Procrastination: appraisal and the individual differences that influence delay

The aims of this dissertation were two-fold. The first aim was to conduct a literature review on stress appraisal and procrastination. The literature review first defines stress appraisal and procrastination, looks at how they may be related, then looks at conequences of, reasons for, and different types of procrastination, and finally reviews the literature on individual differences (i.e., negative affectivity, perfectionism, and goal orientation) and how they may affect the relationship between stress appraisal and procrastination. The second aim was to study how a person's stress appraisal affected his or her procrastination behaviour, and whether individual differences (i.e., negative affectivity, goal orientation and trait procrastination) affected this relationship. This was reported in a two-study paper. Study 1 looked at a student sample and how they appraised writing an essay; Study 2 looked at a workplace sample and how they appraised role ambiguity and role conflict. Both studies used online self-report questionnaires. Results showed that, for students, trait procrastination played a moderating role on the stress appraisal and procrastination relationship, and for employees, negative affectivity, avoidance goal orientation, and prove goal orientation moderated this relationship. In both studies, threat appraisal had the strongest link to increased procrastination and reasons for procrastinating.