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Mutual implications of procrastination research in adults and children for theory and intervention

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Abstract

Procrastination is a prevalent form of self-regulatory failure familiar to most people. Although many consider procrastination innocuous as long as the deadline is met, it is associated with negative consequences in various life domains. Thus, it is important to understand why people procrastinate, what factors contribute to procrastination and what can be done to reduce procrastination. Most research on these topics has been conducted with adults, and the few developmental studies have been conducted independently from adult procrastination research. In this Review, we seek to bring these disparate lines of research into closer alignment and point out their mutual implications. Specifically, we discuss how studying procrastination developmentally highlights a need to reconsider a highly restrictive definition of procrastination dominant in adult research. We also suggest future directions for both adult and developmental research, including measurement, theoretical development and interventions.

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Fig. 1: Multicomponent definition of procrastination.
Fig. 2: Prominent theories of procrastination.
Fig. 3: Targets and context of procrastination across development.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Nicolas Chevalier and his lab group, Logan Fiorella, Daniel Gustavson, Flaviu Hodis, Michael Kane and Katrin Klingsieck for providing useful feedback on an earlier version of this article. The authors also thank Sofia Garibay and Adrien Ward for creating initial sketches for Fig. 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada

    Caitlin E. V. Mahy

  2. Department of Psychology and Center for Mind & Brain, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Yuko Munakata

  3. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Akira Miyake

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Contributions

All authors were involved in conceptualization of this review, and the writing and editing of the manuscript involved a highly collaborative process between developmental psychologists (C.E.V.M. & Y.M.) and a cognitive psychologist studying procrastination in adults (A.M.). C.E.V.M. and A.M. wrote an initial draft of the Introduction. C.E.V.M. and Y.M. wrote the initial draft of the ‘Procrastination in children’ section. A.M. wrote the initial drafts of ‘Procrastination in adults’ and ‘Summary and future directions’ sections. A.M. and Y.M. wrote the initial draft of ‘Mutual implications’ section. All authors edited the draft of the manuscript and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Caitlin E. V. Mahy or Akira Miyake.

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Mahy, C.E.V., Munakata, Y. & Miyake, A. Mutual implications of procrastination research in adults and children for theory and intervention. Nat Rev Psychol 3, 589–605 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00341-w

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