Self-esteem and procrastination: relationships and effects

Procrastination

Self-Esteem and Procrastination

There is a substantial amount of indirect evidence presented in the literature that suggests a strong negative correlation between self-esteem and procrastination, such that high levels of self-esteem are generally associated with lower rates of procrastination, less severe or extreme procrastination, and/or lower levels of adverse effects from procrastination (Wolters, 2003; Deniz, 2006; Steel, 2007). Though this research does not establish a causal relationship -- i.e., it does not determine whether a low self-esteem level leads to higher levels of procrastination or if the relationship works in the opposite direction (or indeed, if it works in both directions or if the correlation exists due to an entirely different relationship), the degree of correlation demonstrated is certainly worthy of closer inspection. An examination of the largely indirect information provided by research in the past decade regarding self-esteem and procrastination, as well an analysis of the few pieces of research that have directly examined these areas of personality and behavior, makes it clear that though further study is needed there is a direct relationship between the two.

Procrastination is a very widespread and common problem, at least amongst populations in modern English-language-speaking countries, and has thus been the subject of a substantial amount of research from a variety of perspectives (Ferrari et al., 2005). Research suggests that the problem is especially severe when it comes to college students for academic-specific tasks, which show procrastination rates of more than three times that of normal adults engaged in work-related activities and in other chores of daily life (Wolters, 2003; Ferrari et al., 2005; Deniz, 2006). Procrastination has also been linked to a wide array of other behaviors that tend to avoid introspection, self-evaluation, and growth in self-efficacy prompted by conscious recognitions of objectives and failures to meet them (Wolters, 2003; Ferrari et al., 2005; Steel, 2007). The importance of goals when it comes to understanding procrastination is impossible to overstate, however; procrastination in college students specifically is linked to goal structures and identification that are unrelated to the academic tasks for which procrastination is so prevalent (Wolters, 2003; Ferrari et al., 2005). Because goal orientation and goal attainment are both linked to self-esteem, procrastination can already be seen to have a strong if indirect relationship with self-esteem.

The relationship between self=esteem and procrastination does not end at this indirect relationship, though, and in two studies of a specific type of self-esteem labeled "decisional self-esteem" (as the name implies, the term simply refers to self-esteem as it arises out of decision-making, both in the decision-making process and when reflecting on past decisions) there was a direct and distinct negative correlation between self-esteem and procrastination, as well as clear correlations -- some negative and some positive -- with other decision-making strategies (Deniz, 2006; Di Fabio, 2006). Different findings in the two studies do suggest different levels of correlation and the authors ultimately provide incongruous accounts of this relationship's predictive value, yet both conclude that some relationship clearly exists (Deniz, 2006; Di Fabio, 2006). Achievement motivation has also been shown to have a clear negative correlation with procrastination and with self-esteem, and research examining these relationship as well as nearly even hundred other traits and phenomena as they correlated to procrastination actually comes close to empirically demonstrating a casual relationship between these elements, where higher levels of achievement motivation result in both higher self-esteem and lower levels of procrastination, and with lower levels of achievement motivation potentially causal of lower self-esteem and increased procrastination (Wolters, 2003; Steel, 2007). Taken together, these studies suggest a definite negative correlation between self-esteem and procrastination, and even begin to suggest (though certainly not confirm) a causal relationship.

As clear as the evidence emerging from this research appears to be, none of the studies cited above actually directly examined the relationship between self-esteem and procrastination. Though this relationship was explicitly mentioned by several authors and easily implicated in the works of others, there has been very little recent examination of the direct role that self-esteem plays in creating or avoiding procrastination, or vice verse. Several studies have examined this relationship, however, and their findings are largely in keeping with what would be expected given the findings in the other research cited above. Though one study reports that "self-efficacy for self-regulation" (essentially, the ability to exert self-control) shows the strongest correlation with procrastination, a direct measure and comparison of self-esteem levels with procrastination rates amongst a large cohort of college students showed a strong correlation in this area, as well (Klassen et al., 2008). Other research has yielded findings of an even stronger relationship between self-esteem and procrastination, as well as going further and linking general depression and anxiety as well as general self-esteem to procrastination levels, even correlating increased academic-task specific procrastination with lower levels of general self-esteem (Farran, 2004). Finally, a research study that involved only three independent variables -- intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and self-esteem -- and their relationship to procrastination found a very strong negative correlation between self-esteem and procrastination that suggested a high predictive value (Lekich, 2006). Taken as a whole, this emerging research not only confirms the indirect findings of previous research, but also begins to suggest more direct explanations for the mechanism of the relationship between self-esteem and procrastination, suggesting positions for both in a larger network of motivations, behavioral outcomes, and emotional/psychological states (Farran, 2004; Lekich, 2006; Klassen et al., 2008).