
Um, duh?! I certainly should know....
Interestingly enough, there exists a Procrasitnation Research Group, which purports to be a "a compilation of information and research on procrastination from all over the world", although I find that much of their work focusses on procrastination in an academic context. One paper of theirs that I found interesting is titled "Are You A Procrastinator?":
A key element in both understanding academic procrastination and its treatment is the cognitive component of procrastination. Academic procrastinators typically make five cognitive distortions which promote and maintain their task avoidance. According to Ferrari et al. (1995), these five cognitive distortions are :
- overestimation of time left to perform tasks,
- underestimation of time required to complete tasks,
- overestimation of future motivational states,
- misreliance on the necessity of emotional congruence to succeed at task, and
- belief that working when not in the mood to work is suboptimal.
On a related note, thought I'd mention an article that I've linked to before, namely a Salon review of a book titled Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid:
"....eight deadly sins of the stupid smart person... impulsiveness (doing something rash), neglect (ignoring something important), procrastination (actively avoiding something important), vacillation (dithering), backsliding (capitulating to habit), indulgence (allowing oneself to fall into excess), overdoing (like indulgence, but with positive things) and walking the edge (tempting fate). "
And, while I'm at it, why don't I recycle another link that I posted before to another Salon article -- it's more tongue in cheek, but take a look at The 7 vices of highly creative people.