Procrastination: The role of prediction cognitive errors and perfectionism

The present study aims to predict procrastination through cognitive errors and perfectionism. The present research method is a descriptive correlation. The statistical population included all high school students in the east of Tehran in the academic year 1393-94, among whom 280 were selected by Simple Random Sampling. To collect data, the negative cognitive errors questionnaire (Leitenberg et al., 1985), Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Hewitt & Flett, 1991), and behavioral procrastination questionnaire (Lay, 1986) was used. The results were analyzed using Pearson correlation analysis, multiple regression, and independent t-test. The results showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between all cognitive errors and procrastination (p<0.01). Also, procrastination has a positive significant relationship with self-oriented perfectionism and a negative significant relationship with social-oriented perfectionism (p<0.01). The regression analysis results showed that cognitive errors and self-oriented perfectionism can predict 15.5% of procrastination variance. Independent T-test showed that there was no significant difference between girlschr('39') and boyschr('39') scores in any of the variables (p>0.05).  These results clarify the importance of cognitive errors and perfectionism in procrastination, and therapists and designers of workshops and cognitive-based training programs can use these findings to enrich their interventions.