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Procrastination is the action of unnecessarily and voluntarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there will be negative consequences for doing so. The word has origin from the Latin procrastinatus, which itself evolved from the prefix pro-, meaning "forward," and crastinus, meaning "of tomorrow." It could be further stated as a habitual or intentional delay of starting or finishing a task despite knowing it might have negative consequences. It is a common human experience involving delay in everyday chores or even putting off salient tasks such as attending an appointment, submitting a job report or academic assignment, or broaching a stressful issue with a partner. Although typically perceived as a negative trait due to its hindering effect on one's productivity often associated with depression, low self-esteem, guilt and inadequacy, it can also be considered a wise response to certain demands that could present risky or negative outcomes or require waiting for new information to arrive.
Closure or need for closure (NFC) are social psychological terms that describe an individual's desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity. The term "need" denotes a motivated tendency to seek out information.
Content theory is a subset of motivational theories that try to define what motivates people. Content theories of motivation often describe a system of needs that motivate peoples' actions. While process theories of motivation attempt to explain how and why our motivations affect our behaviors, content theories of motivation attempt to define what those motives or needs are. Content theory includes the work of David McClelland, Abraham Maslow and other psychologists.
Self-determination theory (SDT) is a macro theory of human motivation and personality that concerns people's inherent growth tendencies and innate psychological needs. It is concerned with the motivation behind choices people make without external influence and interference. SDT focuses on the degree to which human behavior is self-motivated and self-determined.
Behavioural change theories are attempts to explain why human behaviours change. These theories cite environmental, personal, and behavioural characteristics as the major factors in behavioural determination. In recent years, there has been increased interest in the application of these theories in the areas of health, education, criminology, energy and international development with the hope that understanding behavioural change will improve the services offered in these areas. Some scholars have recently introduced a distinction between models of behavior and theories of change. Whereas models of behavior are more diagnostic and geared towards understanding the psychological factors that explain or predict a specific behavior, theories of change are more process-oriented and generally aimed at changing a given behavior. Thus, from this perspective, understanding and changing behavior are two separate but complementary lines of scientific investigation.
Edward Tory Higgins is the Stanley Schachter Professor of Psychology, Professor of Business, and Director of the Motivation Science Center at Columbia University. Higgins has a broad set of research interests, including motivation and cognition, judgment and decision-making, and social cognition. His more notable contributions to the field of psychology include work on priming, self-discrepancy theory, and regulatory focus theory. He is also the author of Beyond Pleasure and Pain: How Motivation Works, and Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence.
In psychology, the human mind is considered to be a cognitive miser due to the tendency of people to think and solve problems in simpler and less effortful ways rather than in more sophisticated and more effortful ways, regardless of intelligence. Just as a miser seeks to avoid spending money, the human mind often seeks to avoid spending cognitive effort. The cognitive miser theory is an umbrella theory of cognition that brings together previous research on heuristics and attributional biases to explain how and why people are cognitive misers.
A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines.
Regulatory focus theory (RFT) is a theory of goal pursuit formulated by Columbia University psychology professor and researcher E. Tory Higgins regarding people's perceptions in the decision making process. RFT examines the relationship between the motivation of a person and the way in which they go about achieving their goal. RFT posits two separate and independent self-regulatory orientations: prevention and promotion.
The self-discrepancy theory states that individuals compare their "actual" self to internalized standards or the "ideal/ought self". Inconsistencies between "actual", "ideal" and "ought" are associated with emotional discomforts. Self-discrepancy is the gap between two of these self-representations that leads to negative emotions.
Steven L. Neuberg is an experimental social psychologist whose research has contributed to topics pertaining to person perception, impression formation, stereotyping, prejudice, self-fulfilling prophecies, stereotype threat, and prosocial behavior. His research can be broadly characterized as exploring the ways motives and goals shape social thought processes; extending this approach, his later work employs the adaptationist logic of evolutionary psychology to inform the study of social cognition and social behavior. Neuberg has published over sixty scholarly articles and chapters, and has co-authored a multi-edition social psychology textbook with his colleagues Douglas Kenrick and Robert Cialdini.
Peter Max Gollwitzer is a German professor of psychology in the Psychology Department at New York University. His research centers on how goals and plans affect cognition, emotion, and behavior.
Interdependence theory is a social exchange theory that states that interpersonal relationships are defined through interpersonal interdependence, which is "the process by which interacting people influence one another's experiences"(Van Lange & Balliet, 2014, p. 65). The most basic principle of the theory is encapsulated in the equation I = ƒ[A, B, S], which says that all interpersonal interactions (I) are a function (ƒ) of the given situation (S), plus the actions and characteristics of the individuals in the interaction. The theory's four basic assumptions are 1) The Principle of Structure, 2) The Principle of Transformation, 3) The Principle of Interaction, and 4) The Principle of Adaption.
Temporal motivation theory (TMT) is an integrative motivational theory developed by Piers Steel and Cornelius J. König, the theory emphasizes time as a critical and motivational factor. The argument for a broad, integrative theory stems from the absence of a single theory that can address motivation in its entirety. Thus, it incorporates primary aspects of multiple major theories, including expectancy theory, hyperbolic discounting, need theory and cumulative prospect theory. According to Schmidt, Dolis, and Tolli, Temporal Motivation Theory "may help further the understanding of the impact of time, and particularly deadlines, on dynamic attention allocation." The Temporal Motivation Theory formula can be applied to human behaviour, procrastination and to goal setting. According to Lord, Diefenforff, Schmidt, and Hall, the theory "models the motivating power of approaching deadlines, arguing that the perceived utility of a given activity increases exponentially as the deadline nears. These and similar ideas have been applied to the pervasive phenomenon of procrastination".
Arie W. Kruglanski is a social psychologist best known for his work on Goal Systems and Cognitive Closure. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland.
Drive reduction theory, developed by Clark Hull in 1943, is a major theory of motivation in the behaviorist learning theory tradition. "Drive" is defined as motivation that arises due to a psychological or physiological need. It works as an internal stimulus that motivates an individual to sate the drive. It has also been described as an internal and instinctual process that moves individuals to take actions that would allow them to attain their desired goal or end-state.
In social psychology, the continuum model of impression formation was created by Fiske and Neuberg.
Goal pursuit is the process of attempting to achieve a desired future outcome. This generally follows goal setting, the process of forming these desires.
Epistemic motivation is the desire to develop and maintain a rich and thorough understanding of a situation, utilizing one's beliefs towards knowledge and the process of building knowledge. A learner's motivation towards knowledge as an object influences their knowledge acquisition. In interpersonal relations, epistemic motivation is the desire to process information thoroughly, and thus grasp the meaning behind other people's emotions. In group settings, epistemic motivation can be defined as participants' willingness to expend effort to achieve a thorough, rich, and accurate understanding of the world, including the group task, or decision problem at hand, and the degree to which group members tend to systematically process and disseminate information.
References
- ↑ Higgins, Tory (2012). Beyond Pleasure and Pain: How Motivation Works . New York: Oxford University Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-19-976582-9.
- ↑ Pierro, Antonio; Giacomantonio, Mauro; Pica, Gennaro; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Higgins, E. Tory (1 January 2011). "On the psychology of time in action: Regulatory mode orientations and procrastination". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 101 (6): 1317–1331. doi:10.1037/a0025943. PMID 22103579.
- ↑ Avnet, Tamar; Tory Higgins, E (1 September 2003). "Locomotion, assessment, and regulatory fit: Value transfer from "how" to "what"". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 39 (5): 525–530. doi:10.1016/S0022-1031(03)00027-1.
- ↑ Mannetti, Lucia; Pierro, Antonio; Higgins, E. Tory; Kruglanski, Arie W. (1 July 2012). "Maintaining Physical Exercise: How Locomotion Mode Moderates the Full Attitude–Intention–Behavior Relation". Basic and Applied Social Psychology. 34 (4): 295–303. doi:10.1080/01973533.2012.693442. S2CID 144880981.