The Relationship between Impulsive Choice and Emotional Distress with Students’ Procrastination: Mediating Role of Anticipated Regret and Consideration of Future Consequences

Authors
Hashem Jebraeili 1
Tannaz Seydi 1
Rasool Karimi 2
1 Razi University
2 Allameh Tabatabai University
Abstract
Given the wide prevalence of procrastination and delaying tasks and the need to identify factors affecting this problem, present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of anticipated regret and consideration of future consequences in the relationship between impulsive choice and emotional distress with procrastination. In an analytical cross-sectional study, 400 students were selected through available sampling from Kermanshah universities and they were assessed employing impulsivity (Cyders et al., 2014), depression, anxiety and stress (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), monetary choice (Kirby & Marakovic, 1996), regret-based decision making (Nygren & White, 2002), consideration of future consequences (Strathman et al., 1994), and pure procrastination (Steel, 2010) questionnaires. Data were analyzed by Pearson correlation test and path analysis using SPSS and Mplus software. The findings showed that the present model has an excellent fit with data (RMSEA=0.001, CFI=1, TLI=1). Urgency (β=0.08, P<0.01), lack of perseverance (β=-0.07, P<0.01), anxiety (β=0.06, P<0.01), and delay discounting (β=-0.04, P<0.01) had significant effect on procrastination through anticipated regret and lack of premeditation had significant effect on procrastination through both anticipated regret (β=-0.07, P<0.01) and consideration of future consequences (β=0.03, P<0.05).It could be said that anticipated regret and consideration of future consequences play a mediating role in the relationship between impulsive choice and emotional distress with procrastination and we can help to reduce procrastination in distressed and impulsive individuals by formulating interventions that target these variables.
Keywords
Anticipated regret
Consideration of future
consequences
delay discounting
Emotional Distress
impulsivity
Procrastination
Ackerman, D. S., & Gross, B. L. (2005). My Instructor Made Me Do It: Task Characteristics of Procrastination. Journal of Marketing Education, 27(1), 5-13. Doi: 10.1177/0273475304273842.
Antony, M. M., Bieling, P. J., Cox, B. J., Enns, M. W., & Swinson, R. P. (1998). Psychometric properties of the 42-item and 21-item versions of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales in clinical groups and a community sample. Psychol Assess, 10(2), 176-181. Doi: 10.1037/1040-3590.10.2.176.
Beutel, M. E., Klein, E. M., Aufenanger, S., Brahler, E., Dreier, M., Muller, K. W.,

Wolfling, K. (2016). Procrastination, Distress and Life Satisfaction across the Age Range - A German Representative Community Study. PLoS ONE, 11(2), e0148054. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148054.
Brewer, N. T., DeFrank, J. T., & Gilkey, M. B. (2016). Anticipated regret and health behavior: A meta-analysis. Health Psychol, 35(11), 1264-1275. Doi: 10.1037/hea0000294.
Bushman, B. J., Giancola, P. R., Parrott, D. J., & Roth, R. M. (2012). Failure to Consider Future Consequences Increases the Effects of Alcohol on Aggression. J Exp Soc Psychol, 48(2), 591-595. Doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.11.013
Cyders, M. A., Littlefield, A. K., Coffey, S., & Karyadi, K. A. (2014). Examination of a short English version of the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale. Addict Behav, 39(9), 1372-1376. Doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2014.02.013.
De Luca, F., Benuzzi, F., Bertossi, E., Braghittoni, D., di Pellegrino, G., & Ciaramelli, E. (2018). Episodic future thinking and future-based decision-making in a case of retrograde amnesia. Neuropsychologia, 110, 92-103. Doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.08.007.
Díaz-Morales, J. F., & Ferrari, J. R. (2015). More time to procrastinators: The role of time perspective. In Time perspective theory; Review, research and application: Essays in honor of Philip G. Zimbardo. (pp. 305-321). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Diaz-Morales, J. F., Ferrari, J. R., & Cohen, J. R. (2008). Indecision and avoidant procrastination: the role of morningness-eveningness and time perspective in chronic delay lifestyles. J Gen Psychol, 135(3), 228-240. Doi: 10.3200/genp.135.3.228-240.
Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model. Annu Rev Psychol, 41, 417-440. Doi: 10.1146/annurev.ps.41.020190.002221.
Elliott, M. A., Thomson, J. A., Robertson, K., Stephenson, C., & Wicks, J. (2013). Evidence that changes in social cognitions predict changes in self-reported driver behavior: Causal analyses of two-wave panel data. Accid Anal Prev, 50, 905-916. Doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2012.07.017.
Ferrari, J. R., & Díaz-Morales, J. F. (2007). Procrastination: Different time orientations reflect different motives. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(3), 707-714. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2006.06.006.
Gray, J. C., Amlung, M. T., Palmer, A. A., & MacKillop, J. (2016). Syntax for calculation of discounting indices from the monetary choice questionnaire and probability discounting questionnaire. J Exp Anal Behav, 106(2), 156-163. Doi: 10.1002/jeab.221.
Gupta, R., Hershey, D. A., & Gaur, J. (2012). Time perspective and procrastination in the workplace: An empirical investigation. Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues, 31(2), 195-211. Doi: 10.1007/s12144-012-9136-3.
Gustavson, D. E., Miyake, A., Hewitt, J. K., & Friedman, N. P. (2014). Genetic relations among procrastination, impulsivity, and goal-management ability: implications for the evolutionary origin of procrastination. Psychol Sci, 25(6), 1178-1188. Doi: 10.1177/0956797614526260.
Kaplan, B. A., Amlung, M., Reed, D. D., Jarmolowicz, D. P., McKerchar, T. L., & Lemley, S. M. (2016). Automating Scoring of Delay Discounting for the 21- and 27-Item Monetary Choice Questionnaires. The Behavior Analyst, 39(2), 293-304. Doi: 10.1007/s40614-016-0070-9.
Kirby, K. N. (2009). One-year temporal stability of delay-discount rates. Psychon Bull Rev, 16(3), 457-462. Doi: 10.3758/pbr.16.3.457.
Kirby, K. N., & Marakovic, N. N. (1996). Delay-discounting probabilistic rewards: Rates decrease as amounts increase. Psychon Bull Rev, 3(1), 100-104. Doi: 10.3758/bf03210748.
Kirby, K. N., Petry, N. M., & Bickel, W. K. (1999). Heroin addicts have higher discount rates for delayed rewards than non-drug-using controls. J Exp Psychol Gen, 128(1), 78-87.
Klingsieck, K. B. (2013). Procrastination: When good things don’t come to those who wait. European Psychologist, 18(1), 24-34. Doi: 10.1027/1016-9040/a000138.
Lauriola, M., Panno, A., & Weller, J. A. (2019). Regret-Based Decision-Making Style Acts as a Dispositional Factor in Risky Choices. Psychol Rep, 122(4), 1412-1431. Doi: 10.1177/0033294118786687.
Li, S., Zhou, K., Sun, Y., Rao, L. L., Zheng, R., & Liang, Z. Y. (2010). Anticipated regret, risk perception, or both: which is most likely responsible for our intention to gamble? J Gambl Stud, 26(1), 105-116. Doi: 10.1007/s10899-009-9149-5.
Liu, P., & Feng, T. (2017). The overlapping brain region accounting for the relationship between procrastination and impulsivity: A voxel-based morphometry study. Neuroscience, 360, 9-17. Doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.07.042.
Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety & Stress Scales. Sydney: Psychology Foundation.
Madden, G. J., & Bickel, W. K. (2010). Impulsivity: The Behavioral and Neurological Science of Discounting: American Psychological Association.
Murphy, L., & Dockray, S. (2018). The consideration of future consequences and health behaviour: a meta-analysis. Health Psychol Rev, 12(4), 357-381. Doi: 10.1080/17437199.2018.1489298.
Nygren, T. E., & White, R. J. (2002). Assessing Individual Differences in Decision Making Styles: Analytical vs. Intuitive. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 46(12), 953-957. Doi: 10.1177/154193120204601204.
Nygren, T. E., & White, R. J. (2005). Relating Decision Making Styles to Predicting Selfefficacy and a Generalized Expectation of Success and Failure. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 49(3), 432-434. Doi: 10.1177/154193120504900346.
Phillips, W. J., Fletcher, J. M., Marks, A. D., & Hine, D. W. (2016). Thinking styles and decision making: A meta-analysis. Psychol Bull, 142(3), 260-290. Doi: 10.1037/bul0000027.
Prem, R., Scheel, T. E., Weigelt, O., Hoffmann, K., & Korunka, C. (2018). Procrastination in Daily Working Life: A Diary Study on Within-Person Processes That Link Work Characteristics to Workplace Procrastination. Front Psychol, 9, 1087. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01087.
Sheehan, J., Sherman, K. A., Lam, T., & Boyages, J. (2007). Association of information satisfaction, psychological distress and monitoring coping style with post-decision regret following breast reconstruction. Psychooncology, 16(4), 342-351. Doi: 10.1002/pon.1067.
Shi, X., Wang, S., Liu, S., Zhang, T., Chen, S., & Cai, Y. (2019). Are procrastinators psychologically healthy? Association between psychosocial problems and procrastination among college students in Shanghai, China: a syndemic approach. Psychol Health Med, 24(5), 570-577. Doi: 10.1080/13548506.2018.1546017.
Sirois, F., & Pychyl, T. (2013). Procrastination and the Priority of Short-Term Mood Regulation: Consequences for Future Self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115-127. Doi: 10.1111/spc3.12011.
Sirois, F. M. (2014). Absorbed in the moment? An investigation of procrastination, absorption and cognitive failures. Personality and Individual Differences, 71, 30-34. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.07.016.
Sirois, F. M. (2014). Out of Sight, Out of Time? A Meta-analytic Investigation of Procrastination and Time Perspective. European Journal of Personality, 28(5), 511-520. Doi: 10.1002/per.1947.
Smerecnik, C. M. R., & Ruiter, R. A. C. (2010). Fear appeals in HIV prevention: The role of anticipated regret. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 15(5), 550-559. Doi: 10.1080/13548506.2010.498888.
Stead, R., Shanahan, M. J., & Neufeld, R. W. J. (2010). “I’ll go to therapy, eventually”: Procrastination, stress and mental health. Personality and Individual Differences, 49(3), 175-180. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.03.028.
Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychol Bull, 133(1), 65-94. Doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65.
Steel, P. (2010). Arousal, avoidant and decisional procrastinators: Do they exist? Personality and Individual Differences, 48(8), 926-934. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.02.025.
Steel, P., & Ferrari, J. (2013). Sex, Education and Procrastination: An Epidemiological Study of Procrastinators' Characteristics from a Global Sample. European Journal of Personality, 27(1), 51-58. Doi: 10.1002/per.1851.
Steel, P., & Klingsieck, K. B. (2016). Academic Procrastination: Psychological Antecedents Revisited. Australian Psychologist, 51(1), 36-46. Doi: 10.1111/ap.12173.
Steel, P., & König, C. J. (2006). Integrating theories of motivation. The Academy of Management Review, 31(4), 889-913. Doi: 10.2307/20159257.
Strathman, A., Gleicher, F., Boninger, D. S., & Edwards, C. S. (1994). The consideration of future consequences: Weighing immediate and distant outcomes of behavior. J Pers Soc Psychol, 66(4), 742-752. Doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.66.4.742.
Van Eerde, W. (2003). A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 35(6), 1401-1418. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869 (02)00358-6.
Watson, D. C. (2001). Procrastination and the five-factor model: a facet level analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 30(1), 149-158. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869 (00)00019-2.
Wu, H., Gui, D., Lin, W., Gu, R., Zhu, X., & Liu, X. (2016). The procrastinators want it now: Behavioral and event-related potential evidence of the procrastination of intertemporal choices. Brain Cogn, 107, 16-23. Doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2016.06.005.
Wypych, M., Matuszewski, J., & Dragan, W. L. (2018). Roles of Impulsivity, Motivation, and Emotion Regulation in Procrastination - Path Analysis and Comparison between Students and Non-students. Front Psychol, 9, 891. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00891.
Zabelina, E., Chestyunina, Y., Trushina, I., & Vedeneyeva, E. (2018). Time Perspective as a Predictor of Procrastination. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 238, 87-93. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2018.03.011.
Zhang, S., Liu, P., & Feng, T. (2019). To do it now or later: The cognitive mechanisms and neural substrates underlying procrastination. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci, e1492. Doi: 10.1002/wcs.1492.