Experiencing the temporally extended self: Initial support for the role of affective states, vivid mental imagery, and future self-continuity in the prediction of academic procrastination ¬リニ

a r t i c l e i n f o Procrastination is a self-defeating behavior that occurs when present self chooses to delay a task action in favor of future self taking on this task later. Given this dynamic between present and future self with procrastination, we hypothesized that higher levels of perceived self-continuity would be related to lower levels of self-reported procrastination , because higher self-continuity would help individuals experience future self as a direct extension of present self. Data collected from 583 undergraduate participants in three studies revealed that individual differences in perceived similarity to one's future self predicts procrastination such that participants who experienced higher future self-continuity in ten years (studies 1 and 2) and in two months (study 3) reported fewer procrastination behaviors. Furthermore, we found that high scores on Vividness of Mental Imagery and Positive Affective state scales were related to future self-continuity in ten years (study 2) and in two months (study 3). We discuss these results in relation to the theoretical importance of future self-continuity in an understanding of procrastination as well as our directions for future research. When a person is faced with challenging, unfulfilling, or simply boring tasks, it can be easy to feel " stuck " and unable to move forward with a project, a relationship, or with life in general (Blunt & Pychyl, 2000; Van Eerde, 2003). This feeling is problematic because it can distract one's attention away from long-term objectives, influence the specious pursuit of short-term gains, and ultimately decrease well-being. For example, students pursuing post-secondary education are often faced with responsibilities and deadlines that dictate when a task should be completed, no matter how dull or aversive the task may be. Of course, the long-term benefits of completing these tasks likely involve the successful completion of one's degree, the pursuit of graduate education or even the start of a fulfilling career. Paradoxically, a majority of students nevertheless report procrastinating on academic tasks (e. Unfortunately, procrastination does not seem to be isolated to the academic domain such that 20% of men and women refer to themselves as being chronic procrastinators across various domains (Harriott & Ferrari, 1996). What is especially problematic about these numbers is that the tasks that are being put off involve important long-term goal pursuits such as saving for retirement (Helman, Copeland, & Vanderhei, 2011) and adopting preventative health behaviors such as exercising, eating …