Three Field Experiments on Procrastination and Willpower

We conducted three field experiments to investigate how people schedule and complete tasks, providing some of the first data concerning procrastination and willpower under financial incentives. In our first study, we paid students $95 if they completed 75 hours of monitored studying over a five-week period. We also required people to meet interim weekly targets in one treatment, but not in the other. In a second study, the task consisted of answering multiple-choice questions on seven consecutive days, with staggered start dates and an endogenous task ordering (tasks varied by number of questions). In our third study, participants answered 20 multiple-choice questions over two consecutive days, varying whether this was during the week or on the weekend. Participants were assigned to either an easy or difficult Stroop test (used by psychologists to deplete willpower) on the first day, before any questions could be answered. We find evidence of procrastination and willpower depletion/replenishment, as well as evidence suggesting a self-reputation interpretation. And yet the behavioral interventions we used led to outcomes that surprised us in all three studies, although these outcomes are largely consistent with the standard neo-classical model.