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Future orientation as a mediator between perceived environmental cues in likelihood of future success and procrastination
Abstract
Within the evolutionary framework of life history approach, procrastination—the purposive delay of an intended task—is seen as a life history trait characterized by prioritizing immediate benefits with little regard for long-term consequences under particular environmental conditions. The present study proposes that environment cues indicating a low likelihood of future success may lead to greater procrastination, and temporal orientation may represent a mediator underlying this relationship between likelihood of future success and procrastination. A total of 252 undergraduate students completed the Probability Judgments Scale to assess likelihood of future success in their environments, the Future Orientation Scale to assess future orientation, and three scales to assess procrastination. Structural equation modeling indicated that, as predicted, lower likelihood of future success in the environments predicted greater procrastination, a relationship that exhibited both a direct pathway and an indirect pathway through future orientation. These results define the life history origin of procrastination. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.
... Procrastination was positively associated with a fast life history orientation (Chen and Chang, 2016). Procrastination was higher when the environment was unpredictable and likelihood of future success was low (Chen and Qu, 2017;Chen and Kruger, 2017). Furthermore, the relation between environmental unpredictability and procrastination was mediated by life history strategy; environmental unpredictability was negatively related to a slower life history strategy, and in turn, slower life history strategy was negatively related to procrastination (Chen and Qu, 2017). ...
... We also found that uncertainty predicted procrastination, and that life history orientation mediated the relation between uncertainty and procrastination, which is consistent with the life history framework (Chen and Qu, 2017;Chen and Kruger, 2017). In line with this theoretical framework, our results demonstrated that environmental uncertainty predicted a faster life history strategy, which signaled that it was more optimal to favor present gains than future ones, consequently predicting procrastination. ...
... In line with this theoretical framework, our results demonstrated that environmental uncertainty predicted a faster life history strategy, which signaled that it was more optimal to favor present gains than future ones, consequently predicting procrastination. Our findings also provided further support to the conceptualization of procrastination as an adaptive response to environmental conditions-specifically, to environmental unpredictability (Chen and Qu, 2017;Chen and Kruger, 2017). Moreover, consistent with previous findings, our findings also showed that procrastination was associated with a faster life strategy, suggesting that procrastination is more likely when present gains are favored (Chen and Chang, 2016;Chen and Qu, 2017). ...
While existing findings have established an increase in procrastination among students in higher education during COVID-19, they do not elucidate how COVID-19 has effected an increase in procrastination. Drawing upon previous findings and employing a life history framework, this paper proposed that the increase in procrastination may be attributed to the heightened levels of uncertainty in the pandemic. Additionally, this paper examined life history strategy as the psychological mechanism underlying the relation between uncertainty and procrastination. By collecting data across two school semesters in a university (N = 253), we found that uncertainty and procrastination did not differ between the semester where changes were abruptly imposed to stem the spread of COVID-19 and the following semester. Our findings also revealed that uncertainty predicted procrastination, and that life history strategy mediated the relation between uncertainty and procrastination. Specifically, uncertainty was associated with a faster life history strategy, which was positively associated with procrastination. By shedding light on the psychology behind the effect of uncertainty on procrastination, the findings of this paper hold important implications for the design of procrastination interventions for the uncertain climate during the pandemic and “the new normal” post COVID-19.
... Faster LH strategies arise in harsh and unpredictable environmental conditions where earlier maturation, production of more offspring, and lower parental investment are adaptive. In particular, harsh and unpredictable conditions produce a variety of fast LH strategy-relevant behavioral and psychological outcomes such as impulsivity, procrastination, and antisocial behaviors (Chang & Lu, 2018;Chen, 2018;Chen & Kruger, 2017;Chen & Qu, 2017;Del Giudice, 2014;Hurst & Kavanagh, 2017). Slower LH strategies arise in predictable, more favorable environments where later reproduction, higher quality of offspring, and higher parental investment are adaptive. ...
... In addition to the early environmental conditions and experiences, the perception of future environmental condition may activate the LH psychological mechanisms (Davis & Werre, 2008). For example, if the future is perceived as uncertain, future outcomes may be "discounted," which may in turn lead to use of fast LH strategies such as procrastination (Chen & Kruger, 2017). For another example, the life expectancy in communities was associated with the rates of homicide, which was seen as a fast LH strategies (Wilson & Daly, 1997). ...
This study used the life history (LH) theory to investigate how environmental cues are associated with Machiavellianism. A total of 252 undergraduate students completed self-report measures of social rank uncertainty, Machiavellianism, fast LH strategy, and dominance. The results indicated that Machiavellianism was related to a fast LH strategy. Furthermore, a fast LH strategy mediated an association between social rank uncertainty and Machiavellianism. Finally, Machiavellianism was positively associated with dominance. These findings may enhance our understanding of the evolutionary origin of Machiavellianism.
... In an effort to better understand academic procrastination, a number of empirical studies have explored intra-personal factors such as personality (Johnson and Bloom, 1995;Beck et al., 2000), self-esteem , self-efficacy (Klassen et al., 2008), achievement motivation (Saddler and Buley, 1999), and time perspective (Chen and Chang, 2016;Chen and Kruger, 2017), which may influence academic procrastination. Despite this progress, there are relatively few studies looking at environmental factors that may be associated with procrastination including academic procrastination Chen and Kruger, 2017;Nordby et al., 2017). ...
... In an effort to better understand academic procrastination, a number of empirical studies have explored intra-personal factors such as personality (Johnson and Bloom, 1995;Beck et al., 2000), self-esteem , self-efficacy (Klassen et al., 2008), achievement motivation (Saddler and Buley, 1999), and time perspective (Chen and Chang, 2016;Chen and Kruger, 2017), which may influence academic procrastination. Despite this progress, there are relatively few studies looking at environmental factors that may be associated with procrastination including academic procrastination Chen and Kruger, 2017;Nordby et al., 2017). The present study aimed to examine the associations between ecological assets and academic procrastination and the potential mediating role on the association between ecological assets and academic procrastination within the theoretical framework of an ecological model of resiliency. ...
Academic procrastination is defined as a purposive delay of academic tasks that must be completed. Within the framework of the ecological model of resiliency, this study examined how ecological assets were related to academic procrastination among adolescents. Participants in the study were 577 adolescents (53.5% boys) from Shanghai, China. They completed measures of ecological assets, commitment to learning, and academic procrastination. Structural equation modeling revealed that, as predicted, ecological assets were negatively associated with academic procrastination. In addition, commitment to learning fully mediated the association between ecological assets and academic procrastination. Implications of the present findings are discussed.
... Future orientation refers to a long-term perspective characterized by the pursuit of prospective goals and rewards, a capacity for delaying gratification, and awareness of future consequences from current behaviors (Steinberg et al. 2009;Strathman et al. 1994;Zimbardo and Boyd 1999). Future orientation may play a critical role in the relationship between LHS, environmental constraints, and LHS-related behaviors such as risk-taking, sociosexual orientation, procrastination, and health behaviors (Chen and Chang 2016;Chen and Kruger 2017;Kruger et al. 2008;Kruger et al. 2020;Ponzi et al. 2015). To persevere with long-term objectives, a future-oriented person is more likely to resist present hedonic obsessions such as behavioral addiction. ...
... Consistent with previous research, our results indicated that slow LHS significantly predicts stronger future orientation (Chen and Chang 2016;Chen and Kruger 2017), which, in turn, predicts less problematic SVA use. Slow LH strategists, developed in a stable environment in which long-term investments are likely to obtain returns, are predisposed to be future oriented, emphasizing long-term fitness in health and development (Devolder and Lens 1982;Johnson et al. 2014;Lin et al. 2016). ...
With the booming development of short-form video applications (SVAs), problematic use of SVAs raises new concerns. Taking a life history approach, the present study revealed that problematic use of SVAs may be a manifestation of fast life history strategies (LHS), associated with a lack of consideration of future consequences and sole focus on immediate rewards. An analysis of the responses of 376 TikTok users demonstrated that slow LHS was negatively associated with problematic SVA use and was positively associated with future orientation, which in turn was negatively associated with problematic SVA use. This set of associations suggests that problematic SVA use or other behavioral addiction represents a fast LHS manifestation that discounts the future by focusing on immediate hedonic rewards.
... Seginer and Mahajna [24] reported that students' future orientation links perceived parenting and academic achievement. Chen and Kruger [28] found that future orientation mediates the relationship between perceived environmental cues and the likelihood of future success. These studies have provided rich evidence to demonstrate the influence of future orientation on peoples' perceptions, attitudes, and behavior in their decision-making process. ...
Prior studies have investigated the issue of public health and health policy from economic, environmental, and healthcare perspectives. Research on public health from leaders' perspective may also help to advance our knowledge about leaders' perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward public health management. Therefore, this study is based on social ideal theory, social cognitive theory, and social trust theory to investigate the influence of leaders' future orientation on public health investment intention with the mediating role of leaders' self-efficacy and the moderating role of perceived social support. Using a structural equation modeling with a sample data of 381 leaders of government agencies in Vietnam, empirical results indicate that leaders' future orientation has a positive influence on public health investment intention. Furthermore, self-efficacy is found to have a positive mediating effect in the relationship between leaders' future orientation and public health investment intention. In addition, perceived social support positively moderates the link between leaders' future orientation and self-efficacy. Perceived social support also moderates the indirect effect of leaders' future orientation on public health investment intention through self-efficacy. On one hand, this study contributes to theoretical research by clarifying the effects of leaders' perceptions, and cognitive and behavioral intentions toward public health investment. Findings of this study may have implications for researchers who may have interest in studying the issue of public health management from leaders' viewpoints. On the other hand, this study contributes to practitioners since understanding how leaders' characteristics affect public health investment will enhance the quality of policy makers' decision-making in improving public health for citizens and society.
... Psychiatria melyek a tanulmányi teljesítményre is kihatással vannak: gyenge akadémiai teljesítményt vonnak maguk után (37,35,19,13). Chen és Kruger vizsgálati eredményei alapján azok a személyek, akiket jellemzett az akadémiai halogatás, a jövôben is kisebb valószínûséggel érnek el sikereket munkájuk során (4). ...
Introduction: The purpose of the study is to investigate dispositional procrastination, procrastination types, and an operative measurement of this behavior in academic environment. Procrastination is a common and problematic phenomenon that explains the need for a comprehensive and complex approach of this behavior. The
main focus of the study was to investigate the incidence and incidence of the different types of procrastination. Furthermore, we aimed to test the correspondence between dispositional procrastination and the operative measurement. Methods: The sample consisted of 131 participants. Lay’s Procrastination Scale was used to measure dispositional procrastination and the Types of procrastination questionnaire was applied to assess the frequency of its different types. Furthermore an operative measurement was gained by assigning a deadline for returning the paper and pensil form of the questionnaire. Participants received a message informing them that the deadline had been extended by three more days on the last night before the deadline.
Results: Based on the empirical results 63% of the participants can be classified as procrastinator. In regards of the different types of procrastination, „perfectionist” and „crisis-maker” types were the most frequent. A positive correlation was found between dispositional procrastination and the operative measurement of procrastination.
Conclusions: The results proved the common presence of procrastination, as well as the close connection between its dispositional and operative measure. Besides, they raise attention to the perfectionist and crisis-maker types of procrastination.
Bevezetés: A vizsgálat célja a diszpozicionális halogatás és a halogatási típusok kutatása, valamint a halogató magatartás operatív mérése akadémiai környezetben. A halogatás gyakori és problematikus jelenség, ami indokolttá teszi ezen szokás minél átfogóbb, több aspektust lefedô tanulmányozását. A vizsgálat fô iránya a halogatás elterjedtségének és azon belül típusainak vizsgálata, illetve a diszpozicionális halogatásra vonatkozó, valamint a halogató magatartás operatív mérésébôl származó eredmények egybehangzóságának vizsgálata. Módszerek: A vizsgálatban 131 fô vett részt. A diszpozicionális halogatás vizsgálata a Lay-féle halogatás kérdôívvel zajlott; a Típusok a halogatásban kérdôívvel a különbözô típusok elterjedtségének felmérése történt meg; továbbá operatív mérésre is sor került, melyet a papír alapú kérdôívek leadási határidejének megszabása tett lehetôvé. A le-adási határidô elôtti estén, a határidôt további három nappal meghosszabbító üzenetet kaptak a résztvevôk. Eredmények: Az empirikus vizsgálat alapján a minta 63%-áról mondható el, hogy súlyosabb halogatók. A halogatási típusokat tekintve a perfekcionista és a kríziskeltô halogatók voltak a leggyakoribbak. Pozitív összefüggés mutatko-zott a diszpozicionális halogatás, valamint a halasztás operatív megnyilvánulása között. Következtetések: Az eredmények demonstrálják a halogatás gyakori elôfordulását, valamint a diszpozicionális és az operatív megnyilvánulások közötti kapcsolatot. Ezen túl a perfekcionista és a kríziskeltô halogatási típusokra hívják fel a figyelmet.
... Psychiatria melyek a tanulmányi teljesítményre is kihatással vannak: gyenge akadémiai teljesítményt vonnak maguk után (37,35,19,13). Chen és Kruger vizsgálati eredményei alapján azok a személyek, akiket jellemzett az akadémiai halogatás, a jövôben is kisebb valószínûséggel érnek el sikereket munkájuk során (4). ...
Introduction: The purpose of the study is to investigate dispositional procrastination, procrastination types, and an operative measurement of this behavior in academic environment. Procrastination is a common and problematic phenomenon that explains the need for a comprehensive and complex approach of this behavior. The main focus of the study was to investigate the incidence and incidence of the different types of procrastination. Furthermore, we aimed to test the correspondence between dispositional procrastination and the operative measurement. Methods: The sample consisted of 131 participants. Lay's Procrastination Scale was used to measure dispositional procrastination and the Types of procrastination questionnaire was applied to assess the frequency of its different types. Furthermore an operative measurement was gained by assigning a deadline for returning the paper and pensil form of the questionnaire. Participants received a message informing them that the deadline had been extended by three more days on the last night before the deadline. Results: Based on the empirical results 63% of the participants can be classified as procrastinator. In regards of the different types of procrastination, "perfectionist" and "crisis-maker" types were the most frequent. A positive correlation was found between dispositional procrastination and the operative measurement of procrastination. Conclusions: The results proved the common presence of procrastination, as well as the close connection between its dispositional and operative measure. Besides, they raise attention to the perfectionist and crisis-maker types of procrastination.
„JOBB KÉSŐN, MINT SOHA”: A HALOGATÓ MAGATARTÁS VIZSGÁLATA EGYETEMISTÁK KÖRÉBEN
Bevezetés: A vizsgálat célja a diszpozicionális halogatás és a halogatási típusok kutatása, valamint a halogató magatartás operatív mérése akadémiai környezetben. A halogatás gyakori és problematikus jelenség, ami indokolttá teszi, ezen szokás minél átfogóbb, több aspektust lefedő tanulmányozását. A vizsgálat fő kérdése, a halogatás elterjedtségének és azon belül típusainak vizsgálata; illetve a diszpozicionális halogatásra vonatkozó, valamint a halogató magatartás operatív méréséből származó eredmények egybehangzóságának vizsgálata. Módszerek: A vizsgálatban 131 fő vett részt. A diszpozicionális halogatás vizsgálata a Lay-féle halogatás kérdőívvel zajlott; a Típusok a halogatásban kérdőívvel a különböző típusok elterjedtségének felmérése történt meg; továbbá operatív mérésre is sor került, melyet a papír alapú kérdőívek leadási határidejének megszabása tett lehetővé. A leadási határidő előtti estén, a határidőt további három nappal meghosszabbító üzenetet kaptak a résztvevők. Eredmények: Az empirikus vizsgálat alapján a minta 63%-áról mondható el, hogy súlyosabb halogatók. A halogatási típusokat tekintve a perfekcionista és a kríziskeltő halogatók voltak a leggyakoribbak. Pozitív összefüggés mutatkozott a diszpozicionális halogatás, valamint a halasztás operatív megnyilvánulása között. Következtetések: Az eredmények demonstrálják a halogatás gyakori előfordulását, valamint a diszpozicionális és az operatív megnyilvánulások közötti kapcsolatot. Ezen túl a perfekcionista és a kríziskeltő halogatási típusokra hívják fel a figyelmet.
Kulcsszavak: halogatás, krónikus halogatás, akadémiai halogatás, perfekcionista halogatás, kríziskeltő halogatás.
... In addition, in today's rapid and exponential changes in science, technology, and economy in China, people may encounter much more unpredictable environments than ever before (Chen et al. 2010). However, within the Chinese population, people may also have great individual differences in the perception of environmental certainty (Chen and Kruger 2017;Chen and Qu 2017). Therefore, it is interesting to examine how environmental certainty perceived by adolescents themselves may influence their LHS. ...
Background
Life history theory provides a unifying perspective on understanding human behaviors as adaptive strategies in response to particular environmental conditions. There is little empirical literature on the relationships between life history strategies and positive youth development.
Objective
This study examines the relationships between environmental certainty, life history strategies and external and internal developmental assets among adolescents.
Methods
Participants were 577 adolescents (53.5% boys) from Shanghai, China. Data on environmental certainty, life history strategies and developmental assets were collected from adolescents’ self-reports.
Results
Adolescents with a slower life strategy reported higher levels of both external and internal assets. Furthermore, perceptions of environmental certainty were associated with both external and internal assets through a slower life history strategy.
Conclusions
Developmental assets may be a part of or the result of the slow life history strategy in response to certain environments. This pattern also complements and expands previous findings linking life history strategy and negative adolescent development. The present study suggests profitable avenues of study in the areas of social environments and positive youth development.
... In this study, individuals who adopt slow LH strategies were generally more likely than those who adopt fast LH strategies to experience heightened fear of death in a less extreme environment (after lockdown with lower infection and death rates). This finding is consistent with reports that slow-LH individuals are more future oriented (Chen & Kruger, 2017) and thus their perceptions of an uncertain future may exert stronger impacts on their current psychological status. Mortality awareness and unpredictability with unprecedented threat of death during an event like the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has rarely been studied in the LH literature. ...
... The importance of task-characteristics in instigating procrastination has been recognized (Ferrari, Johnson, & McCown, 1995). However, most research has treated procrastination as a stable and pervasive trait (Lay & Silverman, 1996), positively associated with traits like impulsivity, inability to delay gratification, and lack of future-time perspective (Chen & Kruger, 2017;Sirois & Pychyl, 2016a), high neuroticism (Gustavson et al., 2017;Gustavson, Miyake, Hewitt, & Friedman, 2014;Loehlin & Martin, 2014;Watson, 2001), reactance to externally imposed schedules (Malatincová, 2015) and low conscientiousness (Lay, 1997;Lay & Brokenshire, 1997;Lee, Kelly, & Edwards, 2006;Mann, 2016;Steel & Klingsieck, 2016). About 20-25% of people are estimated to be chronic procrastinators (Harriott & Ferrari, 1996). ...
Procrastination is a global problem, particularly prevalent in young adults. Although not all delay is procrastination, a consistent and clear component of all procrastination is conscious delay. Knowing that emergent adults are transitioning from parental supervision to selfregulation during college years, we examined their delay behaviors in multiple domains to get a wider perspective. We also examined the association of these reported delays with their perceptions of parenting they received during their teen years. Participants (N = 442) were recruited from a regional midwestern university and completed a 20-minute online survey anonymously. The survey included a newly developed Multidomain Delay Scale (MDS) to assess delay in six domains of goal pursuit (work, home, health, social, financial, and academic). They also completed a trait measure of procrastination, as well as measures of parenting dimensions (promotion of autonomous thinking and decision-making, and exertion of psychological and behavioral control). Repeated-measures ANOVA indicated significant differences in how much young adults delay tasks in different domains. Gender differences were minimal. Participants showed the lowest average delay in work and the highest in health. Correlations between procrastination, domain-specific delays, and parental dimensions were statistically significant. Parental support of autonomous thinking and decision-making, as well as exertion of behavioral control during teen years, were associated with lower delay and less procrastination in young adults. Parental exertion of psychological control was associated with higher delay and more procrastination in young adults.
... No evidence is found for an association with intellectual ability (van Eerde, 2003;Rozental and Carlbring, 2014), but moderate associations are found in meta-analyses/reviews with intrapersonal factors such as personality (e.g., consciousness) (van Eerde, 2003;Steel, 2007), impulsiveness (Steel, 2007), self-image (van Eerde, 2003), selfefficacy (Steel, 2007), motives, e.g., perfectionism (van Eerde, 2003, achievement motivation (Steel, 2007), affect (e.g., state anxiety) (van Eerde, 2003), and other psychological variables such as task avoidance (Ferrari et al., 1995) and task aversiveness (Steel, 2007). Recent studies on academic procrastination found evidence for self-esteem , self-efficacy (Wolters, 2003;Klassen et al., 2008;Corkin et al., 2011), selfcontrol (Gustavson et al., 2014;Rozental and Carlbring, 2014), achievement motivation (Saddler and Buley, 1999), and time perspective (Chen and Chang, 2016;Chen and Kruger, 2017), and in a recent longitudinal study on academic procrastination in secondary education (Ziegler and Opdenakker, 2018), a clear (and stable) negative association was detected with effort regulation, as well as somewhat weaker negative associations with metacognitive self-regulation and self-efficacy, which became weaker over time as the school year progressed. ...
Motivation plays an important role in students’ school behavior, and research has established that students’ learning environment experiences such as teachers’ behavior toward them contribute to their motivation and behavior at school. Self-determination theory (SDT) offers an interesting frame of reference in the study of the relationship between students’ learning experiences at school and their school behavior. Considering three basic psychological needs (the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness), the SDT points to the importance of nutriments and support in the social environment in order to allow growth in motivation, engagement, and (psychological) well-functioning. In addition, thwarting these needs is supposed to contribute to maladaptive functioning. Teachers can play an important role in the fulfillment of students’ basic psychological needs by delivering support (autonomy support, structure, and involvement); however, controlling instructional behavior, chaos in the classroom, and teacher rejection and neglect are supposed to be a treat to the fulfillment of students’ basic psychological needs. In the current innovative longitudinal study, teachers’ need-supportive behavior as well as teachers’ thwarting of these needs are considered and their relationship with students’ academic engagement (adaptive functioning) and procrastination behavior (maladaptive functioning) is studied. In addition, attention is paid to differential effects of teachers’ behavior with regard to boys and girls. Participants were 566 students belonging to 20 mathematics/English grade 1 secondary education classes in the Netherlands. Multilevel analyses revealed evidence for the importance of both teachers’ need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in relation to students’ academic engagement and procrastination behavior. In addition, the findings revealed that teachers’ need-supportive behavior is more important for students’ academic engagement (adaptive functioning), while teachers’ need-thwarting behavior has larger effects on students’ procrastination behavior (maladaptive functioning). Furthermore, evidence was found that boys often seemed to be more sensitive to their teachers’ behavior than girls. The findings highlight the importance of both teachers’ need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in daily classrooms and contribute to deepen our insight into and understanding of factors leading to adaptive and maladaptive functioning of boys and girls in relation to learning tasks at school.
... Future orientation. Future orientation can be defined as the degree to which people consider future events and their consequences, plan before acting and conduct behaviors to pursue future goals (Chen and Kruger, 2017). People who prepare themselves before a future event typically exhibit a strong capacity to cope with any associated obstacles (Johnson et al., 2014). ...
Purpose-This paper aims to address how the status consumption tendency of consumers in emerging markets is negatively influenced by five individual traits: self-control, self-actualization, religiosity, future orientation, and self-efficacy. Design/methodology/approach-A conjoint experiment measured the importance of certain smartphone product attributes. A latent class regression analysis was then employed to estimate segment-level part-worths using conjoint data collected from 500 Bangladeshi consumers.
Findings-The results revealed three segments with members that differ in how they evaluate smartphone product attributes. Those susceptible to a product's brand name (i.e. status seekers) appear to have low self-control, are less religious, and are more myopic.
Research limitations/implications-An issue may exist with generalizability, as the analysis was conducted based on data collected in one country and for one product category. However, this study's framework provides direction for future researchers to better understand status consumption in emerging countries.
Practical implications-The findings are useful for marketers selling status products to improve market segmentation and target their offerings more efficiently.
... For individuals confronting unpredictable extrinsic morbidity-mortality risks in their childhood, accelerated life-history strategies might increase the likelihood of surviving to reproduction (Ellis et al., 2009). By contrast, for individuals who develop in stable environments, planning and preparing for the future might be more adaptive than focusing on the present would be (Chen & Kruger, 2017;Gladden et al., 2009). Research has revealed that childhood unpredictability induces earlier sexual maturation as well as intention of and engagement in earlier reproduction (Clutterbuck et al., 2014;Ellis & Essex, 2007;. ...
Cognitive style is a major component of individuals' life history and everyday life. However, individual variations in cognitive styles are not well understood from an evolutionary functional perspective. Through two studies, we investigated how childhood unpredictability might be related to deliberate or intuitive cognitive styles. Study 1, in which we surveyed 301 undergraduate students, revealed that lower childhood unpredictability was a predictor of slower life-history strategies, and such strategies in turn predicted higher self-reported deliberate cognitive style. In Study 2 (N = 269), we experimentally manipulated mortality cues and subsequently assessed participants' deliberate responses by using the Cognitive Reflection Test. The results indicated that individuals who experienced higher childhood unpredictability, relative to those who had low childhood unpredictability, displayed a smaller proportion of deliberate responses when exposed to mortality cues but not when exposed to control cues. These results imply that childhood unpredictability might predispose individuals to specific cognitive styles that serve distinct adaptive functions. This is manifested as both long-term propensities in life-history development and short-term behavioral tendencies in threatening situations.
... It contains functional components that allow students to have higher cognitive efficiency and peak experience. From a view of an evolutionary framework, Chen and Kruger (2017) claimed that procrastination could be viewed as the output of the information-processing mechanism that may be adaptive in unfavorable precedent conditions. Thus, from a neutral or even adaptive view, some researchers regard procrastination as purposeful delay of a course of action or wisely avoiding hasty decisions (Bernstein & Bernstein Peter, 1996;Choi & Moran, 2009;Chu & Choi, 2005;Ferrari, 1993). ...
Procrastination is a complicated phenomenon with many thoughts, behaviors, and feelings that may characterize different subgroups of procrastinators. Such phenomenon has not been well studied in an integrated theoretical framework. This study aims to establish a theory about the behavioral, cognitive, and affective aspects of procrastination and to develop and validate an operational instrument. In Study 1, we conducted qualitative research based on grounded theories and generated seven initial categories with 22 themes associated with the components in procrastination. In Study 2, we developed an instrument, the Multidimensional Procrastination Scale (MPS), and established a five-dimension structure for the MPS using explanatory factor analysis (EFA; N = 435) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; N = 387). In Study 3, we established construct validity and predictive validity for the MPS by building a nomological framework and predicting behavioral procrastination, respectively. The theoretical framework of procrastination included maladaptive (i.e., impulsive and unorganized, hesitation, lack of incentives, avoidance) and adaptive (i.e., arousal and rationalization) components. The MPS demonstrated acceptable reliability, factorial validity, construct validity, and predictive validity. The findings of this study have implications for further studies on the typology of procrastination and the development of tailored interventions to alleviate maladaptive aspects of procrastination.
... Psychiatria melyek a tanulmányi teljesítményre is kihatással vannak: gyenge akadémiai teljesítményt vonnak maguk után (37,35,19,13). Chen és Kruger vizsgálati eredményei alapján azok a személyek, akiket jellemzett az akadémiai halogatás, a jövôben is kisebb valószínûséggel érnek el sikereket munkájuk során (4). ...
Introduction:
The purpose of the study is to investigate dispositional procrastination, procrastination types, and an operative measurement of this behavior in academic environment. Procrastination is a common and problematic phenomenon that explains the need for a comprehensive and complex approach of this behavior. The main focus of the study was to investigate the incidence and incidence of the different types of procrastination. Furthermore, we aimed to test the correspondence between dispositional procrastination and the operative measurement.
Methods:
The sample consisted of 131 participants. Lay's Procrastination Scale was used to measure dispositional procrastination and the Types of procrastination questionnaire was applied to assess the frequency of its different types. Furthermore an operative measurement was gained by assigning a deadline for returning the paper and pensil form of the questionnaire. Participants received a message informing them that the deadline had been extended by three more days on the last night before the deadline.
Results:
Based on the empirical results 63% of the participants can be classified as procrastinator. In regards of the different types of procrastination, "perfectionist" and "crisis-maker" types were the most frequent. A positive correlation was found between dispositional procrastination and the operative measurement of procrastination.
Conclusions:
The results proved the common presence of procrastination, as well as the close connection between its dispositional and operative measure. Besides, they raise attention to the perfectionist and crisis-maker types of procrastination.
Within the theoretical framework of attachment theory, the author examined associations between adolescents' procrastination and their attachment relationships with both mothers and fathers, and explored the potential mediation role of self-worth in these associations. Participants were 384 Chinese adolescents (49.6% boys, average age 15.13 years) from public schools in Shanghai, China. They completed self-report measures of 3 dimensions of parental attachment (i.e., trust, communication, and alienation), general self-worth, and procrastination. The results indicated that both paternal and maternal trust and paternal communication were negatively associated with higher levels of procrastination whereas both paternal and maternal alienation were positively associated with procrastination. In addition, self-worth mediated the associations among 3 dimensions of parental attachment and procrastination. The findings highlighted the importance of parental attachment-based intervention strategies to reduce procrastination among adolescents.
It is emphasized that environmental predictability is another important condition that plays roles in slow strategies that are related to innovation; that economic inequality, except as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, influences innovation; and that switching global life history from a slow to a fast strategy is a response adopted in response to new challenges during the post-Industrial Revolution period.
Background and Aim: Procrastination, as a pervasive phenomenon in students is interwoven with emotional problems and failure in emotion regulation. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of group acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on reduction of academic procrastination and improvement of difficulty in emotion regulation in the students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences.
Material and Method: This was a randomized controlled clinical trial. Statistical population included all of the students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences in the academic year 2017-2018. After screening, among 500 people, 150 students were selected on the basis of evaluation scales, in the first step. Then, we selected 40 students based on the severity of procrastination and our inclusion and exclusion criteria and divided them into two intervention groups (each group included 10 students) and a control group (n=20) using random number generator 3.1.v software. During the treatment sessions, 7 students were excluded from the two intervention groups. We used Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS) and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) for evaluation of the results. The intervention groups received eight sessions of acceptance and commitment group therapy. Data were analyzed by SPSS software.
Results: The results of repeated measure analysis of variance showed that acceptance and commitment therapy in the intervention group resulted in a significant reduction in: academic procrastination (42.1%), the total score of difficulty in emotion regulation (36.2%), difficulty in engaging in a goal-directed behavior (30.6%), impulse control difficulties (47.5%) and lack of emotional awareness (23.2%)(P
Baumard proposes that life history slowing in populations over time is the principal driver of innovation rates. We show that this is only true of micro-innovation rates, which reflect cognitive and economic specialization as an adaptation to high population density, and not macro-innovation rates, which relate more to a population's level of general intelligence.
Baumard's perspective asserts that “opportunity is the mother of innovation,” in contrast to the adage ascribing this role to necessity. Drawing on behavioral ecology and cognition, we propose that both extremes – affluence and scarcity – can drive innovation. We suggest that the types of innovations at these two extremes differ and that both rely on mechanisms operating on different time scales.
Suicide is a significant public health concern, and it remains the second leading cause of death among individuals aged 10 to 34 years in the United States. Suicide death rates have climbed more than 35% since 1999 (10.5 per 100,000) till 2018 (14.2 per 100,000), with a greater increase among men, young adolescents, racial/ethnic minorities, and sexual minority youth. The risks of engaging in suicidal behaviors differ across developmental stages; however, few studies documented the nuanced differences of suicidal trajectories over time. More importantly, sociodemographic disparities in suicidal trajectories are largely unknown. Understanding suicidal trajectories can improve the effectiveness of suicide interventions by targeting the most sensitive periods, most important risk factors, and at-risk subpopulations.
Despite decades of suicide research, our ability to predict suicidal behaviors is not strong enough and has not improved over the past 50 years. Previous studies have predominately re-reporting on the same individual risk factors (e.g., psychological and substance use disorders) for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, while the evidence on the influences of social contexts, especially the role of social networks, is substantially limited. Even less research is available in elucidating the effect of social networks across the life course. Little is known about how different social network characteristics evolve, or how such changes contribute to suicidal trajectories as adolescents transitioning to adults. Guided by the Network Episode Model (NEM), this dissertation fills in these gaps by examining the influence of multidimensional and changing patterns of social networks on suicidal trajectories over time.
Using a three-paper format, this dissertation examined: 1) trajectories of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts (Study 1), 2) how social networks during adolescence influence suicidal trajectories (Study 2), and 3) how parental closeness trajectories influence suicidal trajectories, and whether future orientation may moderate the association between parental closeness trajectories and suicidal trajectories (Study 3). Each study further explores the racial/ethnic, sex, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic disparities in predicting suicidal trajectories.
Study 1: Using latent class growth analyses, Study 1 identified three suicidal ideation trajectories (low-stable, moderate-decreasing-increasing, high-decreasing) and two suicide attempt trajectories (low-stable, moderate-decreasing). Results of multinomial logistic regressions found female and sexual minorities were more likely to have a high risk of suicidal ideation and moderate risk of suicide attempts in early adolescence, following by gradual decreases in risks over time. Sexual minorities had a higher probability of showing moderate suicidal ideation during early adolescence, which decreased through emerging adulthood (ages 18 to 26 years), but increased in later stages (ages 24 to 32 years). Black adolescents were more likely to show a lower risk of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts across life stages. Intersections across race/ethnicity, public assistance receipt, and sexual orientation were found to predict suicidal trajectories characterized by high risks of suicidal behaviors in an early stage.
Study 2: After identifying three suicidal ideation trajectories (low-stable, moderate-decreasing-increasing, high-decreasing) and two suicide attempt trajectories (low-stable, moderate-decreasing), Study 2 found a greater family cohesion was significantly associated with lower probabilities of being in high-decreasing (Trajectory 2) and moderate-decreasing-increasing (Trajectory 3) trajectories of suicidal ideation, as well as the moderate-low trajectory of suicide attempts (Trajectory 2) than in low-stable trajectories. Significant moderation effects of race/ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation were detected in the associations between a specific type of social networks (household size, peer network density, family cohesion, peer support, neighborhood support) and suicidal trajectories.
Study 3: Using latent growth curve modeling, Study 3 examined parental closeness trajectories over time and found both maternal and paternal closeness decreased as individuals grew older. Individuals with low values of parental closeness during early adolescence and steeper decreasing rates of parental closeness trajectories over time had a higher likelihood of being in the moderate-decreasing-increasing trajectory of suicidal ideation (Trajectory 3) and the moderate-decreasing trajectory of suicide attempts (Trajectory 2). Future orientation was found to have a protective-stabilizing effect on the association between paternal closeness trajectories and the probability of being in the moderate-decreasing-increasing suicidal ideation trajectory (Trajectory 3). The moderating effect of future orientation was only found in Black and Hispanic populations to reduce their likelihood of being in the moderate-decreasing suicide attempts trajectory (Trajectory 2) when there was a steeper decline in maternal closeness.
Discussion and limitations of this research and implications for research, policy, and clinical practice are discussed throughout these papers, as well as the overall dissertation conclusion.
This book addresses the sustainability of happiness and well-being in Chinese societies. It starts by introducing the various conceptions of well-being, particularly in the Chinese sociocultural context.
The book then proceeds with the examination of the sustainability of well-being by scrutinizing the effects of sociocultural, contextual, and personal factors on well-being. The contextual factors are the aggregates or averages of personal factors at the contextual levels of the regions and colleges in Mainland China, its special administrative region, and Taiwan. These factors cover personality traits, strengths, orientations, beliefs, values, and idolizing.
By bringing together empirical studies and theoretical perspectives applied to Chinese societies, this book offers researchers in social science and humanities a valuable reference work on happiness and well-being in Chinese societies.
Life history theory provides a unifying perspective on understanding human behaviors as adaptive strategies in response to particular environmental conditions. Procrastination, characterized by seeking immediate hedonic rewards and avoiding investment for future rewards, can be seen as a fast life history strategy in response to the unpredictable environment. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships between environmental unpredictability, life history strategies and procrastination. In two studies, participants completed a measure of environmental unpredictability, life history strategies and procrastination. Samples included 577 adolescents (Study 1) and 253 young adults (Study 2). Across two studies, we found that those who perceived environmental unpredictability reported greater levels of procrastination. Furthermore, a slow life history strategy mediated the association between perceptions of environmental unpredictability and procrastination. Implications for life history theory, conceptualizing procrastination, and future research directions are discussed.
This study examined the relationship between self-esteem and procrastination and the mediating role of resistance to peer influence (RPI) on this relationship among undergraduates. One hundred and ninety-nine Chinese undergraduate students completed the measures of procrastination, RPI, and self-esteem. Structural Equation Modeling analyses indicated that self-esteem was negatively related to procrastination, and RPI acted as a mediator of this relationship. The results suggest that the peer may be a key to understanding procrastination among undergraduates. Implications for future research and limitations of the current study are discussed.
We conducted micromagnetic simulations to investigate magnetization switching dynamics in ferromagnet/nonmagnet bilayers driven by an in-plane current for 1) free layer with out-of-plane anisotropy, 2) free layer with in-plane anisotropy, and 3) free layer with both in-plane anisotropy and electric-field-controlled out-of-plane anisotropy. The effects of various material parameters on the switching performance are discussed. Based on the simulations, a fast and reliable switching scheme may be realized by using in-plane magnetization switching assisted by an electric-field-controlled out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy. This fast and deterministic switching does not require any external magnetic fields.
Research has revealed that procrastination—the purposive delay of an intended course of action—is a maladaptive behavior. However, by drawing on an evolutionary life history (LF) approach, the present study proposes that procrastination may be an adaptive fast LF strategy characterized by prioritizing immediate benefits with little regard to long-term consequences. A total of 199 undergraduate students completed measures of procrastination and future orientation and the Mini-K scale, which measures the slow LF strategy. Structural equation modeling revealed that, as predicted, procrastination was negatively associated with a slow LF strategy both directly and indirectly through the mediation of future orientation. These results define the fast LF origin of procrastination.
In this chapter we present an overview of life history theory and review its main psychological applications. We first discuss basic trade-offs in life history allocations and introduce the concept of life history strategies. We then consider the evolution of life history strategies at the population level and their development at the individual level. Next, we explore the question of which physiological and psychological mechanisms mediate the development and organization of life history strategies. Finally, we review current applications of life history theory to human growth and development, individual differences in developmental trajectories, personality, and psychopathology. We conclude with a summary of the theoretical and empirical challenges facing future research in this area.
The current paper synthesizes theory and data from the field of life history (LH) evolution to advance a new developmental theory of variation in human LH strategies. The theory posits that clusters of correlated LH traits (e.g., timing of puberty, age at sexual debut and first birth, parental investment strategies) lie on a slow-to-fast continuum; that harshness (externally caused levels of morbidity-mortality) and unpredictability (spatial-temporal variation in harshness) are the most fundamental environmental influences on the evolution and development of LH strategies; and that these influences depend on population densities and related levels of intraspecific competition and resource scarcity, on age schedules of mortality, on the sensitivity of morbidity-mortality to the organism's resource-allocation decisions, and on the extent to which environmental fluctuations affect individuals versus populations over short versus long timescales. These interrelated factors operate at evolutionary and developmental levels and should be distinguished because they exert distinctive effects on LH traits and are hierarchically operative in terms of primacy of influence. Although converging lines of evidence support core assumptions of the theory, many questions remain unanswered. This review demonstrates the value of applying a multilevel evolutionary-developmental approach to the analysis of a central feature of human phenotypic variation: LH strategy.
This chapter is a review of the theoretical and research evidence of
the premise that a more hedonistic time perspective is a facet of a fast
Life History (LH) strategy and a stronger future time perspective is a
facet of a slow LH strategy. While the evidence for these two ideas is
mixed; new data is presented that is consistent with the hypothesized
association between a fast LH strategy and a hedonistic time perspective.
Asking participants to imagine shorter life expectancies increased their
hedonistic time perspective. Suggestions for future research are made
with the hope that refinements in the measurement of both LH strategy
and time perspective will allow for greater integration between the two
constructs.
Evolutionary Life History Theory (LHT) is a powerful framework that can be used for understanding behavioral strategies as functional adaptations to environmental conditions. Some evolutionary theorists have described how developmental environments can shape behavioral strategies. Theorists and previous research suggest that individuals developing in relatively less certain environments will exhibit riskier, present oriented, behavioral strategies because of the low probability of reproductive success for more cautious approaches. An evolutionary psychology approach to LHT includes the identification of psychological processes that regulate behavioral strategies as a result of developmental experiences. This paper proposes that time perspective is one psychological mechanism that may underlie functional developmental adaptation. A survey study of urban middle school students (N = 607) assessed the relationship between perceptions of local social conditions, time perspective, and risky behaviors. Structural equation model analyses indicated that present and future orientations completely mediated the relationship of positive and negative aspects of students' neighborhood social environment with reports of interpersonal aggression and illicit resource exploitation. This model had a better fit to the data than competing models depicting time perspective as a byproduct of either phenotypic strategy or social-environmental experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
In four experiments, we tested the hypothesis that survival motivation is grounded in the physical experience of bitter taste. Chinese (Experiment 1) and non-Chinese participants (Experiment 2) who tasted a bitter drink were quicker than the control participants who drank plain water in responding to survival-related words in a lexical decision task. Chinese participants who chewed bitter lotus root were more likely to discount the future than those who chewed sour lemon (Experiment 3). Finally, surprise retention tests revealed that experiencing a bitter rather than sweet taste led to higher retention of words processed for survival rather than mating scenarios (Experiment 4). These findings support our prediction that the taste of bitterness embodies survival motivation because both are adaptations to harsh environment.
ManY social scientists reject evolutionary views of human behavior because of their supposed genetic determinism. To establish that not all evolutionary models are inherently deterministic, I first review the perennial adaptationist-mechanist controversy in evolutionary biology. I then outline life-history theory, a burgeoning field of biology devoted to the study of reproduction, growth and development, and ecology in an evolutionary context. I undertake next to show how life-history theory can provide a satisfactory resolution to the adaptationist-mechanist debate. Combining Promislow and Harvey's arguments about the role of mortality rates in the evolution of life-history traits with Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper's attachment-theory model of the development of alternative reproductive strategies in humans, I propose that the allocation of reproductive (''mating'' and ''parenting'') effort in adults may be partially contingent on their early experience with the causes and correlates of local high death rates. I conclude with a discussion of some implications of this proposal for the emerging field of evolutionary psychology.
Procrastination is variously described as harmful, innocuous, or even beneficial. Two longitudinal studies examined procrastination among students. Procrastinators reported lower stress and less illness than nonprocrastinators early in the semester, but they reported higher stress and more illness late in the term, and overall they were sicker. Procrastinators also received lower grades on all assignments. Procrastination thus appears to be a self-defeating behavior pattern marked by short-term benefits and long-term costs.
Because procrastination concerns a person’s ability to meet deadlines, temporal dimension is clearly important to this personality construct. In the present study, the characteristic profile of arousal and avoidant motives of procrastinators were related to past, present, and future time conceptions. Participants (140 women, 135 men; mean age=49.4, SD=5.55) completed measures of arousal and avoidance procrastination, and time orientation. Results indicated that avoidant procrastination was associated negatively with present-fatalistic time orientation, and arousal procrastination was associated positively with present-hedonist and negatively with future time orientations. The variance accounted for by time orientations was modest, yet provides further evidence that there are distinct motives for chronic procrastination.
Time perspective (TP), a fundamental dimension in the construction of psychological time, emerges from cognitive processes partitioning human experience into past, present, and future temporal frames. The authors' research program proposes that TP is a pervasive and powerful yet largely unrecognized influence on much human behavior. Although TP variations are learned and modified by a variety of personal, social, and institutional influences, TP also functions as an individual-differences variable. Reported is a new measure assessing personal variations in TP profiles and specific TP "biases." The 5 factors of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory were established through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and demonstrate acceptable internal and test-retest reliability. Convergent, divergent, discriminant, and predictive validity are shown by correlational and experimental research supplemented by case studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A modern evolutionary perspective emphasizing life history theory and behavioral ecology is brought to bear on the three core
patterns of attachment that are identified in studies of infants and young children in the Strange Situation and adults using
the Adult Attachment Interview. Mating and parenting correlates of secure/autonomous, avoidant/dismissing, and resistant/preoccupied
attachment patterns are reviewed, and the argument is advanced that security evolved to promote mutually beneficial interpersonal
relations and high investment parenting; that avoidant/dismissing attachment evolved to promote opportunistic interpersonal
relations and low-investment parenting; and that resistant/preoccupied attachment evolved to foster “helper-at-the-nest” behavior
and indirect reproduction.
While there is accumulating evidence that individual differences in time perspective are important predictors of a diverse
set of psychosocial outcomes, there is little understanding concerning the possible origins of these individual differences.
To begin to examine the possible predictors of individual differences in time perspectives, three levels of personality (life
history strategy, the Big Five personality traits, and identity) were used to predict the five time perspectives identified
by Zimbardo and Boyd (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1271–1288, 1999). The results are discussed in terms of the ability of the three levels of personality, in combination and individually,
to predict the time perspectives.
KeywordsTime perspective-Life history-Big Five-Identity
Uncertainty exerts powerful influences on life history decisions. This has been demonstrated in experiments on nonhumans and
in mathematical models. Studies of human populations are suggestive of the effects of uncertainty, but they rely on measures
of environmental stress. In this paper, we derive a new measure of uncertainty, upsilon (υ), for use in non-experimental studies.
We estimate its association with reproductive behaviors in a longitudinal panel sample of adolescents in the United States.
Results show upsilon’s internal structure is consistent with theoretical models of uncertainty. Its associations with reproductive
outcomes are also consistent with theoretical predictions. Upsilon seems to have its largest effect on the timing of fertility—increasing
the odds of early fertility by a factor of 7, net of the effects of control variables. We discuss our findings for the association
between υ and the timing of reproductive effort as well as our future research on υ.
Given that personality aspects of procrastinators are a consequence of their coping with environmental and social demands, we examined the extent that avoidant procrastination was related to personality styles from the Millon’s personality model. In the current study 1027 Spanish adults self-reported motivational, cognitive and behavioral personality styles and avoidant procrastination. Regression analysis indicated that avoidant procrastination was positively predicted by a passively accommodating motivational style, gregarious/outgoing and unconventional behavioral styles, but negatively predicted by a conforming behavioral style. The avoidant procrastinator’s cognitive style revealed a low preference for concrete information and a high tendency to transform new information in a known way. These findings have important implications in understanding the personality profile of an avoidant procrastinator.
We describe an integrated theory of individual differences that traces the behavioral development of life history from genes to brain to reproductive strategy. We provide evidence that a single common factor, the K-Factor, underpins a variety of life-history parameters, including an assortment of sexual, reproductive, parental, familial, and social behaviors. We explore the psychometrics and behavioral genetics of the K-Factor and offer a speculative account of the proximate mediation of this adaptive patterning of behavior as instantiated in well-established functions of specific areas of the human brain, including the frontal lobes, amygdala, and hippocampus. We then apply Life History Theory to predict patterns of development within the brain that are paedomorphic (i.e., development begins later, proceeds at a slower rate, and has an earlier cessation) and peramorphic (i.e., development begins early, proceeds at a faster rate, and has a later cessation).
This meta-analysis contains the correlations of 121 studies examining the relation between procrastination and personality variables, motives, affect, and performance. The largest negative effect sizes were found in relation to conscientiousness and self-efficacy, and the largest positive relation was found with self-handicapping. Affect was moderately related, as well as performance outcomes, and motives were weakly correlated. Many of the effect size categories were heterogeneous, indicating that moderators may play a role. However, the majority of studies did not account for moderators. It is argued that this is a serious shortcoming and that a different type of research is needed to study procrastination in a meaningful way.
This article proposes an evolutionary model of risky behavior in adolescence and contrasts it with the prevailing developmental psychopathology model. The evolutionary model contends that understanding the evolutionary functions of adolescence is critical to explaining why adolescents engage in risky behavior and that successful intervention depends on working with, instead of against, adolescent goals and motivations. The current article articulates 5 key evolutionary insights into risky adolescent behavior: (a) The adolescent transition is an inflection point in development of social status and reproductive trajectories; (b) interventions need to address the adaptive functions of risky and aggressive behaviors like bullying; (c) risky adolescent behavior adaptively calibrates over development to match both harsh and unpredictable environmental conditions; (d) understanding evolved sex differences is critical for understanding the psychology of risky behavior; and (e) mismatches between current and past environments can dysregulate adolescent behavior, as demonstrated by age-segregated social groupings. The evolutionary model has broad implications for designing interventions for high-risk youth and suggests new directions for research that have not been forthcoming from other perspectives.
Why do some people take risks and live for the present, whereas others avoid risks and save for the future? The evolutionary framework of life history theory predicts that preferences for risk and delay in gratification should be influenced by mortality and resource scarcity. A series of experiments examined how mortality cues influenced decisions involving risk preference (e.g., $10 for sure vs. 50% chance of $20) and temporal discounting (e.g., $5 now vs. $10 later). The effect of mortality depended critically on whether people grew up in a relatively resource-scarce or resource-plentiful environment. For individuals who grew up relatively poor, mortality cues led them to value the present and gamble for big immediate rewards. Conversely, for individuals who grew up relatively wealthy, mortality cues led them to value the future and avoid risky gambles. Overall, mortality cues appear to propel individuals toward diverging life history strategies as a function of childhood socioeconomic status, suggesting important implications for how environmental factors influence economic decisions and risky behaviors.
This target article presents an integrated evolutionary model of the development of attachment and human reproductive strategies. It is argued that sex differences in attachment emerge in middle childhood, have adaptive significance in both children and adults, and are part of sex-specific life history strategies. Early psychosocial stress and insecure attachment act as cues of environmental risk, and tend to switch development towards reproductive strategies favoring current reproduction and higher mating effort. However, due to sex differences in life history trade-offs between mating and parenting, insecure males tend to adopt avoidant strategies, whereas insecure females tend to adopt anxious/ambivalent strategies, which maximize investment from kin and mates. Females are expected to shift to avoidant patterns when environmental risk is more severe. Avoidant and ambivalent attachment patterns also have different adaptive values for boys and girls, in the context of same-sex competition in the peer group: in particular, the competitive and aggressive traits related to avoidant attachment can be favored as a status-seeking strategy for males. Finally, adrenarche is proposed as the endocrine mechanism underlying the reorganization of attachment in middle childhood, and the implications for the relationship between attachment and sexual development are explored. Sex differences in the development of attachment can be fruitfully integrated within the broader framework of adaptive plasticity in life history strategies, thus contributing to a coherent evolutionary theory of human development.
Procrastination is a prevalent and pernicious form of self-regulatory failure that is not entirely understood. Hence, the relevant conceptual, theoretical, and empirical work is reviewed, drawing upon correlational, experimental, and qualitative findings. A meta-analysis of procrastination's possible causes and effects, based on 691 correlations, reveals that neuroticism, rebelliousness, and sensation seeking show only a weak connection. Strong and consistent predictors of procrastination were task aversiveness, task delay, self-efficacy, and impulsiveness, as well as conscientiousness and its facets of self-control, distractibility, organization, and achievement motivation. These effects prove consistent with temporal motivation theory, an integrative hybrid of expectancy theory and hyperbolic discounting. Continued research into procrastination should not be delayed, especially because its prevalence appears to be growing.
In this article, we provide guidance for substantive researchers on the use of structural equation modeling in practice for theory testing and development. We present a comprehensive, two-step modeling approach that employs a series of nested models and sequential chi-square difference tests. We discuss the comparative advantages of this approach over a one-step approach. Considerations in specification, assessment of fit, and respecification of measurement models using confirmatory factor analysis are reviewed. As background to the two-step approach, the distinction between exploratory and confirmatory analysis, the distinction between complementary approaches for theory testing versus predictive application, and some developments in estimation methods also are discussed.
Life history trajectories have been shown to be sensitive to local environmental conditions. Using English census data (2001), Copping, Campbell and Muncer (2013) demonstrated that ecological indicators affect life history strategies (affecting levels of criminal violence and teenage conceptions). We replicated the original study using recently published census data (2011) to validate the model. We also examined whether census data from 2001 predict criminal violence and teenage pregnancy outcomes ten years later. Results demonstrated that the proposed model is applicable to both census periods. Predictions of violence and pregnancy rates in 2011 were higher when ecological estimates from 2001 rather than 2011 were modelled. Individuals’ perceptions of ecological variables included in the models were also collected from 738 participants. There was a striking concordance between census and individual level data; all but five of the original pathways remained significant. Results highlight the importance of examining different units of analysis and implications are discussed from a life history perspective.
In this study we tested the hypothesis that inter-individual variation in morningness-eveningness (i.e., chronotype) is associated with variation in a composite measure of life history (the mini-K) such that morning-types (i.e., early birds) exhibit traits typically associated with slow life histories while evening-types (i.e., night owls) exhibit traits typically associated with fast life histories. In addition, we tested the hypothesis that time perspective may be one of the psychological mechanisms mediating the relationship between chronotype and socio-sexuality. Study participants were 95 heterosexual young men, most of whom were university students. Chronotype, life-history traits, socio-sexuality, and time perspective were assessed with well-established self-report measures. Variations in chronotype and in life-history traits were significantly associated in the direction predicted by our hypothesis. Consistent with our second hypothesis, time perspective emerged as a significant mediator of the association between chronotype and socio-sexuality so that the future orientation of morning-types was associated with their long-term mating orientation and relatively low sexual experience, while the present orientation of evening-types was associated with their short-term mating orientation and greater sexual experience. Our study provides the first evidence that variation in chronotype may be adaptive and elucidates one of the psychological mechanisms underlying the life history and reproductive strategies of male early birds and night owls.
Past research found that environmental uncertainty leads people to behave differently depending on their childhood environment. For example, economic uncertainty leads people from poor childhoods to become more impulsive while leading people from wealthy childhoods to become less impulsive. Drawing on life history theory, we examine the psychological mechanism driving such diverging responses to uncertainty. Five experiments show that uncertainty alters people's sense of control over the environment. Exposure to uncertainty led people from poorer childhoods to have a significantly lower sense of control than those from wealthier childhoods. In addition, perceptions of control statistically mediated the effect of uncertainty on impulsive behavior. These studies contribute by demonstrating that sense of control is a psychological driver of behaviors associated with fast and slow life history strategies. We discuss the implications of this for theory and future research, including that environmental uncertainty might lead people who grew up poor to quit challenging tasks sooner than people who grew up wealthy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Recent theory suggests that trait procrastination is a form of temporal self-regulation failure that reflects a disjunction between the present and future self. Yet research to date is sparse and inconsistent regarding the nature of the associations of procrastination with time perspective. The current study aimed to meta-analytically summarize the evidence to date to address the question of how procrastination is linked to future and present time perspective, and to test whether stress and positive affect explained the link between procrastination and future time perspective. A search of the available literature yielded six published studies and three unpublished studies, which were combined with five unpublished data sets for a total of 14 samples with 4312 participants. The meta-analysis revealed that procrastination had a moderate and significant negative association with future time perspective, and a small but significant positive association with present time perspective. Mediation analyses across two of the samples found that high stress and low positive affect explained in part the association between procrastination and future time perspective. Overall, these findings support the notion that procrastinators focus less on the future and highlight the dynamic interrelations of affect and cognition that underlie procrastinators' intertemporal choices. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology
Procrastination shares many features with the Dark Triad of personality, such as high impulsivity and low conscientiousness. We investigated the Dark Triad of personality (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy) in relation to two types of procrastination styles (i.e., arousal and avoidance procrastination) in an on-line survey with 369 participants. We found that avoidance procrastination had a positive relationship with secondary psychopathy and the Entitlement/Exploitativeness facet of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Arousal procrastination, in turn, had a negative relationship with the Leadership/Authority facet. Possible reasons for the findings are discussed with a reference to fast and slow Life History strategies.
In this article, we provide guidance for substantive researchers on the use of structural equation modeling in practice for theory testing and development. We present a comprehensive, two-step modeling approach that employs a series of nested models and sequential chi-square difference tests. We discuss the comparative advantages of this approach over a one-step approach. Considerations in specification, assessment of fit, and respecification of measurement models using confirmatory factor analysis are reviewed. As background to the two-step approach, the distinction between exploratory and confirmatory analysis, the distinction between complementary approaches for theory testing versus predictive application, and some developments in estimation methods also are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to develop a self-report measure of procrastination tendencies and to investigate its relationship to a behavioral measure of procrastination and to a self-report measure of general self-efficacy. In a pilot study, the 72-item scale in a 4-point Likert-type response format was developed and administered to 50 college juniors and seniors. A factor analysis of the results yielded two factors which formed the basis for reducing the scale to 35 items with a resulting reliability of .90. The relationship between scores on the 35-item instrument and performance on a self-regulated performance task called the Voluntary Homework System (VHS) yielded a correlation of -.54, and a coefficient of -.47 was observed between the 35-item scale and the General Self-Efficacy Test (GSE; both correlations of p < .001). The correlation between GSE and VHS scores was .29 (p < .05). In a subsequent study of 183 college students, a factor analysis of scores on the 35-item scale yielded a single-factor structure and a condensed scale of 16 items with a reliability of .86. This shortened version of the procrastination scale was recommended for use as a means of detecting students who may tend to procrastinate in the completion of college requirements.
Guided by principles of life history strategy development, this study tested the hypothesis that sexual precocity and violence are influenced by sensitivities to local environmental conditions. Two models of strategy development were compared: The first is based on indirect perception of ecological cues through family disruption and the second is based on both direct and indirect perception of ecological stressors. Results showed a moderate correlation between rates of violence and sexual precocity (r = 0.59). Although a model incorporating direct and indirect effects provided a better fit than one based on family mediation alone, significant improvements were made by linking some ecological factors directly to behavior independently of strategy development. The models support the contention that violence and teenage pregnancy are part of an ecologically determined pattern of strategy development and suggest that while the family unit is critical in affecting behavior, individuals' direct experiences of the environment are also important.
The global economy and international business ventures have brought many occasions for the development of interpersonal relationships among people who were socialised into different cultures. People's use of time, according to Hall, is a "silent language" that affects their everyday behaviors. The authors identify ten concepts that summarise how culture affects intercultural interactions that are part of international business dealings: 1. Clock and event time: Do people follow set schedules or let the event take its natural course before moving to another event? 2. Punctuality: How sensitive are people to deviations from appointed times? 3. The relation between task and social time during the workday; 4. Whether people do one activity at a time or do many at once; 5. Efficiency vs. effectiveness; 6. Fast and slow paces of life; 7. How people deal with long periods of silence; 8. People's time orientation: past, present and the future; 9. The symbolic meaning of time; 10. Cultural differences in importance of work and leisure time. The authors also provide insights based on these ten concepts for business people who travel extensively to other cultures and who accept long-term assignments in other countries.
Young adults (202 women, 61 men: M = 20.9) completed measures of decisional and behavioral procrastination, self-esteem, interpersonal dependency, and self-defeating behavior. Correlational analysis indicated that both procrastination types separately and combined were significantly related to low self-esteem, dependency on others, and defeating behaviors. Among specific self-defeating behaviors, decisional procrastination was related to failing to complete crucial tasks, inciting anger in others, and rejecting good-spirited others. Behavioral procrastination was related to failing task completion, rejecting well-minded others, feeling guilty after a positive event, and choosing handicapping situations. Multiple regression analyses indicated that self-defeating tendencies of failure to complete crucial tasks and rejecting oppurtunities for pleasure were significant predictors of decisional, behavioral, and overall dysfunctional procrastination. Interpersonal dependency also was a significant predictor of both decisional and dysfunctional procrastination, while self-esteem predicted behavioral procrastination. These results suggest that types of procrastination may be predicted by similar personality factors, and that chronic procrastination is dysfunctional toward achieving life goals.
This paper considered three studies designed to examine procrastinatory behavior. In Study I, a general form (G) of a true-false procrastination scale was created. This form was based on an earlier version of the scale containing parallel forms A and B. Procrastination was positively related to measures of disorganization and independent of need-achievement, energy level, and self-esteem. High scorers on the procrastination scale were more likely to return their completed inventory late. Procrastination was unrelated to grade-point average (R = −10). In Study II, subjects completed Form G of the procrastination scale and a variation of Little's (1983) Personal Projects Questionnaire. Based on ratings of their personal projects, procrastinators and nonprocrastinators were distinguished in a number of ways, foremost being the nonprocrastinator's more positive response to the project dimension of stress and the procrastinator's greater sensitivity to how enjoyable the project was in terms of time spent. In Study III, after completing a personality inventory, air-passengers awaiting their flight departure were asked to take an envelope with them and to mail it back on a designated date. Procrastinators were less accurate in doing so than were nonprocrastinators. Various aspects of procrastinatory behavior were discussed, including a reconsideration of the defining of the construct.
Age differences in future orientation are examined in a sample of 935 individuals between 10 and 30 years using a delay discounting task as well as a new self-report measure. Younger adolescents consistently demonstrate a weaker orientation to the future than do individuals aged 16 and older, as reflected in their greater willingness to accept a smaller reward delivered sooner than a larger one that is delayed, and in their characterizations of themselves as less concerned about the future and less likely to anticipate the consequences of their decisions. Planning ahead, in contrast, continues to develop into young adulthood. Future studies should distinguish between future orientation and impulse control, which may have different neural underpinnings and follow different developmental timetables.
The concept of "reproductive strategy" drawn from the field of behavioral ecology is applied to the study of childhood experience and interpersonal development in order to develop an evolutionary theory of socialization. The theory is presented in terms of 2 divergent development pathways considered to promote reproductive success in the contexts in which they have arisen. One is characterized, in childhood, by a stressful rearing environment and the development of insecure attachments to parents and subsequent behavior problems; in adolescence by early pubertal development and precocious sexuality; and, in adulthood, by unstable pair bonds and limited investment in child rearing, whereas the other is characterized by the opposite. The relation between this theory and prevailing theories of socialization, specifically, attachment, social-learning, and discrete-emotions theory, is considered and research consistent with our evolutionary theory is reviewed. Finally, directions for future research are discussed.
In comparisons among Chicago neighbourhoods, homicide rates in 1988-93 varied more than 100-fold, while male life expectancy at birth ranged from 54 to 77 years, even with effects of homicide mortality removed. This "cause deleted" life expectancy was highly correlated with homicide rates; a measure of economic inequality added significant additional prediction, whereas median household income did not. Deaths from internal causes (diseases) show similar age patterns, despite different absolute levels, in the best and worst neighbourhoods, whereas deaths from external causes (homicide, accident, suicide) do not. As life expectancy declines across neighbourhoods, women reproduce earlier; by age 30, however, neighbourhood no longer affects age specific fertility. These results support the hypothesis that life expectancy itself may be a psychologically salient determinant of risk taking and the timing of life transitions.
Violence, teenage pregnancy, and life history
- L T Copping
- A Campbell
- S Muncer
Copping, L. T., Campbell, A., & Muncer, S. (2013). Violence, teenage pregnancy, and life
history. Human Nature, 24, 137-157.
Time perspective theory; review, research and application: Essays in honor of Philip G. Zimbardo
- C S Dunkel
- D J Kruger
Dunkel, C. S., & Kruger, D. J. (2015). The evolved psychology of time perspective. In M.
Stolarski, N. Fieulaine, & W. V. Beek (Eds.), Time perspective theory; review, research
and application: Essays in honor of Philip G. Zimbardo (pp. 157-167). New York:
Springer International Publishing.