Influence of decision-making styles and affective styles on academic procrastination among students

Abstract

Academic procrastination is one of the main problems students encounter during studying. It affects their mental health, academic performance, and even everyday activities. A lack of time management was once thought to be the cause of procrastination. Procrastination, however, has been linked to mood control, according to recent studies. Decision-making is also a factor that is influenced by emotion or a person’s affect. The present study aims to find whether decision-making and affective styles influence academic procrastination among Indian students. The participants (N = 211) who are currently studying any discipline in a regular mode and who are between the ages of 17 to 30 years (mean = 21.10 & SD = 2.168) were selected using purposive sampling, and data was collected online using Academic Procrastination Scale, General Decision-Making Style Instrument and Affective Style Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation, along with multiple regression analysis. Results found a significant inverse correlation between rational decision-making and academic procrastination and a weak inverse correlation between adjusting affective style and academic procrastination. A significant positive correlation between avoidant decision-making and academic procrastination was also found. Through regression analysis avoidance, decision-making has been found as a positive predictor of academic procrastination along with rational decision-making, and spontaneous decision-making as negative predictors. No significant correlations were found for academic procrastination with intuitive, dependent, spontaneous, concealing, and tolerating styles. The current results contribute to the existing literature on academic procrastination and the development of effective strategies to reduce academic procrastination by managing unhealthy decision-making styles.

Keywords:

• academic procrastination
• decision-making styles
• affective styles
• Indian students

1. Introduction

Most people irrespective of their age might have had the experience of procrastination. People often think of doing one thing and end up doing nothing or something else. It is common among students to plan to study regularly, but at the end of the day, they realize that they have not done anything according to their plan. This phenomenon is termed procrastination, and it can affect almost all spheres of a person’s daily life. Many factors are found to be associated with procrastination. Procrastination, by the term, means “the trait of intentionally slowing down or postponing any task even with the awareness of its negative consequences” (Steel, 2007). Procrastination entails unnecessary and unwanted delays, like decisional delay, delay in implementation, or lack of timeliness (Lay, 1986; Mann et al., 1997; McCown et al., 1989; Steel, 2010). Procrastination is also explained as “a trait or behavioral disposition to postpone or delay performing a task or making decisions” (Milgram et al., 1998, p. 297), or as Lay (1986) defined, it is the act of unwantedly delaying tasks to the point of experiencing a subjective uncomfortable feeling or putting off something that is necessary to reach some goal. People procrastinate in various activities, such as household chores, office works, academic activities, and so on. A study conducted among medical students by Hayat et al. (2020) shows that 29.25% of students are showing academic procrastination always or nearly always, while 47.9% of the students were showing a moderate level of academic procrastination, which is problematic for them (Hayat et al., 2020). In another study done by Putri Daryani et al. (2021), it was found that 55.1% of the student participants showed more than average levels of academic procrastination (Putri Daryani et al., 2021). In India, a study conducted by Madhan et al. (2012) showed that 27% of the students exhibited severe trait procrastination (Madhan et. al., 2012).

Balkis and Duru (2007) have identified five different categories of procrastination behaviour– life routine, decisional, compulsive, neurotic, and finally academic procrastination. Life routine procrastination is when the person is unable to schedule daily life activities and follow the routine as per schedule (Milgram et al., 1988). When a person cannot make timely decisions, it can be stated as decisional procrastination (Effert & Ferrari, 1989), whereas, compulsive procrastination is said when the same person shows both decisional and behavioral procrastination (Ferrari, 1991) and neurotic procrastination is when a person tends to postpone major life decisions (Ellis & Knaus, 1979). According to Soloman & Rothblum (1984), academic procrastination is the tendency to postpone the work related to an individual’s studies so that the individual is either unable to complete the task fully by their last date or he/she might get rushed to finish the task.

Students with low academic self-efficacy will have high academic procrastination (Liu, et al., 2020). Steel (2008), through his study, showed that self-efficacy and self-actualization could be affected by procrastination. Along with that, the author showed the effects of procrastination on an individual’s distractive and impulsive nature, self-control, and even the organizational behavior of scholars. When that comes to academic areas, it leads to students’ laziness and a passive developing delaying tendency in them. It means that students either experience hesitation in taking the initiative to do work or they feel afraid to start work or an assignment (Steel, 2008). Studies have identified various primary and secondary problems related to procrastination in academics. For instance, lower achievement and higher physical or psychological issues of students (Ferrari & Pychyl, 2000), their anxiety (Onwuegbuzie, 2004), confusion, irregularity, and irresponsible nature [Rivait, 2007]. Studies also say that procrastination can lead to serious problems such as anxiety, depression, etc.

However, why people procrastinate is always an interesting question for researchers. Various studies have found different factors that can lead to procrastination. A few factors that are found to have a high influence on procrastination among students are perfectionism (Jadidi et al., 2011; Çapan, 2010), fear of failure (Flett et al., 1992; Solomon & Rothblum, 1984), and aversiveness to tasks (Blunt & Pychyl, 2000; Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). Also, there are a few psychosocial causes and correlates of procrastination, such as motivation for achievement (Munavara & Thomas, 2020), lack of time management skills (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984), boredom (Balkis & Duru, 2007; Sümer & Büttner, 2022), distractibility (Svartdal et al., 2020), thrill-seeking (Ferrari, 2000), and lack of organizational skills (Balkis & Duru, 2007). Psychological factors such as depression, high anxiety and low self efficacy (Balkis & Duru, 2007), impulsiveness (Steel & Ferrari, 2013), etc. also influence procrastination.

Previously, researchers considered procrastination as a problem with time management. For instance, Lay and Schouwenburg (1993) have studied the relationship between time management and trait procrastination among university students and found an inverse relationship between trait procrastination and perceived control of time. Eerde (2003) tried to find out the effect of time management training on self-reported procrastination among 37 employees and found that the training for time management can lessen procrastination among employees and Ugurlu (2013), considers lack of effective time management habits and effective use of time as two of the causes for people’s procrastination. All of those were giving the idea that people who are not so good at time management will be procrastinating their work usually. However, later on, researchers started arguing that procrastination is an issue with emotion. Tim Pychyl (2020) suggested procrastination as not a time-management problem but as an emotion-management problem. According to him, procrastination gives a hedonic shift in the experienced emotions when a person postpones a given task. He also states that an understanding of emotion regulation must be at the beginning of any discussion of procrastination. As Pychyl and Sirois (2016) stated, people do not procrastinate because of impulsiveness or lack of self-discipline. But people do procrastinate as they make use of task avoidance as a way to manage their emotions. Pychyl et al. (2000) reported that instead of learning, students often take part in activities such as sleeping, reading, or watching TV, while Tice and Bratslavsky (2000), reported that people put back or ignore aversive works to get a temporary positive affect at the price of prolonged goals. Several authors, such as Steel (2007), Tice et al. (2001), Wohl et al. (2010) have suggested that negative emotions can be considered an important antecedent of procrastination. Tice et al. (2001) reported that when individuals are unhappy, they tend to procrastinate more. He has also noted that the personal pleasantness of a distracter mediates the connection between feeling upset and procrastination. Therefore, the above-mentioned studies support the idea that procrastination is related to emotion.

A study by Hussain and Sultan (2010), which focused on the factors related to procrastination that affect the learning of university students, suggests that the students’ workload of assignments and unsuitable time management lead to procrastination. That is, getting too many works (assignments) at the same time increases their academic procrastination. But getting too many assignments may not directly lead to procrastination. If so, procrastination should happen with all the students who are getting too much work. That means there can be some other individual factors that are contributing to procrastination behavior in each student.

The decision-making style of students can be such a factor that varies from individual to individual, which may lead to students’ procrastination in academic tasks associated with the workload of assignments. The decision-making style can be defined as “the learned habitual response pattern exhibited by an individual when confronted with a decision situation. It is not a personality trait, but a habit-based propensity to react in a certain way in a specific decision context.” (Scott & Bruce, 1995, p. 820). Or the habitual way an individual makes decisions in various situations (Scott & Bruce, 1995). According to Scott and Bruce (1995), there are five different decision-making styles: (i) rational decision-making style which is characterized by deliberate, emotion-free, analytic information processing, or a logical process of considering alternatives before choosing an option; (ii) Intuitive decision-making style which is represented by automatic, quick, emotion-based information processing; (iii) Dependent decision-making style, defined as a reliance on others for advice; (iv) Avoidant decision-making style which is said as a lack of decision-making or it is characterized by an individual’s efforts to avoid or to escape from making decisions; and (v) Spontaneous decision-making style which is said as an individual’s desire for quick decision-making.

As observed, decision-making is also a factor found to be influenced by emotion. According to Chepenik et al. (2007), our emotions can profoundly influence our cognitive processes. Van Kleef et. al. (2010) have concluded that emotions are important in shaping people’s social decision-making. Lerner et al. (2015), reported that emotions constitute potent, pervasive, predictable, sometimes harmful, and sometimes beneficial drivers of decision-making. Researchers have classified decision-making into various styles. Decision-making style is a habitual pattern of an individual in making decisions in various situations or on various matters. Few people may try to avoid making decisions on their own, few may make decisions spontaneously without thinking much while others think a lot logically to come to a decision, and some people always need others to make decisions for them. People’s way of decision-making varies in such ways. Therefore, when coming to the workload of assignments, students with different decision-making styles may take the task in different ways. Thus, the decision-making style of a student may contribute to the student’s procrastination in his or her activities.

Affective styles could be defined as the habitual ways in which each individual reacts to and regulates their various emotions. Previous research has specified three main affective styles, i.e., concealing, adjusting, and tolerating affective styles. Concealing Affective style consists of response-focused approaches like suppression, which are given covering emotions and ignoring emotions once they make an appearance (Hofmann & Kashdan, 2010), whereas adjusting affective style includes the modulation of various emotions as the demand of a particular situation by stabilizing and readjusting the feeling of emotion and the expression of emotions (Hofmann & Kashdan, 2010; Mennin et al., 2002). In addition, tolerating affective style is defined as an accepting reaction towards any powerful and arousing emotions. It is an individual’s non-defensive reactions toward his/her emotions (Hofmann & Kashdan, 2010; Hofmann et al., 2012). According to Davidson (1998) and Hofmann et al. (2012), differences in affective styles are individuals’ differences in their tendency to respond to and manage their emotions. If we consider procrastination related to emotion, the way a person could react and regulate their emotion could be a leading factor towards procrastination. Another variable in this study, i.e., decision-making styles, is also found to be influenced by emotions.

Hence, the current study attempts to find out whether academic procrastination has any relationship with the decision-making styles and affective styles of students. The study’s objectives were to determine how affective and decision-making styles are related to academic procrastination and additionally, to determine the influence of students’ decision-making and affective styles on academic procrastination. The study predicts that decision-making styles and academic procrastination among students would be significantly correlated and that decision-making styles will also have an influence on academic procrastination among students. Additionally, the study hypothesizes that Affective styles and academic procrastination among students will be significantly correlated, and affective styles will also have an influence on academic procrastination among students.

2. Method

2.1. Plan and design

The present study adopted a descriptive design and used a cross-sectional survey to describe the relationship between the independent variables decision-making and affective styles and the dependent variable academic procrastination. For the correlational within-group study, data were collected from the participants (students of the age range 17–30 years). The three variables included in the study are academic procrastination, decision-making style, and affective style.

2.2. Participants

A sample of 211 participants between the ages of 17 to 30 years (mean = 21.10 & SD = 2.168) participated in the study. There were 146 female (69.2%) and 65 male (30.8%) participants who were studying a regular course at a university or college. The participants were recruited using purposive sampling method. The researchers contacted the participants individually, taken consent and the data was collected using google forms. Among the participants, 182 (86.3%) were from a nuclear family while 29 (13.7%) were from a joint family. The number of participants from different educational qualifications such as higher secondary classes, bachelors course, masters courses, PhD/M Phil, and Diploma/Others are 12 (5.7%), 139 (65.9%), 50 (23.7%), 4 (1.9%), and 6 (2.8%) respectively. The participants were students from different parts of India of which 21.8% were from urban regions, 37.0% were from the semi-urban region, and 41.2% were from rural areas. Students who have reported any part-time work were eliminated from the study because of the possible role of several other external factors contributing to their academic procrastination.

2.3. Data collection

Informed consent was obtained from the participants to collect the data. The socio-demographic data and the three tools for the study, namely, Academic Procrastination Scale, General Decision-Making Style Instrument, and the Affective Style Questionnaire were administered using google forms. The participants were informed to ask if they had any doubts. The responses were received, scored, and interpreted.

2.4. Scales

Academic procrastination scale, developed by Justin Mccloskey & Scielzo, (2015) contains 25 items and high reliability that is, α = .95. An example of the items is “I put off projects until the last minute.” Items were scored by using a Likert-type scale (5-point), where 1 indicates “strongly disagree” and 5 indicates “strongly agree” with the corresponding items.

Decision-making style questionnaire, developed by Scott and Bruce (1995), has five subscales, namely, rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous decision-making styles. Each subscale consists of five items. A sample item for each subscales is as below:

Rational decision-making: “I make decisions in a logical and systematic way”

Intuitive decision-making: “when making a decision, I rely upon my instincts”

Dependent decision-making: “I often need the assistance of other people when making important decisions”

Avoidant decision-making: “I avoid making important decisions until the pressure is on”

Spontaneous decision-making: “I generally make snap decisions”

Items were scored by using a Likert-type scale (5-point), where 1 indicates “strongly disagree” and 5 indicates “strongly agree” with the corresponding items and the high scores in each subscale indicate the style which individuals show about making important decisions. Cronbach’s alpha calculated for each decision-making style containing five items has shown acceptable reliability with values that are ranging from .76 to .86.

Affective style questionnaire, developed by Hofmann and Kashdan (2010) is a brief instrument to measure individual differences in emotional regulation, which is further divided into three subscales. The concealing factor includes eight items, the adjusting factor includes seven items, and tolerating factor includes five items. Sample items from each subscale are “People usually can’t tell when I am upset”, “I am able to let go of my feelings”, and “It’s ok to feel negative emotions at times,” respectively. The internal consistency was acceptable for the three subscales, which are concealing affective style (α=.84), adjusting affective style (α=.80), and tolerating affective style (α=.66). Each subscale has also shown high item validity. In this questionnaire, participants must answer 20 statements about their tendency to react to emotions on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not true of me at all) to 5 (extremely true of me).

Data analysis, The obtained data from the sample was analyzed with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences for Windows Version 20.0 (SPSS 20.0). Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation method, and Multiple Regression analysis were used to find the relationship and influence of the variables.

3. Results

The result was analyzed using Pearson correlation and regression analysis as the sample were meeting the parametric assumptions.

Table 1 shows the socio-demographic characteristics of participants with respect to socio-demographic data such as age, gender, the current status of studies, family type, educational qualification, and residence. The percentage of participants coming under the age groups of 17–23 years, and 24–30 years, are 88.2% (n = 186), and 11.8% (n = 25) respectively. 30.8% (n = 65) of the participants are male and 69.2% (n = 146) of the participants are female. The percentage of participants who are from higher secondary classes, bachelors course, masters courses, PhD/M Phil, and Diploma/Others are 5.7% (n = 12), 65.9% (n = 139), 23.7% (n = 50), 1.9% (n = 4), and 2.8% (n = 6) respectively. 86.3% (n = 182) participants were from nuclear families while 13.7% (n = 29) participants were from joint families. There were 21.8% (n = 46) urban, 37% (n = 78) semi-urban, and 41.2% (n = 87) rural participants.

Table 1. Table showing the distribution of socio-demographic characteristics of the participants’

Variables	n (211)	%
Age
17–23 years	186	88.2%
24–30 years	25	11.8%
Gender
Male	65	30.8%
Female	146	69.2%
Family Type
Nuclear	182	86.3%
Joint	29	13.7%
Education Qualifications
Higher secondary	12	5.7%
Bachelors courses	139	65.9%
Masters courses	50	23.7%
Ph.D./MPhil	4	1.9%
Diploma/Others	6	2.8%
Residence
Urban	46	21.8%
Semi-Urban	78	37.0%
Rural	87	41.2%

Table 2 shows the correlation between domains of decision-making and academic procrastination. It has shown a significant negative correlation between Rational Decision making and Academic procrastination at p < 0.01 level. Further, it is observed that there is a significant positive correlation between Avoidant decision-making and Academic procrastination at p < 0.01 level. There exists no correlation between the domains- Dependent Decision Making, Intuitive Decision Making & Spontaneous Decision Making with Academic procrastination.

Table 2. Correlation: Domains of decision-making and academic procrastination. (Pearson correlation analysis)

	Academic Procrastination
Rational Decision Making	−.342**
Intuitive Decision Making	−.027
Dependent Decision Making	.119
Avoidant Decision Making	.465**
Spontaneous Decision Making	.079

Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

Table 3 shows the correlation between domains of Affective styles and academic procrastination. From the findings, it is observed that a weak significant negative correlation exists between Adjusting affective style and Academic procrastination at p < 0.05 level. It has shown no significant correlation between Concealing, & Tolerating Affective styles and Academic procrastination.

Table 3. Correlation: Domains of affective styles and academic procrastination. (Pearson correlation analysis)

	Academic Procrastination
Concealing Affective style	.063
Adjusting Affective style	−.153*
Tolerating Affective Style	−.070

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

Table 4 shows the Multiple Regression Analysis: Domains of Decision-making styles as predictors of Academic procrastination. A significant influence of domains of Decision making on Academic procrastination is found to be positively significant at p < 0.000 level. The initial model showed a total variance of 21.6% while the latter two models showed 24.8% & 26.6% of the variance of independent variables i.e.: Avoidance Decision Making and Rational Decision Making and Spontaneous Decision making on Academic procrastination. The initial step could only load Avoidance Decision Making in the model significantly as a positive predictor of Academic procrastination at p < 0.000 level. While the second step could once again load Avoidance Decision Making as a positive predictor of Academic procrastination along with Rational Decision Making as a negative predictor in the model at p < 0.000 and p < 0.05 levels, respectively.

Table 4. Regression analysis: Decision-making styles as a predictor of academic procrastination

Variable	R	R^2	F	ΔR^2	ΔF	Std β	t
Model 1
Avoidance Decision Making	.465	.216	57.524***	.212	57.524	.465	7.584***
Model 2
Avoidance Decision Making	.498	.248	34.330***	.241	8.949	.391	6.023***
Rational Decision Making						−.194	−2.992*
Model 3
Avoidance Decision Making	.516	.266	25.061***	.256	5.151	.453	6.486***
Rational Decision Making						−.198	−3.078*
Spontaneous Decision Making						−.149	−2.270*

Note: * p < 0.05** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.000

Again, the third step could once again load Avoidance Decision Making as a positive predictor of Academic procrastination along with Rational Decision Making and Spontaneous decision-making as a negative predictors in the model at p < 0.000, p < 0.05, and p < 0.05 levels respectively.

Table 5 shows the Multiple Regression Analysis: Domains of Affective styles as predictors of Academic procrastination. A significant influence of domains of Affective styles on Academic procrastination is found to be positively significant at p < 0.05 level. The initial model showed a total variance of 2.3% while the latter two models showed 4.9% of the variance of independent variables i.e.: Adjusting Affective style and Concealing Affective style on Academic procrastination. The initial step could only load Adjusting Affective style in the model significantly as a weak negative predictor of Academic procrastination at p < 0.05 level. While the second step could once again load Adjusting Affective style as a negative predictor of Academic procrastination along with Concealing Affective style as a positive predictor in the model at<0.05 levels, respectively.

Table 5. Multiple regression analysis: Affective styles as predictor academic procrastination

Variable	R	R^2	F	ΔR^2	ΔF	Std β	t
Model 1
Adjusting Affective style	.153	.023	5.010*	.019	5.010	−.153	−2.238*
Model 2
Adjusting Affective style	.222	.049	5.386*	.040	5.652	−.245	−3.146*
Concealing Affective style						.185	2.377*

Note: * p < 0.05** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.000

4. Discussion

One of the most important issues encountered by students regarding their academic performance is procrastination which affects the academic outcome considerably. The current study aimed at finding the influence of decision-making and affective styles on academic procrastination. The hypothesis testing revealed that there is a significant positive correlation between avoidant decision-making and academic procrastination and significant inverse correlations between rational decision-making and academic procrastination, and between adjusting affective style and academic procrastination. The regression analysis results show avoidance decision-making as a positive predictor of academic procrastination and rational decision-making and spontaneous decision-making as negative predictors. No significant correlations were found for academic procrastination with intuitive, dependent, spontaneous, concealing, and tolerating styles.

An inverse correlation can be seen between rational decision-making style and academic procrastination. It indicates that the more rational the decision-making is, the less the procrastination would be. Avoidant decision-making shows a positive correlation with academic procrastination, which means that the higher the avoidant decision-making, the higher the chances of academic procrastination.

Ugurlu (2013), through his study on school administrators about the decision-making styles and their effects on general procrastination behaviors has also found that rational decision-making is inversely correlated with procrastination. He has also found a significant positive relationship between procrastination and avoidant decision-making style. These findings support the result of the current study. But at the same time, other results that he has given that spontaneous decision-making style is negatively related and intuitive and dependent styles of decision-making are positively related to procrastination are against the findings of the current study.

These variations in the findings can be due to the age difference of the participants in both studies. Ugurlu, in the same study, has found that the rational style of decision-making and procrastination will not differ much according to the age of the participants. Intuitive decision-making has been found to be more relevant for participants with ages more than 35 years. He assumed that peoples’ intuitions get better as their age increases. This can be because of their increasing experiences. Here we can also remember the finding given by Leybourne and Sadler-Smith (2006) that a positive relationship can be seen between the usage of intuitive judgments and the experience. We can also assume that as experience increases, people get more intuition about the outcome of their procrastinating behavior (either good or bad). Thus to avoid the undesired outcomes that they might receive as a result of procrastinating a task, they might reduce their procrastinating behavior. The current study has included students who are aged less than 35. This could be one reason for the intuitive decision-making style not showing a significant correlation with academic procrastination. Also, intuition may change from person to person and may not always be correct. This could be another reason for the intuitive decision-making style not to show a significant correlation with academic procrastination. Similarly, participants in his study were aged between 36 and 50 years and more dependent on decision-making. And also as their age increases, they tend to make more avoidant and spontaneous decisions. Other researchers such as Gorpel and Steel (2008), Eerde (2003) have also found the importance of age in procrastinating behavior. Eerde’s meta-analytical study aimed to assess procrastination using the correlations of 121 previous studies. This study has considered various demographic variables along with procrastination. The study result revealed an inverse correlation between an individual’s age and their procrastination. It means younger people are more procrastinating. We can also explain it as when age increases, people procrastinate less. According to Eerde, his sample was mostly college students. Therefore, the reason for that finding can be either because people learn to procrastinate less as age increases or those people who are showing no improvement might have dropped their college education. Another researcher Balkis (2007) found that rational decision-making and procrastination are negatively correlated among prospective teachers.

Research also says the significance of personality traits in procrastination. A study by Riaz et al. (2012) has indicated that conscientiousness, one of the big five personalities, is a positive predictor of rational decision-making. At the same time, another study by Johnson and Bloom (1995), conducted on 202 undergraduate students, has shown that procrastination is inversely related to conscientiousness. A negative correlation of conscientiousness with procrastination was also found in a study by Ozer (2012). These study results can support the finding of the current study which shows the existence of a significant negative correlation between the rational style of decision-making and academic procrastination. Riaz et al. (2012) also indicated neuroticism, another big five personality, as a positive predictor of avoidant decision-making. Arif Ozer (2012), has given that a positive reciprocal relationship exists between neuroticism and procrastination. These results support the result of the current study that there exists a positive correlation between avoidant decision-making and procrastination.

When considering the workload of assignments as a leading factor in academic procrastination as found by Hussain and Sultan (2010), few things could be assumed from the result. For instance, rational decision-makers use logical approaches and consider alternatives before choosing one. Therefore, when such people are getting overloaded with work, they might be able to consider all the work and choose according to their priorities. Therefore, as rational decision-making increases, people will be more able to prioritize their activities and accomplish each of them, decreasing procrastination. The study results show that people who rely on others to make decisions for them and also people who tend to make quick decisions do not show any relationship with procrastination.

Similarly, people who are avoidant decision-makers, or who avoid chances of making a decision, may not consider their options when they are given an overload of work because they do not want to make a decision on how to prioritize their overloaded activities. By examining multiple regression analysis results, which are performed to find if there are predictive relationships between various styles of decision-making and academic procrastination, it can be revealed that avoidance decision making serves as a positive predictor of academic procrastination.

One another study by Bavol’ar and Orosova (2015), revealed that people who use avoidant decision-making styles more had lower subjective well-being and also a higher rate of depression and perceived stress. This finding seems to support the current study’s result because it is already discussed in other studies that have reported the effect of procrastination on mental health (stress, depression, anxiety, etc.). Hence, here it can be assumed that, as an avoidant style of decision-making is higher for an individual, it will increase the rate of procrastination, and it further leads to decreased subjective well-being, increased perceived stress, and depression.

Affective styles are the ways in which individuals try to regulate their emotions. This particular study has mainly included three affective styles, namely, concealing, adjusting, and tolerating affective styles. Concealing affective style and tolerating affective styles did not show any correlation with academic procrastination in this study, while adjusting affective style has shown a weak negative relationship with academic procrastination. According to Hofmann and Kashdan (2010), individuals who own the ways to readjust or stabilize their various emotions as required to favorably direct the rewards and punishments of day-to-day life are referred to as people with adjusting affective style. Mennin et al. (2002), also say that people who are most capable of gaining and making use of emotional information in adaptive problem-solving and more capable of regulating their emotional experience and expression of emotions as per their various circumstantial needs are having adjusting affective style. Thus, people with a more adjusting affective style would be more able to manage their emotions and thus have low rates of procrastination. Tice and Bratslavsky (2000) reported that individuals tend to avoid aversive tasks to get temporary positive affect at the price of prolonged goals. Here, people who can manage their emotions tend to have lower rates of procrastination. These findings are in support of the point that procrastination is about emotion management and may not be time management. The emotion dis-regulation model of depression and anxiety disorders proposed by Hofmann, postulates that the affective style of a person, which gets influenced by the association of external or internal triggering factors and the individual’s diathesis, decides a persons’ positive or negative affect. If any particular affective styles give way to non-adaptive regulation of emotions to keep a negative affect, various psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety can arise. It shows the relationship between affective styles and problems such as anxiety and depression. Studies show that procrastination also leads to these emotional disorders. Hence, even though the study has not shown any correlation of Concealing affective style and tolerating affective styles with procrastination, it gives hope to further studies to find the reason for the lack of correlation between those variables. As the Concealing affective style and tolerating affective styles have not shown any relationship to procrastination, further studies have to be done to find a possible reason.

5. Conclusion

Considering its consequences, academic procrastination is an area of research that must be studied rigorously. The current study has tried to see the influence of students’ decision-making styles and affective styles on their academic procrastination. Rational decision-making style has shown a significant inverse correlation with academic procrastination, while avoidant decision-making style has shown a significant positive correlation with academic procrastination. Intuitive, dependent, and spontaneous decision-making styles did not correlate with academic procrastination. Adjusting affective style has shown a weak inverse relationship with academic procrastination while concealing and tolerating affective styles have shown no significant correlation with academic procrastination.

6. Implications

Academic procrastination is considered a major issue that students face most of the time and hence it is very much essential to look into this matter and explore new ways to reduce the procrastination tendency of students. Procrastinating academic work affects not only their academic performance or the marks that they are securing. It can affect them in various aspects of their life. It can lead to less self-confidence, less self-esteem, etc. Hence, as the result of the current study proposes the importance of decision-making styles on procrastination, it could be used for further studies on a clinical approach to procrastination. Further studies could use this result and formulate interventions to influence the decision-making style of students so that their procrastination tendency can be reduced. The study can be extended to various other fields also, such as working people.

Also, previous research shows a debate on the reasons for procrastination. Few studies state that procrastination is an issue with time management, while others state that it is an emotion management issue. The current study results may contribute to further studies to solve this debate. The finding that the phenomenon of procrastination is related to emotion regulation is a comparatively new area of research, and this study would contribute to that area of research.

7. Limitations

The present study did not control age and experience, though they are important in procrastination. Also, gender differences and cultural differences among the participants were not controlled in the current study.

8. Recommendations

Future studies could be done to continue this study by eliminating its limitations. Further studies can be done by controlling samples based on age and stream of study with a higher sample size to get more accurate and generalizable results. The result of the study could be used for further studies on a clinical approach to procrastination. Further studies could also be done based on the decision-making competency of the participants.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the first author on reasonable request

Correction

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.