academic procrastination and self-handicapping

Meyer ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION AND SELF-HANDICAPS 87

Author Info: Cheryl Meyer, School of Professional Psychology, Wright State University,Colonel Glenn Hwy., Dayton, OH 45407; (937) 775-3300; [email protected].

Authors’ Notes: The author wishes to thank Dr. Richard Sherman, Dr. Stephen Hinkle andDr. Gary Stasser for their assistance, direction and editorial comments regarding thisresearch. The author is greatly indebted to Debra A. Zendlovitz for her personal andprofessional support of this research.

Ferrari, J.R. & Pychyl, T.A. (Eds.). Procrastination: Current Issues and New Directions.[Special Issue]. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 2000, Vol. 15, No. 5, 87–102.

©2000 Select Press, Corte Madera, CA, 415/209-9838.

Academic Procrastination and Self-Handicapping: Gender Differences in Response

to Noncontingent Feedback

Cheryl L. MeyerWright State University

The use of academic procrastination as a self-handicapping strategy wasinvestigated. One hundred and eighty participants completed a solvableor insolvable form of an “intelligence test.” Participants were providedbogus feedback indicating they had either successfully completed theinsolvable form of the test (noncontingent success) or the solvable formof the test (contingent success), or that they had failed the insolvableform of the test (noncontingent failure). Participants were then told therewould be a subsequent test and that it either was or was not functionalto procrastinate as it would or would not (respectively) improve theirscore if they procrastinated before returning for the “actual test.” Noevidence for the use of academic procrastination as a self-handicappingstrategy was found. However, there were gender differences related tofunctionality instructions and type of feedback.

Theorists and researchers suggested there was a link between pro-crastination and ego defensive behavior many years ago. Knaus (1973)postulated that engaging in procrastination was the result of two majorirrational beliefs that the procrastinator embraces: (a) the procrastinatoris inadequate (dispositional); and, (b) the world is too difficult ordemanding (situational). Burka and Yuen (1982, 1983) suggested that,for the procrastinator, performance equals ability which, in turn, equalsself-worth. Thus, failure at a task indicates corresponding lack of abilityand a low self-worth. Subsequently, the individual develops a fear offailure because of the emphasis placed on success in defining self-worth.By procrastinating, the equation becomes one of inequality. Since per-

88 PROCRASTINATION: CURRENT ISSUES AND NEW DIRECTIONS

formance has been impaired by time constraints, performance does notequal ability and therefore does not equal self-worth. Thus, the procras-tinator cannot evaluate himself/herself as incompetent. In this way,procrastination serves an ego defensive function like a self-handicap.

Berglas and Jones (1978) maintained that individuals low in self-competence and high in fear of failure regarding their capabilities in acertain area or on a certain task, utilize self-handicapping strategiesbecause they experience a type of “success depression” (Seligman,1975). These individuals may have succeeded and received rewards forpast performance, yet the rewards may not have revealed critical infor-mation regarding the individual’s competence, or reward patterns werecapricious and chaotic. Because of these “noncontingent strategies,” theindividual may believe him/herself to be undeserving of past rewards oracting under a facade of competence. S/he may believe that his/hercurrent position was obtained through chance or luck, not skill or ability,and therefore, cannot be maintained and the charade must eventually endin failure. The person who has chosen to self-handicap believes success-ful performance to be out of his/her control and by impeding perfor-mance, s/he is at least in control of the impediment.

In fact, there is some support for chronic or trait procrastinatorsengaging in self-handicapping. Ferrari (1991) found that female procras-tinators were more likely than nonprocrastinators to choose to have adebilitating noise present while performing a task. Lay, Knish andZanatta (1992) found similar patterns of self-handicapping behaviorbetween trait procrastinators and trait self-handicappers. Lay, Knish andZanatta provided high school students with an opportunity to practice fora test of Progressive Matrices prior to taking the test. In their first study,students were provided this opportunity during class. They found traitself-handicappers, but not trait procrastinators, answered fewer practicequestions and reported spending more time on an irrelevant task. How-ever, when students were provided a five-day period to prepare, bothtrait procrastinators and trait self-handicappers exhibited dilatory behav-ior in practicing for the test. When provided enough time to procrasti-nate, trait procrastinators behaved in a manner similar to trait self-handicappers.

This interactional effect between trait self-handicapping or procras-tination behavior and situational factors, such as evaluation, has receivedmore recent confirmation. Senecal, Lavoie & Koestner (1997) found thatwhen confronted with the possibility of an evaluative task, high traitprocrastinators delayed beginning the task and took longer to completethe task than high trait procrastinators anticipating a nonevaluative task.


This research suggests that the situational aspects of procrastinationbehavior need to be more closely examined.

Although chronic self-handicappers or procrastinators may procras-tinate when presented with an evaluative situation, it is unclear whethercreating noncontingent situations can induce self-handicapping or pro-crastinating among the general population. For example, in academicsettings where students may have a capricious sense of self-worthregarding their performance, procrastination related to assignments andpreparation for examinations has become a growing concern. Studentswho do not otherwise procrastinate may begin to do so when it involvestheir academic performance. In the present study, the amount of procras-tination exhibited by participants who were provided with noncontingentsuccess feedback regarding their academic performance was comparedto the amount of procrastination exhibited by participants who wereprovided with contingent success feedback regarding their academicperformance. It was expected that participants experiencing noncontingentsuccess feedback would self-handicap through procrastination morethan participants experiencing contingent success feedback. Gender wasalso examined since there are conflicting findings regarding gender andself-handicapping.

Originally, researchers suggested that there were gender differencesin self-handicapping resulting from the level of ego involvement partici-pants had in experimental tasks (e.g. Berglas & Jones, 1978; Tucker,Vuchinich & Sobell, 1981; Snyder, Smith, Augelli & Ingram, 1985;Harris, Snyder, Higgins & Schrag, 1986). According to this view,intellectually evaluative tasks were traditionally more ego engaging tomen while social evaluative tasks were traditionally more ego engagingto women (Harris, Snyder, Higgins & Schrag, 1986). Therefore, menwould be more motivated to self-handicap with intellectually evaluativetasks and women would be more likely to self-handicap with sociallyevaluative tasks. However, recent research suggests this may not be thecase (Dietrich, 1996). Dietrich found that when men and women wereprovided noncontingent success feedback on general academic ability orsocial competence tasks, men self-handicapped more than women onboth tasks.

It was also postulated that perhaps men and women have a proclivitytowards different types of handicaps (Harris et. al., 1986). Leary andSheppard (1986) delineated two different types of self-handicaps; be-havioral and self-reported handicaps. Behavioral self-handicaps involveactively choosing to behave in a manner that could be expected to makesuccess on a task more difficult. Conversely, self-reported handicaps are


more passive and simply involve verbally claiming that performance hasbeen impeded by factors beyond the handicapper’s control.

It was suggested that men choose more behavioral self-handicapssuch as performance inhibiting drugs (Kolditz & Arkin, 1982) andalcohol consumption (Tucker, Vuchinich & Sobell, 1981), while womenchoose more self-reported handicaps such as test anxiety (Smith, Snyder& Handelsman, 1982; Harris, Snyder, Higgins & Schrag, 1986), physi-cal symptoms (Smith, Snyder & Perkins, 1983) and traumatic life events(Degree & Snyder, 1985).

Bordini, Tucker, Vuchinich & Rudd (1986) provided some supportfor the hypothesis that women tend not to engage in behavioral self-handicaps. When investigating the use of alcohol consumption as a self-handicap in women following noncontingent success they did not find asignificant increase in alcohol consumption. They concluded, that womendo not choose the behavioral self-handicaps experimenters have offeredbecause of the stigma attached with the choices which have been pro-vided (i.e. alcohol or drugs). Stigma may be a plausible explanationbecause women have been found to behaviorally self-handicap in subse-quent experiments (Ferrari, 1991). In addition, recent research suggestsif both types of handicaps are available, both men and women use self-reported self-handicaps whereas only high self-handicapping men willuse behavioral self-handicaps (Hirt, Deppe, & Gordon, 1992).

In the present experiment, situation specific self-handicappingthrough the use of procrastination was examined. Participants weregiven a “warm-up” test to prepare them for a subsequent intelligencetest. They were given noncontingent success, contingent success ornoncontingent failure feedback. Participants were asked to schedule anappointment to return to take the “actual intelligence test” and wereinstructed it was either functional or not functional to delay returning. Itwas expected that participants receiving noncontingent success feed-back would disregard any functionality instructions and act to the con-trary. Contingent success participants were expected to follow function-ality instructions and maximize any potential advantage demonstratinglittle or no handicapping. The impact of gender on these effects wasexamined.

METHOD

ParticipantsThere were 180 participants with an equal number of men and

women in each experimental condition. A total of 201 students partici-pated in the study. Twenty-one sets of data were eliminated fromanalysis either due to missing data or by random elimination to obtain


equal numbers of men and women in each experimental condition.Participants were recruited from introductory psychology classes at alarge public university located in the Midwest and were provided withcredit for their participation which could be used to fulfill a courserequirement.

MaterialsParticipants completed a “warm-up” test similar to those utilized by

Berglas and Jones (1978) and Greenburg (1985). Specifically, all partici-pants initially were instructed to complete a test composed of fivemultiple-choice items from each of the following categories: analogies,spatial relations problems, vocabulary antonyms, and logic games. Itemswere selected from dated practice manuals for the Graduate RecordExam and the Law School Admission Test. There were two forms to the“warm-up” test, one containing 16 solvable and 4 insolvable problemsand one containing 16 insolvable and 4 solvable problems. The problemswere rendered insolvable by deleting the correct response and replacingit with a similar yet incorrect response.

The items were designed to represent a challenge to participants andbe an unfamiliar type of question. In this way, participants could not becertain of their actual level of performance which is a key factor increating noncontingent conditions. Participants in the solvable condi-tions would be able to discern an answer and find the answer validatedsince it appeared as a multiple choice alternative. Conversely, partici-pants in the insolvable condition would discern an answer and not find itvalidated since it did not appear as a multiple choice alternative. How-ever, they would be too unfamiliar with the task to be certain they were,in fact, correct. The group of students who pilot tested the “warm-up”test reported they found it to be both challenging and to contain unfamil-iar types of questions.

Participants also completed a ten-item Likert-type questionnaireregarding attributions for their performance on the “warm-up” test andpredictions for their performance on the upcoming Intellectual Perfor-mance Scale (IPS). The questionnaire provided internal and externalexplanations for performance which participants could endorse or notendorse. For example, external items included: the test was too difficult,the time provided to complete the test was inadequate, or the items wereunclear. Internal items included an item regarding participant’s motiva-tion and one concerning their typical performance on standardized tests.

On the final two items of the attributions questionnaire studentswere to assess how much of their performance was due to externalfactors (i.e. distractions, time constraints) and how much was due tointernal factors (intelligence, motivation). The attributional question-


naire was included to add interpretative information regarding partici-pants’ behavior and to discern how participants were attributing theirperformance on the warm-up test. If participants were attributing theirperformance internally, it is more likely that they would utilize an ego-defense such as self-handicapping than if participants were attributingtheir performance externally. If participants were attributing their per-formance externally, then there would be no need for an ego defensesuch as self-handicapping. The external attribution itself would serve asan ego defense.

The items assessing performance were included to discern what typeof performance participants anticipated on the IPS and whether antici-pated performance was related to amount of procrastination. The itemswere derived from items utilized in attributional questionnaires in simi-lar research. There were overlapping measures of externality whichwould complement the measure of internality. In this way the question-naire also served as a check to insure participants were respondingconsistently.

Participants were also presented with a rolling calendar on which toschedule the date and time (hour) for their next appointment to return totake the IPS. Participants were informed that they were able to schedulean appointment anytime from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday,and were to indicate their selection by initialing their time slot ormarking it with an “X”.

Manipulation checks on the delay instructions and the perceivedvalidity and nature of the IPS were also included. There were threequestions on the manipulation check which were short answer in form.

Finally, participants completed the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students (PASS). Scores on the PASS can range from 12 to 60. Higherscores represent greater tendencies toward procrastination (Solomon &Rothblum, 1984). The PASS is multiple choice in format and assessesthe student’s amount of procrastination and reasons for academic pro-crastination.

ProcedureUpon arrival, all participants received the same set of initial instruc-

tions which provided the rationale for the experiment and informationregarding the “Intellectual Performance Scale.” Participants were in-formed they were participating in the first of a two-session experiment inwhich they would be working with the Intellectual Performance Scale orthe IPS, a measure of intelligence which had purportedly been found tobe correlated with other measures of intelligence. They were told the testhad been developed by a team of researchers at Harvard University torepresent a shortened form of an intelligence test and the purpose of the


present study was to collect norms for the test for their university. Theywere informed that their performance should be as true a reflection aspossible so in order to familiarize them with the test, a warm-up testwould be completed. The warm-up test was purportedly formatted likethe IPS, although shorter in length. Participants were told they wouldcomplete the actual IPS in the next session and afterward would receiveextensive feedback regarding their intellectual performance and relativestanding among university students.

If participants did not know an answer they were encouraged to usetheir best guess and not leave any blanks. Participants were then pro-vided with one of two forms of the “warm-up” test (solvable vs. insolvable)and randomly assigned to one of three feedback conditions: (a)Noncontingent success, in which they received success feedback (16 outof 20 correct) even though they had completed an insolvable form of thetest; (b) Noncontingent failure, in which they received failure feedback(4 out of 20 correct) on an insolvable form of the test; or (c) Contingentsuccess, in which they received success feedback (16 out of 20 correct)on a solvable form of the test. Participants within a condition all receivedthe same score regardless of their actual performance.

Following completion of the “warm-up” test, participants wererandomly assigned to one of three groups. In group one, participantscompleted the attributional questionnaire while the experimenter “scored”their tests. After receiving their “feedback” regarding their performance,participants were then asked to schedule an appointment to return to takethe IPS. Depending on the condition, at this point participants wereeither informed that procrastination was functional and would enhanceperformance or were informed that procrastination was not functionaland would hurt performance.

The sequence of events for the second group was identical to thefirst group except that these participants completed the attributionalquestionnaire immediately after receiving their feedback regarding per-formance as opposed to before receiving their feedback regarding per-formance.

The third group also followed the same sequence of events as groupsone and two except that participants completed their attributional ques-tionnaire after receiving feedback regarding their performance and afterscheduling their appointment to return to take the IPS.

No participants were allowed to review the test questions along withtheir feedback for obvious reasons. All participants were instructed thatthey needed to schedule an appointment to return to take the IPS. Theywere told the test would take 45 minutes to complete and could beadministered any time Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. until


finals week. However, they were told that they could not take the test thesame day as the warm-up test. If participants had been informed that itwas functional to procrastinate the experimenter indicated that researchhad found the greater the delay between taking the IPS and the “warm-up” test, the better the score on the IPS. The purported rationale for thiseffect was that students apparently found themselves in a mental set fromthe “warm-up” which often impaired performance on the IPS if appoint-ments were scheduled in close proximity. Conversely, participants whowere informed that it was not functional to procrastinate were providedwith a similar bogus set of instructions.

When all the scheduling data had been gathered, all participantsreceived the manipulation check, followed by the PASS. Participantswere debriefed, informed there was no second part to the study, providedcredit and thanked for their participation.

DesignTen participants were included in each cell of a 2 (gender) × 2

(functional vs. nonfunctional) × 3 (timing of the attributional question-naire) × 3 (noncontingent success vs. noncontingent failure vs. contin-gent success) completely between participants design.

RESULTS

Manipulation CheckInformation from the manipulation check indicated all participants

were aware that the IPS was a measure of intelligence and that the IPSwas reportedly correlated with other measures of intelligence. Addition-ally, every participant understood the functional/nonfunctional instruc-tions for procrastination. Participants in the former condition indicatedthat they were aware procrastination would help their performance whileparticipants in the latter condition indicated that they were aware thatprocrastination would hurt their performance.

Amount of ProcrastinationThe main dependent measure in the study was the amount of

scheduled delay between completing the “warm-up” test and the sched-uled appointment time to return to take the IPS. This was calculated bythe number of business days which elapsed between the two sessions.The dependent measure was also calculated using actual number of daysand using hours but results were similar so are not reported here.

A main effect for functionality was found for amount of delay,F(1,144) = 56.65, p < .0001. As predicted, participants who wereinformed that it was functional to procrastinate waited a longer number


of days (M = 14.36) than participants informed it was not functional toprocrastinate (M = 4.18). This effect was expected to be qualified by thefeedback participants received (see means in Table 1). A three-wayinteraction occurred between the functionality, feedback, and gendervariables, F(2,144) = 7.07, p < .001.

Simple feedback × functionality interaction analyses on the amountof scheduled delay were conducted for men and women separately.Results of the simple interaction tests indicated that there was a signifi-cant interaction for both men F(2,72) = 4.48, p < .01, and for womenF(2,72) = 4.83, p < .01. The effects of feedback were significant at thefunctional level for men, F(2,36) = 3.62, p < .03 and women F(2,36) =7.26, p < .002. Feedback effects were also significant at the nonfunc-tional level for men F(2,36) = 3.89, p < .03 but not for women F(2,36) =1.18, n.s. Pairwise contrasts indicated that the mean for noncontingentsuccess men in the functional condition was significantly higher thanthat for either contingent success men, F(1,36) = 5.57, p < .05 ornoncontingent failure men F(1,36) = 5.28, p < .05. However, contingentsuccess and noncontingent failure men did not differ significantly,F(1,36) = .004, n.s. This finding was complemented by the fact that in thenonfunctional condition, noncontingent success and contingent successmen delayed significantly less than noncontingent failure men in sched-uling their return appointment (F(1,36) = 5.69, p < .05 and F(1,36) =6.93, p < .05, respectively), but did not differ significantly from eachother, F(1,36) = .06, n.s.

For women, on the other hand, it was the mean for noncontingentfailure participants in the functional condition that was significantlyhigher than that for either contingent success women F(1,36) = 8.71, p <

TABLE 1 Scheduling Delay in Days as a Function of Functionality× Feedback × Gender

Feedback

Contingent Noncontingent NoncontingentGroup Success Success Failure

MalesFunctional 11.47 21.40 11.73Nonfunctional 2.40 2.70 4.60

FemalesFunctional 10.87 9.07 21.60Nonfunctional 7.73 2.80 3.80


20 —

15 —

10 —

5 —

| |Functional Not functional

○○

○○

○○

○○

○○

○○

○○

○○

○

NCS

CS

NCF

MALES

Day

s

FIGURE 1 Interaction of Functionality × Feedback × Gender onDays

20 —

15 —

10 —

5 —

| |Functional Not functional

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○

NCS

CS

NCFFEMALES

Day

s

NCS = Noncontingent successNCF = Noncontingent failureCS = Contingent failure


.01, or noncontingent success women F(1,36) = 11.87, p < .01.Noncontingent success and contingent success women in the functionalcondition did not differ significantly, F(1,36) = .25, n.s.

In sum, participants behaved rationally without evidence of self-handicapping. However, these effects were qualified by gender andfeedback effects. Noncontingent success men and noncontingent failurewomen who were told that it was functional to procrastinate maximizedthis potential external advantage by delaying significantly longer be-tween tests than other functional men or women, respectively. Corre-spondingly, noncontingent success and contingent success men whowere told that it was not functional to procrastinate maximized thispotential external advantage by delaying significantly less than men inthe noncontingent failure condition who were told that it was not func-tional to procrastinate. Although a functionality × feedback interactionwas predicted, the predicted trends were opposite to those which wereactually observed.

Attribution QuestionnaireResponses to the attribution questionnaire items were divided into

three categories; those representing internal attributions for performance,those representing external attributions for performance and those whichwere assessments of performance. Assessment items included evalua-tions of performance and predictions of future performance.

There were no significant main effects for time, gender, or function-ality on attributions of internality. However, there was a significanteffect for feedback, F(2,144) = 9.72, p < .0001. The means for thenoncontingent success group and the contingent success group wereidentical (M = 3.4). However, the mean for the noncontingent failuregroup was significantly higher (M = 4.38) than the mean for either thenoncontingent success or contingent success group, F’s(2,144) = 14.70,p < .01. Since a lower score represents greater attributions of internality,noncontingent success and contingent success participants were attribut-ing more of their performance to internal factors than were noncontingentfailure participants.

Responses on the assessment attributional questions yielded a maineffect for gender, F(1,142) = 9.85, p < .0002 and for feedback, F(1,142)= 85.69, p < .0001. Men rated their performance as being better than didwomen (M = 8.02 and M = 7.14, respectively). Noncontingent failureparticipants (M = 4.98) rated their performance significantly lower thandid noncontingent success participants (M = 8.45), F(1,142) = 104.74, p< .01, and contingent success participants (M = 9.22), F(1,142) = 156.33,p < .01. The noncontingent success participants rated their performance


as significantly lower than contingent success participants F(1,142) =5.16, p < .05.

Procrastination Assessment Scale-StudentsThe PASS was scored according to the criteria developed by Solomon

and Rothblum (1984). Scores on the PASS ranged from 18 to 54 with amean of 37.23. Scores on the PASS can range from 12 to 60. Acorrelational analysis yielded a nonsignificant correlation between scoreson the PASS and amount of scheduled delay. A cell by cell analysis forall levels of feedback also revealed no significant correlations betweenscores on the PASS and the amount of scheduled delay. Additionally, acell by cell analysis of all possible combinations of feedback × function-ality × gender did not produce any significant correlations.

DISCUSSION

Overall, the present results provide little evidence for the use ofacademic procrastination as a situational self-handicapping strategy. Infact, participants demonstrated rational decision-making behavior byprocrastinating when told that it would maximize performance and notprocrastinating when told that it would not maximize performance.However, one unexpected effect in the present experiment was theheightened amount of procrastination for women in the noncontingentfailure condition and for men in the noncontingent success condition.When told it was functional to procrastinate, these two groups maxi-mized this potential advantage the most. It is not surprising that both menand women self-handicapped. Men and women have used self-reportedhandicaps and behavioral self-handicaps in other experiments. What isinteresting is that women self-handicapped in the noncontingent failurecondition and men self-handicapped in the noncontingent success condi-tion.

One explanation for this gender effect is that women are more likelyto attribute their successful performance to luck and their failure to lackof ability, while a male’s successful performance is more likely to beattributed to ability (Hackett & Campbell, 1987; Deaux, 1976). There-fore, a male would have more interest in maximizing success as it wouldreflect on his ability more so than a female. On the other hand, womenmay be maximizing their advantage when they fail because women tendto internalize failure feedback (Rhodewalt, Saltzman & Wittmer, 1984).Women may be attempting to augment failure feedback. Furthermore,women in the noncontingent success condition may not have maximizedthis advantage because of a “fear of success” (Horner, 1972). As Burka& Yuen (1982, 1983) and Rorer (1983) suggest, the fear is that thesuccess will result in the expectation of a continual pattern of successes.


In fact, fear of success was found to be a gender related construct with thecorrelation between fear of success and fear of failure higher for womenthan for men (Mulig, 1985). If men and women were behaving this way,it was indeed self-protective although not self-handicapping.

The amount of procrastination in the present study may have beenaffected by the fact that participants did not delay in scheduling theirnext appointment. In an investigation into the procrastination of every-day life, Milgram, Sroloff and Rosenbaum (1988) postulated that pro-crastination is a phenomena that has two faces—when and how procras-tination occurs. When refers to the time a task is actually performed,while how refers to handling of task scheduling and adherence to saidschedule. Milgram, Sroloff and Rosenbaum suggested these aspects areseparate but correlated and that individuals who schedule promptly andadhere to their schedule will perform tasks earlier than individuals whodelay in scheduling or postpone a scheduled task.

Given these findings, in future studies, instead of scheduling theirsecond appointment, a designated location with designated hours couldbe set up for participants to report to when returning to complete thesecond session of the experiment. This obviously would not be aseconomical as the present design but would avoid two confounds. First,an attenuated procrastination effect due to participants scheduling theirsecond session immediately after their first session (as evidenced byMilgram, Sroloff & Rosenbaum, 1988) would be avoided. Second,participants in the present experiment may have ultimately self-handi-capped behaviorally by not returning for the second half of the experi-ment, but at this point it is impossible to discern whether participantswould have selected this option. If a designated location were utilized,the experimenter could note the time and date the participant returned,debrief the participant and administer experimental credit.

This proposed method would also clear up some ambiguity as towhether procrastination in this study could be classified as a behavioralself-handicap or an intention for behavior (Leary & Sheppard, 1986). Itcould be argued that the present study did not investigate behavioral self-handicaps at all but rather an intention for behavior since participants didnot, in fact, engage in procrastination but only reported their intentions toprocrastinate (because participants did not have to return for the secondpart of the study). Clearly, in this new design, procrastination would nowconstitute a behavioral self-handicap.

Another explanation for the present findings may be related to thepurpose of self-handicapping. Berglas and Jones (1978) suggested self-handicapping is a self-attribution which serves to bolster the individual’sself-esteem. Consequently, an individual should be as likely to self-


handicap under public or private conditions. Kolditz and Arkin (1982),however, argued that self-handicapping is a self-presentational strategydesigned to maintain an individual’s public image. When Kolditz andArkin (1982) replicated Berglas and Jones’ (1978) study, they found thatthere were no differences in drug choice between noncontingent successand contingent success participants under private conditions. However,under public conditions, noncontingent success participants chose adebilitating drug significantly more often than did participants in contin-gent success conditions. Participants were also most likely to choose adebilitating drug when they thought the experimenter might have accessto their test score and the experimenter was present for their drug choice.Ferrari (1992) found for procrastinators, perfect behavior may be moti-vated by external expectations and not an internal striving for excellence.If so, procrastinators would be expected to procrastinate under public notprivate conditions.

If, in fact, self-handicapping serves an impression managementfunction, then this experiment may not have fully demonstrated the useof procrastination as a self-handicapping mechanism for two reasons.First, the experimenter did not monitor the selection of a second appoint-ment time and, therefore, would not be immediately aware of the self-handicap. Second, the experimenter, who would be the only “public”person to manage an impression for, did not lead participants to believethat she would administer the IPS the second time. In fact, the instruc-tions said that the test could be administered by anyone in the psychol-ogy department. This is important to clarify since recently, Mello-Goldner and Wurf (1997) found men were more likely to self-handicapwhen a public audience was salient whereas women were more likely toself-handicap when a private audience was salient.

Another methodological consideration which could clarify futureresearch results is the concern over actually defining procrastination. It isnot clear how participants defined procrastination in the present investi-gation. If, for example, participants were told it was not functional towait before returning to take the IPS, how long was not functional?Perhaps a guideline could be established (i.e. 15 days) and then deviationfrom the guideline measured. The present method allows for increases inerror due to individual differences in defining procrastination.

In conclusion, procrastination as a self-handicapping strategy maybe an elusive concept which is difficult to operationalize. The presentresults suggest several new avenues of research to pursue. Certainly, the


role of gender in self-handicapping strategies and procrastination needsto be clarified. Finally, the role of impression management in these areasmay also need to be determined.

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Burka, J.B., & Yuen, L.M. (1983). Procrastination: Why you do it, What to doabout it. Reading Mass: Addison-Wesley.

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