"If i wait, my partner will do it:" The role of conscientiousness as a mediator in the relation of academic procrastination and perceived social loafing

The concepts of procrastination and social loafing appear similar in various ways. For example, both concepts involve the expenditure of minimal amounts of energy toward task activities found across research populations and task settings (Ferrari, Johnson, & McCown, 1995; Karau & Williams, 1993). Similarly, both procrastination and social loafing relate to task aversiveness (Blunt & Pychyl, 2000)--"if I wait, perhaps I can avoid doing this unpleasant task. " Both constructs may also be understood as a failure to voluntarily live up to commitments or duties to self (procrastination) or others (social loafing). However, there may be important differences between these concepts. Procrastination typically is defined as a voluntary delay of an individual's intended action toward some task despite foreseeable negative consequences and a potentially overall worse outcome (e.g., Ferrari, 2010; Ferrari et al., 1995; Milgram, 1991; Pychyl, 2010; Steel, 2007). Social loafing implies a reduction in effort within collective settings where individual performance is not identifiable (e.g., George, 1996; Latane, Williams, & Harkins, 1979). One implication of these definitions is that procrastination may have negative consequences for only the individual, while social loafing has adverse consequences for the group. From a personality and social-psychological research perspective, this individual versus group focus may be the reason that these behaviors have not been investigated together. Unfortunately, both procrastination and social loafing may be seen as a part of academic life specifically and characteristic qualities of individuals more generally (e.g., "they're lazy"). Within the study of procrastination, for instance, Ferrari and colleagues (1995; 2010) argued that some individuals delay as a maladaptive lifestyle across a variety of settings (such frequent delays constitute chronic, trait-like procrastination: Lay, 1986). In contrast, other individuals focus their task delays on a specific situational setting such as studying, reading, or working on term papers (labeled academic procrastination: Ferrari & Pychyl, 2000). From this latter perspective, we argue that it is important to explore the context in which personal goals and procrastination may arise (e.g., Blunt & Pychyl, 2000; Pychyl & Binder, 2004; Pychyl & Little, 1998; Scher & Ferrari, 2000). Although trait and more context-specific forms of procrastination share numerous personality correlates, such as self-handicapping, disorganization, low self-esteem, and low self-confidence (Ferrari & Pychyl, 2000, for representative research), we focused the present studies on academic procrastination, because we wanted to explore the potential for social loafing opportunities along with frequent everyday task delays relevant for students. Finding a significant relation between academic procrastination and social loafing in the present study seems logical, given previous research. For example, Ferrari (1994) found that procrastination was related to interpersonal dependency, the tendency to let others "bail out" persons who delay tasks. That is, procrastinators' last-minute efforts may result in others doing tasks for them. Like social loafing, interpersonal dependency permits others to perform a target task; unlike social loafing, however, interpersonal dependency entails presenting oneself as helpless as a way to manipulate others into action out of a feeling of sympathy and care (Peterson, 1993). However, Ferrari and Patel (2004) reported that peers do not perceive procrastinators favorably when the perceived procrastinators expect their peers to assume responsibility for completing tasks. It seems that procrastinators may be viewed unfavorably by those who must assume responsibility to complete the task (Ferrari, 1992). Given these relations, in the present study we expected academic procrastination tendencies to be significantly related to perceived social loafing. …