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State anxiety reduces procrastinating behavior

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Abstract

Three experiments conducted in China and the US investigated the impact of state anxiety on behavioral procrastination. Participants were induced into a high- or a low-anxiety state and then given a period of 12 min either to practice for an upcoming test or entertain themselves (e.g., watch videos). The results showed that participants in a high-anxiety state spent more time practicing for the upcoming test than participants in a low-anxiety state. Impulsivity and trait procrastination were also measured. Impulsivity was found to be positively correlated with both trait procrastination and dilatory behavior. Overall the findings support a self-regulatory theory account such that the negative emotion associated with anxiety motivates people to increase the effort towards reaching a goal and take proactive measures for the most important task, thus reducing procrastination.

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Notes

  1. Compared to Experiment 2, Experiment 1 has larger SD of State Anxiety in low anxiety condition, and lower mean score of State Anxiety in high anxiety condition, which caused the smaller effect size of State Anxiety.

  2. Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances was significant; the adjusted t test is reported.

  3. Ratio of male versus female undergraduate students is 4:6 in this institution.

  4. The model was also significant when using the entire sample, F (8, 94) = 2.91, p < .01, adjusted R 2 = .13. Controlling for other factors, Experienced Anxiety was significant, t (94) = 3.28, p < .01. The interaction term between Gender and State Anxiety is also significant, t (94) = −2.00, p = .05. Other factors were not significant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Ohio University, 200 Porter Hall, Athens, OH, 45701, USA

    Ping Xu & Claudia González-Vallejo

  2. School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, 3663, Zhong Shan North Road, Shanghai, China

    Zhe Hong Xiong

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  1. Ping Xu
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  2. Claudia González-Vallejo
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  3. Zhe Hong Xiong
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Correspondence to Ping Xu.

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Xu, P., González-Vallejo, C. & Xiong, Z.H. State anxiety reduces procrastinating behavior. Motiv Emot 40, 625–637 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-016-9554-x

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