Procrastination and social context : does the situation matter? : procrastination and its relationship to personality and social factors in the work and academic context

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Procrastination and social context:

does the situation matter?

Procrastination and its relationship to personality

and social factors in the work and academic context

Amsterdam, 19 August 2016

Master Thesis

Business Administration

Specialization: Leadership and Management

Supervisor: Dr. Wendelien van Eerde

Olga Kowalska 10449639

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by Student Olga Kowalska who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Foreword

“Time flies when you are having fun…” seems to be a really true statement, because I almost cannot believe that the four year of my education at the University of Amsterdam has almost come to an end and that this thesis is a symbolical finish line of the route towards my goal of accomplishing the Master’s Degree in Business Administration. I feel extremely happy that I was able to get so far in my academic career and make one of my dreams come true. I feel blessed for having these four years of intense work, challenges, achievements, growth and abundance of opportunities to learn, both about the world and about myself. These years have greatly contributed to my personal development and helped me realize my strengths and overcome my weaknesses and were unforgettable time and precious experience.

Writing the thesis about procrastination, while considering myself the biggest procrastinator of all time, has been a fun, but also very educational adventure. I have realized that mastering the theory in the given topic does not ultimately mean mastering it in the real life. Therefore, I have learnt that only constant learning only in combination with a constant action can make a real difference. One wish for my future self is to restlessly strive for finding the ways of bringing the valuable theory into the real life and trying to close the gap between the research and practice, in both personal life and work.

I could have not achieved it all in my educational career without great people around me. First of all, I would like thank my supervisor, Dr. Wendelien van Eerde, for being not only my great supervisor but also my mentor. All the support and good advice I have been given has been for me extremely inspiring and valuable. The conversations we had helped me find the way every time I felt lost and provided me a great guidance in the decisions I had to make. I am more than happy that I was lucky to have such a wonderful supervisor.

Moreover, I would like to say thank you to all my friends, who offered me their help throughout these years and who were my source of joy. I hope that no matter where we will be in the future and whoever we will become, our friendships will always remain the same.

Finally, I would like to thank two the most important people in my life: my parents. Their unconditional love, support, patience, understanding and help shaped the person I am not today. From the bottom on my heart, I would like to thank them for the fact that they always believe in me and constantly show me their love and commitment. I would like to thank my Mum, Beata, who is my greatest friend, the best companion and my role model, for showing me how to be a strong and brave woman and showing what love really means. I would like to thank my Dad, Otto, for being such a loving father and my biggest supporter, who constantly shows his interested in what I am doing, encourages me to strive for more and become a better person and who cheers me up every day. I love you both very much and thank you for everything you do for me!

I hope you all will enjoy reading my thesis! Olga Kowalska

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Abstract

Despite the undoubted relevance of studying procrastination in the work context, current research bases mainly on findings from the research of school context. This study compares academic and work procrastination state by looking at their relationships with personality and situational context. In particular, this research investigates the links between two traits: conscientiousness and procrastination trait and procrastination states in the given context, while comparing whether given situation is able to change the impact of trait on the behaviour. Also, the impact of social factors: social norms, social inclusion, social pressure and felt accountability on procrastination state was examined. To test the hypotheses, I surveyed in total 109 employees and 109 students. Results indicated that procrastination trait negatively influences procrastination state more in the academic than the working context. Moreover, social norms were found to moderate the relationship between personality traits and the procrastination trait, while social inclusions mattered only in the academic context and social pressure only in the work context, with no effect of felt accountability in any of the situations. The implications of these findings for procrastination theory were discussed.

Key words: work procrastination, academic procrastination, situational context, conscientiousness, procrastination trait, social factors

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quite extensively, but mainly in the academic settings. The research indicates that approximately 85% students in the population experience problems with procrastinating (O’Brien, 2002), and 75% see themselves as regular procrastinators (Potts, 1987). Moreover, students with greater ability showed tendency to procrastinate even more than those with lower ability and interestingly, the intensity of procrastination raised with the advancement in the academic endeavours (Ferrari, 1991).

At some point of time, these academic procrastinators have to enter the job market and start their regular work. Taking under consideration the fact that procrastination is usually characterised as a personality trait (Milgram, Mey-Tal, & Levison, 1998; Arvey, Rotundo, Johnson, and McGue. 2003; Elliot 2002), and it has been often linked to the person’s low level of trait conscientiousness (Schouwenburg& Lay, 1995; Johnson & Bloom, 1995; Lay & Brokenshire, 1997; Watson, 2001; van Eerde, 2003; Steel, 2007), it seems logical that these individuals would exhibit similar behaviours in the work context. However, a smaller number, because only about 25% of the adult population define themselves as procrastinators (Ferrari, Diaz-Morales, O’Callaghan, Diaz, & Argumedo, 2007; Harriott & Ferrari, 1996; Steel, 2007). Is this really the case that people procrastinate at work less comparing to academic students? If so, what are the determining factors of this potential difference? The current body of literature has devoted considerable attention to facets such as personality (eg. Effert & Ferrari, 1989; Schouwenburg, & Lay, 1995; Van Eerde, 2004; Di Fabio, 2006), mood (eg. Milgram, Gehrman, Keinan 1992; Steel, Brothen, & Wambach, 2001; Sirois & Pychyl, 2013) or task characteristics (eg. Briody, 1980; Harris & Sutton, 1983; Ackerman, & Gross, 2005), but very little research has studied procrastination as context-dependent. Therefore, there is a need for research that investigates procrastination in different situations, aimed at answering which situational circumstances stimulate or help reduce the procrastinating behaviours.

If one would think about predominant difference between studying and working, the social aspect seems to be one the most relevant ones. At the organizational context, employees

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work oftentimes in a collaborative manner and their task have a higher degree of interdependence. On the contrary, students work mainly to achieve their personal goals and procrastinating behaviours affect mainly themselves. Moreover, it seems that there may be difference in attitude towards procrastination. Could it be that in the academic context

procrastination tends to be more acceptable, while at workplace it can be seen as a counterproductive behaviour or as a form of time theft? This study will be aimed at

answering the question whether the social context influences the degree to which people are willing to engage in procrastinating behaviours. In particular, I will investigate the role of social norms, social inclusion, social pressure to perform and felt accountability as the moderators of the relationship between trait conscientiousness and actual procrastinating behaviours and compare them between academic and work contexts.

If it would indeed appear to be the case that external factors could condition the extent to which people actually give in to the postponement of work, such a finding would change the direction of current research from the focus on intrinsic motives of procrastination to exploring the significance of contextual conditioning. Apart from the potential theoretical contribution, the study would become beneficial from a practical point as well. For example, the chronic procrastinator may benefit from working at the certain social environment or university activities could be organized differently, in order to mitigate the academic procrastination problem.

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2. Literature review

2.1. Procrastination: definition

The conceptualization of procrastination varies between studies (Schraw, Wadkins, & Olafson, 2007). The term procrastination, taken from the Latin word procrastinates, which means “to forward tomorrow”, is usually understood as behaviour of postponing the task (Schouwenburg, 1995). Whereas researchers agree upon understanding procrastination in such simple terms, there is still an ambiguity concerning the definition of other underlying elements of this phenomenon. The studies have emphasised various facets of procrastination, and that is mainly due to the fact that they do not originate from a commonly shared theory (van Eerde, 2003).

Steel (2007) sees procrastination as a self-regulatory failure, meaning that procrastination appears because of problems with either standards, motivation, monitoring or a willpower. Moreover, scholars characterise procrastination as avoidance behaviour, where a person chooses to escape the immediate coping with a problematic task, by either delaying it or distracting attention from it (Bazerman, Tenbrunsel, & Wade-Benzoni, 1998). As Lay (1994) indicated, procrastination is an irrational in nature “intention– behaviour gap”, because the person has a genuine intent to finish the task, but chooses not to take any action that would actually lead to completing it. The irrational aspect of procrastination has also other dimension, namely procrastinators engage in the postponement of work despite the fact that they expect to be worse off (Steel, 2007). Taking that into account, procrastination can be seen as a form of self-defeating behaviour, since people deliberately choose the behaviour that is expected to eventually cause negative outcomes on the self (Ferrari, 1994; Tice & Baumeister, 1997; Renn, Steinbauer, & Fenner, 2014).

Procrastination should not be confused with a strategic delay, which is consciously undertaken with the expectation of positive outcomes. In other words, when a person expects to actually benefit from the postponement (e.g. increased efficiency resulting from emotional arousal or need for the idea incubation), such a person does not necessarily engage in procrastination, but rather in a strategic form of delay. Even though the theory does differentiate between these two types of delaying, it is actually difficult to objectively assess the purpose or logics behind the action of postponement, because these are embedded in the internal attributions of a person (Milgram, Sroloff, & Rothblum, 1988; van Eerde, 2000).

To summarize, the most exhaustive definition of procrastination has been recently provided by Klingsieck (2013), who stated that: “procrastination can be defined as the voluntary delay of an intended and necessary and/or [personally] important activity, despite expecting potential negative consequences that outweigh the positive consequences of the delay” (p.26).

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Therefore, procrastination is: not imposed by external circumstances delay and is characterised by the intention to finish the task and the expectation to be worse off.

2.2. Procrastination: behaviour vs. personality trait

The definition of procrastination, outlined in the previous paragraph, includes some important features that facilitate recognition of procrastination as a distinctive concept. However, there is still no clarity about the nature of this concept, namely whether procrastination should be considered as a fixed personality trait or as a state: a temporal behaviour that people engage in. Personality traits are characterised as "enduring personal qualities or attributes that influence behaviour across situations” (Gerrig, Zimbardo & Philip, 2002, p.705). Therefore, procrastination as a trait would show consistency over time and situations and people would exhibit the postponement tendency in similar extent in different contexts, for example: academic, work or family life. Moreover, this habitual behaviour pattern would not change across the life span. On the other hand, if procrastination would be a state, it could be seen as a person’s reaction to an external or internal stimuli, for example type of task, environmental context or intrinsic motivation. There is a third probable option, not explicitly covered in the literature, namely procrastination could be a distinctive phenomenon with both trait-like and state like characteristics.

Lay (1986) described procrastination as a lower-order personality trait that generates repeated episodes of dilatory behaviour and he constructed the procrastination measurement scale based on that notion. Similarly, Schouwenburg (1995) pointed that academic procrastination can be explained by procrastination trait, but he found a joint effect with a general discounting mechanism (the longer the person has to wait for a reward, the less attractive the task appears to be). Research by Arvey, Rotundo, Johnson, and McGue (2003), indicated the significance of genetic factors underling the tendency to procrastination. Moreover, longitudinal study by Elliot (2002), who measured procrastination over 10 year, showed that procrastination appeared to be stable over time.

Procrastination has be often linked to other personality traits. Most of the studies consistently show that procrastination is negatively related (r=−.62) to trait conscientiousness (Schouwenburg& Lay, 1995; Johnson & Bloom, 1995; Lay & Brokenshire, 1997; Watson, 2001; van Eerde, 2003; Steel, 2007). The results of recent study by Steel and Klingsieck (2016) have shown that not only conscientiousness and its underlying factors were the strongest correlates (r=−.60) with procrastination but also that when controlling for conscientiousness, remaining personality traits (five factor model) did not incrementally predict procrastination.

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Contrary to the personality theory view, procrastination has been studied also as a behaviour dependent on situational factors. A majority of studies focused on the task characteristics as a dominant reason for procrastination. For example, if a task is perceived as difficult, the postponement of such a task is more common (e.g., Lay, 1992; Ackerman & Gross, 2005; Blunt & Pychyl, 2000; Ferrari & Scher, 2000). Moreover, tasks that are seen as unpleasant for a person also are usually more often postponed (Milgram, Marshevsky, & Sadeh, 1995; Pychyl, Lee, Thibodeau & Blunt, 2000). Furthermore, according to research by McCrea, Liberman, Trope and Sherman (2007), a level of abstractness and temporal distance play a role in the tendency to procrastinate. In their study, individuals tended to procrastinate less when performing the task with more concrete instructions. Lastly, Klingsieck (2013a), who studied procrastination in the different life domains (academic and work, everyday routines and obligations, health, leisure, family and partnership, social contacts), showed that procrastination is to some extent domain specific and suggested to consider these domain separately in the future research.

Training also seems to play role in coping with procrastination. Van Eerde (2003), who studied procrastination at the work context, found that time-management training helped reduce procrastination behaviours. Moreover, as O’Donoghue and Rabin (1999) concluded, “many people who procrastinate only moderately do so not because of intrinsic self-control, but because they have developed schemes to overcome procrastination” (p. 807). Finally, research has indicated that procrastination may decrease with age among adult population (Ferrari et al. 2005; Hammer and Ferrari 2002).

As it can be seen, some of the studies have shown that procrastination is not stable over time or situations. At the same time, it can indeed be the case that people with certain characteristics (e.g. low conscientiousness) are more prone to exhibit such a behaviour. The question whether procrastination should be defined as a personality trait or as a state, links back to a broader discussion in the personality research, namely to the so called “person–situation debate”. The debate started when Mischel (1968) challenged the idea of trait existence, by providing the evidence of low levels of person’s behavioural consistency across different situations (Fleeson, & Noftle, 2009). Supporters of Mischel’s claim (the situationists) argued that people change their behaviour and adapt to the situation they are currently in, so it would be more advisable to study situations or social interactions as the predictors of behaviour, rather than to focus on traits, which are not consistent anyways. As such, procrastination would not be predicted by person’s tendency to procrastinate (e.g. low conscientiousness), but by certain situation that may evoke it (e.g. low level of task attractiveness). On the contrary, the trait

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these deviations constitute consistent differences between individuals and people generally act in their typical ways (Allport, 1937; McCrae & Costa, 2003). For example, person scoring high on conscientiousness may be procrastinating more at school than at work, but he/she would procrastinate on average less than a person scoring lower on conscientiousness. The synthetic resolution of the “person-situation debate” proposed by Fleeson (2004) combines these two approaches. According to the synthesis, an individual has an anchor mean level of a trait, but the actual behaviours vary around that mean, depending on situations the person is in. A similar synthesis has been encapsulated in the idea known as interactionism (Endler & Parker, 1992; Magnusson & Endler, 1977; Buss, 1979; Mischel & Peake, 1983; Weiss & Adler, 1984; Endler & Parker, 1992; Fleeson, 2004). This approach emphasises the interaction between the person and the situation, where both factors play an important role and should be analysed together. In line with that approach, the level of procrastinating behaviour should be analysed taking both personality and the situation into consideration and analyse the joint effect of them. According to Fleeson (2004), current personality research should attempt to explain the manifestation of a trait in momentary behaviour and to discover the empirical reach of interactionism. As he stated, this kind of studies would “generate a rich characterization of the distinctions people make between situations and would lead to a deep integration of the process and trait viewpoints (McCrae & Costa, 2003; Shoda et al., 1994)” (p.86). It seems that the current body of literature has neglected this aspect in studying procrastination, whereas, as suggested by Senécal, Lavoie and Koestner (1997) it would be highly valuable. Therefore, this research would considerably add to the procrastination literature by investigating this concept in an interactional model, so taking both personality and situation into consideration.

2.3. Procrastination and trait conscientiousness

As it has been mentioned previously, the research has been consistently indicating the existence of a strong negative relationship between the trait conscientiousness and procrastination. According to Jackson, Wood, Bogg, Walton, Harms & Roberts (2010), conscientiousness can be described as “individual differences in the propensity to follow socially prescribed norms for impulse control, to be goal-directed, to plan, able to delay gratification, and to follow norms and rules” (p.501). Moreover, individuals scoring high on trait conscientiousness consider themselves as being well organized, self-disciplined and complete the task in a scrupulous manner (Arnold, Robertson & Cooper, 1991). Given just the definition of this trait, one could clearly see that people scoring low on conscientiousness may be more prone to exhibit procrastinating behaviours, for example because of their reduced ability to maintain self-control

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or gratification delay. The empirical evidence confirms this relationship. Watson (2001), who studied the relationship between trait procrastination and the five-factor model, found that conscientiousness and all its facets had the strongest correlation with trait procrastination (r=-0.55), what was in line with previous studies by Johnson and Bloom (1995) and Schouwenberg and Lay (1995). The meta-analysis by van Eerde (2004), which combined results of 10 studies, also clearly supported the existence of such a relationship (average r=-0.63). Lay (1997), who attempted to explain lower-order trait procrastination through conscientiousness as a higher-level personality trait, came to similar conclusions about the strong negative relationship (r=-0.61) to the each facet of Conscientiousness. Nevertheless, in his study, the trait procrastination appeared to be a much better predictor of dilatory behaviour than Conscientiousness, so as Lay (1997) concluded, “conscientiousness may be the proximal source of trait procrastination, but only in regard to certain behaviours associated with the trait, and not in regard to all behaviours” (p.275).

To summarize, it can be assumed that conscientiousness tends to be an important predictor of people engaging in procrastination. At the same time, it seems that procrastination is something more than just purely lack of contentiousness, and there might be different, other than personality factors, which influence procrastination. The findings of previously mentioned studies, which were focused solely on the relationships between the two traits, did not extensively study the specific aspects of situations. If procrastination would indeed be a general trait, consistent across situation, it would mean that academic procrastinators, when entering the job market, should exhibit similar levels of procrastination. However, such a generalisation is oversimplified, since people may adjust their behaviours to the given context. Therefore, when studying procrastination in a given situation, it would be necessary to determine whether trait conscientiousness predicts procrastinating behaviours in the context as strongly as it predicts trait procrastination. Hence, the following hypotheses are proposed:

H1a: Trait contentiousness is negatively related to both trait procrastination and to

procrastination in the given context (work and academic) and it is more strongly related to trait procrastination than to procrastination in the given context (work and academic).

H1b: Trait procrastination mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and

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2.4. Procrastination in the work an academic contexts

In order to study procrastination in the different situational contexts, namely the work and school, it is essential to gain a better understanding of the differences between these two. The literature endorsing interactionism have not developed a full agreement about the structure of situations (Funder, 2006; Johns, 2006). However, many researchers suggested to consider

situational strength as an important factor differencing various contexts (Snyder& Ickes, 1985;

Kanfer, Chen, & Pritchard, 2008a; Meyer & Dalal, 2009), in particular when studying the moderators of personality–outcome relationships (Hough & Oswald, 2008; Murphy & Dzieweczynski, 2005). Situational strength can be defined as signals or standards provided by the environment in a given situation, which prompt the desirability of potential behaviour or the most appropriate course of action (Weiss & Adler, 1984; Snyder & Ickes, 1985). As stated in the paper by Cooper and Withey (2009), the impact of personality is said to be muted in the strong situations and “such situations are said to limit the expression of individual personalities, rendering them practically irrelevant” (p.62). In other words, when a person faces a strong situation, the relationship between personality and behaviour is reduced, because the person will be induced to comply with the requirements of the situation. On the other hand, when a weak situations exists, there is more ambiguity with respect to required behaviours, so the personality tendencies will be more dominant.

The recent meta-analysis by Meyer, Dalal and Bonaccio (2009) operationalized the situational strength into two dimensions, namely: ‘‘constraints’’ (the extent to which an individual’s freedom of decision or action is limited by outside forces) and ‘‘consequences’’ (the extent to which decisions or actions have significant implications for any person or entity). In case both factors indicate high levels, the situation can be considered strong.

In line with this operationalization, the work context can be generally seen as the one with more “constraints” with respect to time management and task organization, comparing to the academic context. The activities at work are usually organized in the consistent time schemes, while students experience more scheduling autonomy. Moreover, completing a project alone at work is quite rare, as it usually requires combined efforts of a team. Therefore, the work environment is characterised by a greater task interdependence. Conversely, students work usually on individual assignments and they do not need much input from other student members to complete their task successfully, so they are not constrained by the input of others. This entails another important aspect, which may be seen as restraint (also for procrastination), namely the need for communication. Team members have to update each other on the work progress more often than only before the formal deadline, since they have to discuss, for

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example the alignment of their efforts. Consequently, employees may feel more pressured to work on task in a more regular and timely manner. Lastly, social norms may play an important role in restricting behaviours like procrastination. Since academic procrastination is quite common, students may perceive it as normal and accepted behaviour. At work, procrastination may be seen as a form of time stealing, social-loafing, laziness or counterproductive work behaviour.

Work can be seen as a stronger situation comparing to the academic also with regards to “consequences”. Students usually learn mainly for themselves and therefore, they are aware that actions they take influence only their own well-being, but do not have impact on others. On the contrary, missing deadline or not answering email on time at work can have severe consequences, not only for the person who neglected the task but also for a co-worker or even an entire team. Similarly, there may be a difference with regards to instrumentality. At work, people are rewarded in form of salary, which is usually important for one’s living, so the consequence of losing it seems to be more severe than receiving a lower grade.

Given these arguments, it may be supposed that work represents a stronger situation than school, and therefore, the situational factors will have more influence on people’s behaviour. On contrary, at school the personality tendencies will be more dominant, because this context is represented by more ambiguity and freedom with regards to required behaviour. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H2: Personality traits: Conscientiousness and Procrastination Trait are a better

predictor for procrastination at school than at work.

2.5. Procrastination and social context

When studying procrastination in two different contexts, namely work and school, I focused also on the various factors that characterise a given situation and study them as moderators that may influence the level of person’s dilatory behaviours. As it has been mentioned previously, the work context seems to present a stronger situation and this strength may, among others, be attributed to social environment of the work. Employees usually maintain more formal contacts with their co-workers, so the social environment may be less understanding towards aberrant behaviours like procrastination and therefore, employees may be forced to adapt to the required standards. Moreover, employees may feel more socially accountable to perform their task well and without delay compared to students, because their efforts are important not only for themselves, but also for other co-workers and whole company. Also, Van Eerde (2000) proposed that the greater task interdependency at work comparing to academic context may

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serve as form of social control and compensate for the lack of self-control that a procrastinator exhibits.

Despite the potential relevance, social factors have not been studies extensively in connection with procrastination. Therefore, there is a need to fill this gap and study whether certain factors of social environment indeed moderate the relationship between conscientiousness and procrastination, while comparing also if these factors are equally relevant in both work and school context. This study will focus on the following variables: social norms, social inclusion, social pressure to perform and felt accountability.

2.5.1. Social norms

Social norms indicate to what extent given behaviour is acceptable in the given social environment. There are two broad types of norms: what referent others say is acceptable behaviour (prescriptive norms), and what referent others actually do (descriptive norms) (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990; Park & Smith, 2007). If procrastination would be not socially accepted and people around the individual would not procrastinate, than the person may assume that such a behaviour is not appropriate in the given context and would try to adjust to these norms. According to Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), individual behaviours are the result of modelling oneself in response to the expectations of others. As stated by Bandura (1977): “most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” (p.22). Therefore, the social context the person is in may have a significant influence on exhibiting certain behaviours, especially in the long term.

The social norm and learning through these norms may have the influence on the actual behaviour, but only under certain circumstances that are explained by the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1985). According to the theory, human behaviour is guided by three kinds of beliefs: behavioural, normative and control beliefs. They produce a favourable or unfavourable attitude toward the behaviour; normative beliefs result in perceived social pressure or subjective norm; and control beliefs give rise to perceived behavioural control. All these factors lead to the intention for behaviour. As a general rule, the more favourable the attitude and subjective norm, and the greater the perceived control, the stronger should be the person’s intention to perform the behaviour in question (Ajzen, 2006). Therefore, when looking at the social aspect of the TPB, namely the normative beliefs, the stronger the social acceptance of procrastination, the stronger would be the intention to actually procrastinate. On the other

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hand, when there would be a strong unfavourable attitude towards procrastination, the person would be more inclined to refrain from procrastinating behaviour.

There are some studies available that may indicate the influence of social norm on procrastination. The recent research by Metin, Taris and Peeters (2016) that studied procrastination and its associated workplace aspects, conceptualizes work procrastination as a combination of Soldiering (the restriction of output by employees) and Cyberslacking (personal use of the Internet while at work). Askew, Buckner, Taing, Ilie, Bauer and Coovert (2014), who studied cyberslacking at work, found that social norms may restrain it. As they stated, employees are motivated to cyberloaf but avoid doing so to the extent that they believe it would be socially disapproved of and the extent to which they would get caught for doing it. Moreover, Blanchard & Henle (2008), who also studied cyberloafing at work, found that employees who engage in minor cyberloafing are doing so in response to perceptions that others in the organization also regularly use some forms of email and the Internet for personal use. Also, Lim and Teo (2005) report that employees justify their cyberloafing practices because “everybody else does it.” Henle, Reeve, & Pitts (2010) focused on different phenomenon, which may be related to procrastination, namely the time-theft and studied it using the aforementioned TPB framework. According to their findings, subjective norms were a strong predictor of engaging in the time-theft and as they suggested, managers should acknowledge the role social pressures play in the occurrence of time theft and they should focus on developing a positive ethical climate that discourages this behaviour.

Similar findings come from the research on academic procrastination. According to study by Ackermann and Gross (2005), social norms in a class were found to have a major impact on academic procrastination. Normative influence can come from other students who set a standard of either promptness or procrastination for others to model. It can also come from instructor expectations and actions in the class that set behavioural standards. Paden and Stell (1997), in their paper about reducing procrastination through assignment and course design, suggested also that establishing clear normative behaviours with respect to procrastination and deadlines, may result in increased importance of the task. Lastly, Klingsieck, Gurnd, Schmid, and Fries (2013), who qualitatively explored antecedents of procrastination, found that attitudes of others toward procrastination and role models for procrastination were mentioned by students as important factors having effect on their procrastinating behaviours.

Based on the theoretical implications and previous research, it can be assumed that social norms may influence procrastinating behaviours of both employees and students. Even though some individuals are more prone to procrastination because of their personality

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tendencies (e.g. low conscientiousness), it can be supposed that actual procrastinating behaviours would be reduced in the context where procrastination is strongly unacceptable, because social norms would buffer person’s tendencies to show procrastination. Taking all this under consideration, the following hypotheses are proposed:

H3: The negative relationship between Conscientiousness and Procrastination state

(via Procrastination Trait) in the context is moderated by Perceived Social Norms (social acceptability of procrastination), such that this relationship is stronger when individuals experience weak Social Norms (strong social acceptability of procrastination).

2.5.2. Social inclusion

Social inclusion is another important variable that may influence the person’s willingness to procrastinate, but this relationship has not been extensively studied yet. Deriving from the organizational literature, the work social inclusion captures “the extent to which employees have informal social ties with others at work and feel as if they belong and are socially included by others in their workplace.” (Pearce & Randel, 2004, p. 84). Work social inclusion is not group specific, so it captures the overall impression of social belongingness to the workplace, without defining separately whether the bond is made with colleagues, supervisors or managers. Similarly, the school social inclusion would determine the extent to which students feel they belong to the social community of the school and feel the bond with other members, for example peer students or teachers.

As it has been mentioned previously, procrastination is often describes as self-defeating behaviour, (Ferrari, 1994; Tice & Baumeister, 1997; Renn, Steinbauer, & Fenner, 2014), which is characterised as intentional behaviour that is supposed to cause negative effects on the self or on the self's projects (Baumeister & Scher, 1988). Twenge, Catanese & Baumeister (2002) studied the link between self-defeating behaviours and social exclusion in the experimental settings. All of their four experiments have shown consistently that people who were told they will end up alone in life (experiment group, manipulated social exclusion): 1) procrastinated longer with pleasurable activities rather than practicing for an upcoming test, 2) took irrational, self-defeating risks and 3) chose unhealthy behaviours. The control group did not show these self-defeating patterns. Similarly, procrastination is often described as a self-regulatory failure (Steel, 2007). Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco & Twenge (2005), who studied social exclusion and self-regulation, found in all of the six experiments that socially excluded people showed a significant decrease in their self-regulation efforts. However, one may argue that negative effects of social exclusion may not be synonymous with the positive effects that the feeling of

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social inclusion may cause; though, research indicates otherwise. Three studies by Blackhart, Nelson, Winter and Rockney (2011) showed that perceived acceptance and belongingness may bolster one's ability to exert self-control. Moreover, Kennedy, G. J., & Tuckman (2013), in their study done among academic students, found that procrastination was negatively related to perceived school belongingness. Furthermore, similar findings come from the organizational research. Thau, Aquino & Poortvliet (2007) explored the relationship between belongingness and interpersonal self-defeating behaviours. According to their findings, employees who perceived greater levels of desired co-worker belonging than actual levels of co-worker belonging were more likely to show such self-defeating tendencies.

Based on the findings of the previous research, it can be supposed that greater social inclusion may positively contribute to reducing procrastination in the given context. Similarly to the previous hypotheses, the social inclusion may mitigate the relationship between conscientiousness and actual procrastinating behaviours in the given context. Those individuals, who feel the stronger social ties with others in the given situation may experience less problems related to self-regulation and self-deafening behaviours, and therefore, be less inclined to show procrastinating behaviours. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:

H4: The negative relationship between Conscientiousness and Procrastinating state in

the given context is moderated by Social inclusion, such that this relationship is weaker for those individuals who feel more included in the social interactions.

2.5.3. Social pressure to perform

Another important factor that can potentially restrain people from procrastination is social pressure to perform. Baumeister (1984) defined pressure as “any factor or combination of factors that increases the importance of performing well on a particular occasion.” (p.610). Also, Zimbardo and Leippe (1991) referred to performance pressure as to “an attitude system”, which is represented by a negative evaluative orientation toward performance insufficiency. In that sense, the social pressure would capture the high social expectations towards a required performance level, where not meeting these expectations is associated with negative responses.

Procrastinators often explain their dilatory behaviors by a need for higher arousal, which motivates them to exert more effort, as they think that they work better under pressure (Ferrari, 1992; Ferrari, 2001; Simpson & Pychyl, 2009; Farrington, 2012). Even though this explanation does not appear to be realistic, since procrastinators actually show lower performance levels when under the time pressure (Ferrari, 2001), it is still possible that some individuals have the tendency to seeking for a heightened arousal or any form of pressure to start work actively on task; such tendency is often present among procrastinators. Therefore, it can be supposed that

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social pressure may serve for these procrastinators as a substitute for time pressure. In such a situation, social pressure would be so stimulating, that those individuals would not anymore feel the need to seek thrill resulting from delaying the tasks, but would be motivated by the social pressure. There is unfortunately very little research available that would link social pressure and procrastination. Only Schraw et al. (2007), indicated that the higher the teachers’ expectations and the greater the accountability the student was held to, the less procrastination eachstudent reported.

It is crucial to mention, that in some situations high social pressure may actually cause negative effects and eventually even contribute to evoking procrastinating behaviours. Paradoxically, some individuals perform below their capacity precisely in situations that called for superior performance; such a psychological phenomenon was labelled by Baumeister (1984) as “chocking under pressure”. Research has demonstrated that such underperforming appears because of disruptions or anxiety (Knowles, Lucas, Baumeister & Gardner, 2015). The performer can be disturbed by devoting too much attention to the internal process of performance, where actually automatization should be in place (Kimble & Perlmuter, 1970), or the worry about failing distracts the person from performance-relevant cues and thereby hinders performance (Beilock & Carr, 2005). Since the fear of failure increases the likelihood of procrastination (Schouwenburg, 1992; Haghbin, McCaffrey & Pychyl, 2012), it can be the case that the person would increase procrastinating behaviours when facing intense social pressure. However, I would argue that social pressure on the level which is motivating, but not causing anxiety, will be stimulating for the person to fulfil the task in the timely manner. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H5: The negative relationship between Conscientiousness and Procrastination in the

given context (via Procrastination Trait) is moderated by the Social pressure to perform, such that this relationship is weaker for those individuals who experience high levels of such pressure.

2.5.5. Felt accountability

When thinking about another social factor that may influence procrastinating behaviours, the accountability seems to be a relevant one. Many students may feel on average lower levels of accountability comparing to those who work. Firstly, students fulfil tasks that are affecting mainly themselves. Moreover, they are generally not required to explain the process of completing assignments and they have more autonomy in organizing their time. At work, usually the opposite can be observed: the work outputs are delivered to benefit others (company, customers, co-workers). Furthermore, employees work often within a team of which members

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may closely securitize the efforts person invests in the project, so there is higher probability that one has to explain or justify the choices. Also, companies put more emphasis put on productivity and efficiency, so the proper time management is more closely controlled. Given all these arguments, it may be interesting to investigate whether felt accountability plays any important role in influencing person’s procrastination.

The term felt accountability is adopted from organizational research (Lerner and Tetlock, 1999; Frink & Klimoski, 1998; Ferris, Mitchell, Canavan, Frink, & Hopper, 1995) and refers to: “an implicit or explicit expectation that one’s decisions or actions will be subject to evaluation by some salient audience(s) (including oneself)” (Hochwarter, Perrewé, Hall & Ferris, 2005, p.518). Moreover, an individual expects that the audience has a rewarding or sanctioning power and can act upon its judgement (Hall, Frink, Ferris, Hochwarter, Kacmar & Bowen, 2003). As mentioned by Hochwarter et al. (2005), this definition allows for accountability from both formal and informal mechanism, therefore it captures much broader spectrum of accountability than the one that is subject to a formal appraisal. Another very important characteristic of this construct is that it evaluates person’s subjective perception of accountability, rather than an objective reality (Tetlock, 1985, 1992; Frink & Klimoski, 1998). The subjective impression is central to this study, because the main interest lies not in the formal, listed responsibilities that may influence procrastination, but in the perceptions that people may have about the extent to which they are held accountable.

Deriving from the definition, the greater levels of person’s felt accountability, the more this person sees his/her actions as being subject to judgment or evaluation, and therefore, there is a higher need to justify these actions. Since procrastination is irrational in nature Lay (1994), it is be quite difficult to explain its rationale to others. Especially in the long term, justifying procrastinating behaviors can become challenging, because at some point, a person runs out of logical or credible reasons of postponing the task, and becomes being perceived as lazy, passive or unreliable. Therefore, it can be supposed that those individuals who feel they are held accountable in fulfilling their tasks, will try to minimize procrastination in order to avoid situations where they would have to be confronted and explain their procrastination. Moreover, since the judging audience has a sanctioning power, the person may feel that the unnecessary delays may lead to some negative consequences, what serves as another reason for minimalizing procrastination. In contrast, those individuals who do not feel high levels of accountability, may not see the need to explain their behaviors, and therefore do not experience any social pressures to avoid procrastinating. If the person is aware that others in the direct environment are not showing any particular interest in the knowing how the person is fulfilling the task or if these

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tasks are completed in a timely manner, it is supposedly easier to put off the tasks or decisions. In line with this reasoning, for those people who have the tendency to procrastinate (low scores on trait conscientiousness), felt accountability may diminish the procrastinating behaviors, serving a moderator. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:

H6: The negative relationship between Conscientiousness and Procrastination (via

Procrastination Trait) is moderated by Felt accountability, such that this relationship is weaker for those individuals who feel more socially accountable.

Figure 1. Conceptual model

Procrastination Trait Procrastination work/academic Conscientiousness 1) Social Norms 2) Social Inclusion 3) Social Pressure 4) Felt Accountability

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3. Methodology

In this section, research methods are presented. First, the research design is briefly described. Next, the characteristics of the sample and data collection procedures are discussed. This is followed by a description of the measures used in this study. Finally, the section is concluded with a brief outline of statistical analyses applied for testing the expected relationships.

3.1. Research design

This research is designed to investigate the relationship between procrastination and conscientiousness, as well as to study procrastination in different situational contexts. Majority of previous studies related to the topic of personality and procrastination took the quantitative approach, using validated scales for measuring the constructs. Therefore, the current study will follow the most common method, applying survey as the research strategy.

3.2. Sample and procedures

The sample data was collected using convenience sampling and snowball sampling methods. Participants were approached personally, via email or social media and contacted either directly by the researcher, or by those who agreed to help with distributing the survey within their personal networks. This study investigated procrastination in the two different contexts, namely school and work, so it was essential to assure that only participants who currently work, study or do both proceed with completion of the questionnaire. Therefore, the question on the first page of the survey asked about the current occupation of the person. If the person was neither studying nor working, the survey ended. There were two versions of survey available, namely one with questions adjusted for the school context and other for the work context. The question about the current occupation determined which version of the survey the person proceeded with. The individuals who were a part-time working student completed both versions. Participants were asked also how often they work or study with others. Those who chose answer “I never work with the team” were not provided with questions related to the team as the reference group.

The participation in the study was voluntary and anonymous. It was explicitly highlighted in the introduction to the survey that the responses were going to be used only for the purpose of this research and would be kept strictly confidential. As an incentive, participants were offered an opportunity to take part in a lottery of voucher worth €50. Those who expressed the will to participate, were asked to provide an email address for future contact in case of winning. To facilitate the collection and storing of the data, all the questionnaires were collected online and could be filled in on either on computer, tablet or mobile phone.

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The questionnaires were available in two language versions, namely English and Dutch. The original scales used in this study were developed in English, so either validated translation was used or the translation-back translation technique had to be applied. Dutch native speaker translated the items, which were subsequently translated back to English by an independent person and similarity was assessed. In case the some questions were not clear enough or the discrepancy between English and Dutch version was identified, the translations were improved. The final version was assessed to appropriately reflect the English one.

A total of 240 started the survey and after the elimination of incomplete responses, the final operational sample amounted to (N=182) participants, out of which 101 (55.5%) were female and 81 (44.5%) were male. Regarding the occupation, seventy two (39.6%) individuals studied, seventy three (40.1%) worked and thirty seven (20.3%) were students with a part-time job. The average age of respondents was 32 years (SD=13.7, mode= 22, median=25), with 60% of participants in the age between 17 and 27. When looking at the work and school sub-samples separately, the average age at the working group was 39 (SD=14.3) years and in the school group 24,5 (SD=7,42) years. The whole sample represents 24 different nationalities, with the majority of people from The Netherlands (71%), Poland (3.8%), China (3.3%) and South Korea (3.3%).

3.3. Measures

All the variables in this study were measured on the self-rating, 7-point Likert scales, ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”, except for the Procrastination Trait which ranged from “very untrue of me” to “very true of me”. Some of the questions needed to be adjusted in order to fit the specificity of the given context, namely work or school.

Conscientiousness was measured with the 10-item scale from Goldberg’s (2001) International

Personality Item Pool Big-Five, validated by Gow, Whiteman, Pattie, & Deary, (2005), Alpha = 0.79. Example items were: “I am always prepared”, “I get chores done right away”.

Trait procrastination was assessed using the abbreviated version of the Lay’s (1986) 20-item

General Procrastination Scale, which included 9 items that show the highest items loading across the samples (Sirois, in progress). Example items were as follows: “I often have a task finished sooner than necessary.”, “I usually buy even an essential item at the last minute.”, “I usually accomplish all the things I plan to do in a day.” Cronbach’s Alpha in this study= 0.865.

Procrastination was adapted also from the 20-item Lay’s (1986) General Procrastination Scale

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selecting the items was to fit to the work and school context and refer to the tasks that are completed specifically there. Participants were explicitly asked to refer only to the one specific context in answering the questions. Example items: “At work (at school), I usually have to rush to complete a task on time”, “I do not do tasks until just before they are to be handed in”. Alphas in this study were 0.875 and 0.843 for the school and work contexts, respectively.

Social norms (acceptability of procrastination) was constructed according to guidance from the

Theory of Planned Behaviour questionnaire by Ajzen (2002) and included four items. Employees were asked to think about their co-workers as the reference group and students were supposed to think about their classmates. The items were as follows: “My colleagues (classmates) often procrastinate”. Alpha may differ across studies. “Most of my colleagues (classmates) think that it is acceptable to procrastinate”, “My colleagues (classmates) expect me not to procrastinate”, “If feel pressure from my colleagues (classmates) not to procrastinate”. The Cronbach’s alpha for the Social norms school context was considerably low: = 0,548. After deleting item 4, the alpha increased to 0,623 and after deleting item 3 alpha equalled 0,810. Similar problem with the scale reliability was observed in the school context measure, Cronbach’s alpha of four items = 0,645. After deleting the third and fourth item alpha increased to = 0,743. High score of social norms can be interpreted as high social acceptability of procrastination, while low as low acceptability of procrastination.

Felt accountability was adopted from a study by Hochwarter, Perrewé, Hall and Ferris (2005)

and it is an eight-item scale with alpha= 0.8. Since this scale was originally constructed for the research in the work context, some of the items used for the students needed to be adjusted. Example items: “I am held very accountable for my actions at work (school).”, “Top management (the teachers) hold me accountable for all of my decisions”.

Social inclusion was measured by the three item scale created by Pearce & Randel (2004). The

items were as follows: “I feel like an accepted part of a team”, “I feel included in most activities at work”, “Sometimes I feel like an outsider”. Alpha= 0.847 (work), 0.732 (school).

Social pressure was adapted from the measurement used in the study by Eisenberger & Aselage,

(2009) and included three times, which were adjusted to fit the context. The items were: “I feel the external pressure to do my job (study) well”, “At work (school), I feel I have to perform well”, “I feel that it is expected from me to perform well”.

Control variables. The results of the analyses were controlled for two variables: age, gender

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3.4. Analyses

The first step of the analysis was to explore the gathered data and assure that all the possible errors were detected. Listwise missing value deletion was used to deal with the missing data problem. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test showed that the independent variable Conscientiousness was non-normally distributed, with skewness of -0.64 (SE = 0.18) and kurtosis of 0.1 (SE = 0.35). The fact that the majority of respondents reported relatively high levels of conscientiousness may have implication for the further analysis. Conclusions that are made based on the sample that contains such a specific group of respondents may influence the significance of the findings, what should be taken into consideration in the interpretation. Also the following constructs: Social norms, Social inclusion and Social pressure were not non-normally distributed. Since application of the transformation to the normality technique did not result in reducing skewness, and the sample size was large enough with respect to the Central Limit Theorem, the data was treated as normally distributed in the further analysis.

Correlation and regression analyses were applied to test the aforementioned hypotheses. Correlation analyses give the initial indication of how strongly the variables are related to each other and provide an overview whether the relationships are in line were the predictions. Research by Cohen (1988) provided the most widely accepted guidelines for interpreting the magnitude of correlation coefficients typically found in the behavioural sciences. According to Cohen, correlation coefficients in the order of .10 are “small,” those of .30 are “medium,” and those of .50 are “large” in terms of magnitude of effect sizes. In interpreting the correlation coefficients, these correlation power thresholds were applied. I predicted that variable

conscientiousness and variable procrastination trait will be more strongly correlated with procrastination academic than with procrastination at work. In order to compare the strength

of correlation among these two population samples, the Fisher’s Z test was used. In addition, I predicted that conscientiousness trait and procrastination trait will be better predictors for Procrastination state academic than at work. To determine that, simple linear regression was conducted and the unstandardized beta coefficients were compared, as well as Z-scores were determined. To examine the mediation and moderated mediation models, multiple linear regression analyses were applied, using the Process Macro by Hayes (2013). The regression analyses for the mediation model were conducted for the following variables: 1) conscientiousness (IV) 2) procrastination state at work (DV) 3) procrastination state academic (DV) 4) procrastination trait (mediator), along with control variables, using Model 4 macro by

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Hayes (2013). To compare the regression coefficients between the two contexts, the T-Test scores were calculated. The regression analyses for the moderated mediation models were run separately for each moderator, built on the previous mediation model, using Process macro with model number 15. The following moderators were analysed: social norms, social pressure, social inclusion and felt accountability.

4. Results

This research was conducted to examine the relationship between conscientiousness and procrastination trait and procrastination states at work and academic, as well as to evaluate the role of social norm, inclusion, pressure and felt accountability as moderators of the relationship between these traits and states. The following section presents the finding of the study. Firstly, the correlation matrices are discussed. Subsequently, the results from the regression analyses are outlined. The section is finished with an initial conclusion regarding the results.

4.1. Correlations

Table 1 (work context) and Table 2 (academic context) present the means and standard deviations of each variable, as well as the correlations among them. In line with the findings of previous research, there was a significant negative correlation between procrastination trait in both of the contexts, r (101) = -.608, p<.01 (work) and r (108) = -.668, p<.01 (school). This would indicate that people scoring low on conscientiousness are generally inclined to score high on the procrastination trait, in other words they are more likely to be habitual procrastinators. Procrastination trait was also significantly, positively correlated with procrastination state at work, r (101) = .610, p<.01 and r (108) = .768, p<.01, meaning that those individuals who score high on procrastination trait are more likely to show the procrastination behaviours. Also, in line with expectations, the correlation between the procrastination trait and procrastination state academic is higher than at work. Comparison of the correlation coefficients revealed that this difference was significant Z = 2.182, p < .05. Similarly, conscientiousness and procrastination states were moderately, negatively correlated r (101) = -.395, p<.01 (work) and r (108) = -.582, p<.01 (school). The correlation coefficient was greater for the school context, comparing to the work context, and this difference was significant Z = 1.764, p < .05. These results supports the research hypothesis 1a that the personality factors are correlated with procrastination state. Also, this results gives a preliminary support of the hypothesis 2 that the relationship is stronger in the school context.

Contrary to the expectations, there were nonsignificant correlations between social norms and procrastination state at work, r (101) = .075 (p = n.s) and procrastination state academic, r (108) =.155 (p = n.s). Similarly, social inclusion was not significantly correlated

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with procrastination in any of the context. Felt accountability and pressure to perform were both significant correlated with procrastination at work, r (101) = .261, p<.01 and r (101) = .209, p<.05, respectively. For the same variables, nonsignificant correlations were found in the school context. The control variables in the work context appeared not to be significantly correlated with neither the predictor nor the outcome variables, except for age which was moderately correlated with conscientiousness (r=.321, p<.01). In the school context however, there were significant correlations between self-efficacy and procrastination trait (r= -.282, p<.01) and conscientiousness (r= -.293, p<.01), as well as age was correlated to conscientiousness (r=.196, p<.05).

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Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations and Reliabilities (work context)

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. Procrastination trait 3.298 1.003 .872

2. Procrastination at work 3.059 .990 .610** .833

3. Conscientiousness 5.383 .770 -.608** -.395** .852

4. Social norms at work 3.564 1.290 -.056 .075 .092 .810

5. Felt accountability 4.624 1.015 .129 .261** -.135 -.015 .847 6. Pressure to perform 5.215 1.082 .205* .209* -,225* -.018 .489** .796 7. Social Inclusion 5.508 1.101 -.078 -.106 .162 -.285** .331** .055 .784 8. Age 39.198 14.253 -.027 .040 .321** -.077 -.033 -.103 .182 - 9. Gender 1.530 .501 -.143 -.102 -.080 -.015 -.195 -.097 -.075 -.084 - 10. Self-efficacy 5.472 .664 -.127 -.007 .190 .156 .266** .024 .080 -.114 -,198* .883

Note: N=101. Reliabilities are reported along the diagonal.

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

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Table 2.

Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations and Reliabilities (academic context)

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. Procrastination trait 3.967 1.152 .872

2. Procrastination academic 4.020 1.359 .768** .891

3. Conscientiousness 4.809 .970 -,668** -,582** .852

4. Social norms at school 4.963 1.145 .024 .015 -.021 .743

5. Felt accountability 4.160 .851 -.127 -.141 .155 .042 .710 6. Pressure to perform 5.275 .945 .045 -.004 .024 .057 .182 .670 7. Social Inclusion 4.821 1.195 -.073 -.050 .050 -.071 -.054 .087 .751 8. Age 24.463 7.417 .000 -.069 .196* -.159 .026 -.102 .168 - 9. Gender 1.590 .494 -.055 .010 -.037 -.184 -,258** -.092 .155 -.048 - 10. Self-efficacy 5.406 .774 -,282** -.147 .293** .132 .133 .071 .033 .096 -.124 .883

Note: N=108. Reliabilities are reported along the diagonal.

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

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4.2. Regressions

4.2.1. Mediation

Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between Procrastination state in the work and academic contexts and various potential predictors. The first regression analysis was used to investigate the hypothesis that procrastination trait mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and procrastination state in the given context. Table 3 presents the outcomes for the mediation model in the work context and Table

4 in the academic context. Firstly, it was found that Conscientiousness (CONSC) was a

significant predictor or Procrastination at work (PW), with b =-.684, SE =.115, t(107)=5.97, p < .001, and the same significant result was found for the academic context (PA), with b =-.832, SE =.141, t(107)=5.90, p < .001. Regarding the indirect effects, results indicated that CONSC was a significant predictor of Procrastination Trait (PT) in both contexts, with b =-.908, SE = .092, t(107)=-9.85, p < .001 for work and b = -0.789, SE = .107, t(107)=-7.36, p < .001 for academic. Also, PT was significantly predicting PW, b = .547, SE =.139, t(107)=-3.93, p < .001, and PA b =.852, SE =.112, t(107)=7.6, p < .001. The significance of the indirect effect was tested using a bootstrap estimation approach with 1000 samples (Shrout & Bolger, 2002). The results indicated that the indirect coefficient was significant, b =-,497, SE =,123, 95% CI =-,7390, -,2339 for the work, and b = -.672, SE =.108, 95% CI =-,8931,-,4790 for the academic context. CONSC was no longer a significant predictor of PW and PA after controlling for the mediator, Procrastination Trait, b =-0.19, SE =.138, ns, for work and b =-0.16, SE =.146, ns academic context. In line with the methodology provided by Baron and Kenny’s (1986), all the conditions have been met for the data to be consistent with the hypothesis that variable Procrastination Trait fully mediates the relationship between Procrastination in the work and academic context. Therefore, the first hypothesis was supported. The mediation model accounted for the 53% version in the Procrastination state at work ( = 0.53) and for the 58% for the Procrastination state academic ( = 0.58).

Subsequently, to test the hypothesis that Personality Traits will be a better predictor for the Procrastination state in the academic context than in the work context, the mediation models were compared with each other. Firstly, the total effect predictor coefficients were compared between the two contexts. The test statistic Student’s t was applied to compare two these b coefficients of the c path ( =-.684 and =-.832) and the outcome indicated that there was no significant difference between them (t(105)=0.81, p>0.05). Also, the comparison of the fit of the two models ( = 0.53, = 0.58) did not provide any evidence of the difference (Z=-0.53, p>0.05). However, when looking at the direct effect of PT on PW ( = .547, SE =.139)

Procrastination and social context : does the situation matter? : procrastination and its relationship to personality and social factors in the work and academic context