The Procrastination Equation (24 page)

Rosati, A. G., Stevens, J. R., Hare, B., & Hauser, M. D. (2007). The evolutionary origins of human patience: Temporal preferences in chimpanzees, bonobos, and human adults. Current Biology, 17(19), 1663–1668.

Stevens, J. R., Hallinan, E. V., & Hauser, M. D. (2005). The ecology and evolution of patience in two New World primates. Biology Letters, 1, 223–226.

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Gomes, C. M., & Boesch, C. (2009). Wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex on a long-term basis. PLoS ONE, 4(4), 5116.

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Osvath, M. (2009). Spontaneous planning for future stone throwing by a male chimpanzee. Current Biology, 19(5), R190-R191.

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Ainslie, G. (1974). Impulse control in pigeons. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 21(3), 485–489.

Biondi, D. R. (2007). Procrastination in rats: The effect of delay on response requirements in an adjusting ratio procedure. Unpublished M.A. dissertation, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT.

Mazur, J. E. (1996). Procrastination by pigeons: Preferences for larger, more delayed work requirements. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 65(1), 159–171.

Mazur, J. E. (1998). Procrastination by pigeons with fixed-interval response requirements. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 69(2), 185–197.

Rachlin, H., & Green, L. (1972). Commitment, choice and self-control. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 17(1), 15–22.

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Indeed, the reason why pigeons can procrastinate is that they do have a prefrontal cortex counterpart, the nidopallium caudolaterale.

Güntürkün, O. (2005). The avian 'prefrontal cortex' and cognition.
Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 15
(6), 686–693.

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As Cesar Millan stressed, to instill discipline in your pet, you need to have discipline in yourself. “Exercise, discipline, and affection.” Too often the middle ingredient is left out.

Arden, A., & Dockray, T. (2007). Dog-friendly dog training (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley and Sons.

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Jang, K. L., McCrae, R. R., Angleitner, A., Riemann, R., & Livesley, W. J. (1998). Heritability of facet-level traits in a cross-cultural twin sample: Support for a hierarchical model of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1556–1565.

Luciano, M., Wainwright, M. A., Wright, M. J., & Martin, N. G. (2006). The heritability of conscientiousness facets and their relationship to IQ and academic achievement. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 1189–1199.

Notably, this finding is consistent with other personality studies, which typically estimate that between 40 and 60 percent of any personality trait is genetic in origin. Bouchard, T., & Loehlin, J. (2001). Genes, evolution, and personality. Behavior Genetics, 31(3), 243–273.

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Dingemanse, N., & Réale, D. (2005). Natural selection and animal personality. Behaviour, 142(9), 1159–1184.

Sih, A., Bell, A., & Johnson, J. (2004). Behavioral syndromes: An ecological and evolutionary overview. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 19(7), 372–378.

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Whit, W. (1995). Food and society: A sociological approach. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall.

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Stevens, J. R., Hallinan, E. V., & Hauser, M. D. (2005). The ecology and evolution of patience in two New World primates. Biology Letters, 1, 223–226.

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Houston, A. I., McNamara, J. M., & Steer, M. D. (2007). Do we expect natural selection to produce rational behaviour? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362, 1531–1543.

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Kalenscher, T., & Pennartz, C. M. A. (2008). Is a bird in the hand worth two in the future? The neuroeconomics of intertemporal decision-making. Progress in Neurobiology, 84(3), 284–315.

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Davies, D. W. (1983). Owen Owen: Victorian draper. Gwasg Cambria: Aberystwyth.

There is also a Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Owen

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Schmitt, D. (2004). The Big Five related to risky sexual behaviour across 10 world regions: Differential personality associations of sexual promiscuity and relationship infidelity. European Journal of Personality, 18(4), 301–319.

Raffaelli, M., & Crockett, L. (2003). Sexual risk taking in adolescence: The role of self-regulation and attraction to risk. Developmental Psychology, 39(6), 1036–1046.

Reyna, V. F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision making: Implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 7(1), 1–44.

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Silverman, I. (2003). Gender differences in delay of gratification: A meta-analysis. Sex Roles, 49(9), 451–463.

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Nettle, D. (2006). The evolution of personality variation in humans and other animals. American Psychologist, 61(6), 622–631.

Muller, H., & Chittka, L. (2008). Animal personalities: The advantage of diversity. Current Biology, 18(20), R961-R963.

Nichols, C. P., Sheldon, K. M., & Sheldon, M. S. (2008). Evolution and personality: What should a comprehensive theory address and how? Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(2), 968–984.

Planque, R., Dornhaus, A., Franks, N. R., Kovacs, T., & Marshall, J. A. R. (2007). Weighting waiting in collective decision-making. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 61(3), 347–356.

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Smith, E., Mulder, M., & Hill, K. (2001). Controversies in the evolutionary social sciences: A guide for the perplexed. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 16(3), 128–135.

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To investigate this topic, I tried to locate a 1971 book by Paul T. Ringenbach, Procrastination through the Ages: A Definitive History. Ringenbach is a U.S. Air Force Officer with a PhD from the University of Connecticut. His work was described as “an interesting survey” by the late Albert Ellis on the very first page of his book Overcoming Procrastination, making it a must-have for anyone interested in the topic. After spending weeks hunting with a pack of librarians, I finally found some correspondence with Gil Campbell from Filter Press, the book’s publisher, buried in the appendix of an old 1982 doctoral thesis by Margaret Aitken. The letter indicated that Procrastination through the Ages was never actually written. Colonel Ringenbach was asked to write it, but kept putting it off for so long that it metamorphosized into an elaborate prank, with Campbell telling everyone for fifteen years that it was coming out imminently. I tracked Colonel Ringenbach to his Texan address, where after a series of e-mails and phone calls, I extracted a full confession.

By the speed of my response, I guess you realize that procrastination is alive and well. Procrastination through the Ages: A Definitive History first appeared in Books in Print in the 1971–1972 edition. How it came about was that Gil Campbell of the Filter Press was also the Acquisitions chief at the US Air Force Academy when I first met him . . . He asked me to do a short piece for him on “Black Cowboys” that he could publish. After a time with no progress, he suggested I write a book on procrastination because I was so good about it. Months rolled on with no progress, so finally he said give me a title; I want to include it in my next catalogue. I gave him the title and he did not print it in the catalogue on purpose but included it as a loose insert on colored paper with the excuse to the readers that he hadn’t got around to including it in the actual text, but here it is anyway. At this point he put it in Books in Print with a date not set, price not set notation. After all we surmised, how could one ever complete a book on procrastination? It continued in Books in Print about 15 years until Gil took it out because he was tiring of the continuing inquiries that he always sent along dutifully to me to reply.

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DeSimone, P. (1993). Linguistic assumptions in scientific language. Contemporary Psychodynamics: Theory, Research & Application, 1, 8–17. Of note, a firsthand copy of DeSimone’s work is no longer in existence. The journal in which it appeared, Contemporary Psychodynamics, had a run of but a single issue and no copies have so far been obtainable. DeSimone’s work is reviewed in the book Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research, and Treatment, which I am using as a proxy.

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Handily available in book form as well, called the Phillipics.

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Olcott, H. S. (1887). Golden rules of Buddhism. London: Theosophical Publishing House.

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Ziolkowski, T. (2000). The sin of knowledge: Ancient themes and modern variations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Diamond, J. (1987, May). The worst mistake in the history of the human race. Discover, 64–66.

Chapter Four

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Though officially not being “associated with Risk or Hasbro in any way.”

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Steel, P. (2002). The measurement and nature of procrastination. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minnesota, MN.

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Schlinger, H. D., Derenne, A., & Baron, A. (2008). What 50 years of research tell us about pausing under ratio schedules of reinforcement. The Behavior Analyst, 31, 39–40.

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Czerny, E., Koenig, S., & Turner, N. E. (2008). Exploring the mind of the gambler: Psychological aspects of gambling and problem gambling In M. Zangeneh, A. Blaszczynski & N. Turner (Eds.), In the pursuit of winning (pp. 65–82). New York: Springer.

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Latham, G., & Huber, V. (1992). Schedules of reinforcement: Lessons from the past and issues for the future. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 12(1), 125–149.

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Taras, V., & Steel, P. (2006). Improving cultural indices and rankings based on a meta-analysis of Hofstede’s taxonomy. Paper presented at the Academy of International Business Annual Meeting, Beijing, China. Best paper in Managing People across Border track and nominated for AIB Best Paper/Temple award (overall conference best).

Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94.

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Pelman Institute of America (March, 1930). The man with the grasshopper mind. Popular Mechanics, 53(3), 336.

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Josephs, R. (January, 1962) How to gain an extra hour every day. Popular Science, 180(1), 117–130.

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Myers, D. G. (1983) Social psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Glater, J. D. (2008). Welcome, freshmen. Have an iPod. New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/technology/21iphone.html?th&emc=th

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Pychyl, T. A., Lee, J. M., Thibodeau, R., & Blunt, A. (2000). Five days of emotion: An experience sampling study of undergraduate student procrastination. Journal of Social Behavior & Personality, 15(5), 239–254.

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Frey, B. S., Benesch, C., & Stutzer, A. (2007). Does watching TV make us happy? Journal of Economic Psychology, 28(3), 283–313.

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Kubey, R., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002). Television addiction is no mere metaphor. Scientific American, 286(2), 62–68.

Vandewater, E., Bickham, D., & Lee, J. (2006). Time well spent? Relating television use to children’s free-time activities. Pediatrics, 117(2), 181–191.

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Harchandrai, P., & Whitney, J. (2006). Video games are cooler than homework: The role of video games in procrastination. Paper presented at the Conference for Undergraduate Research in Communication, Rochester Institute of Technology.

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Applebome, P. (2004, December 1, 2004). On campus, hanging out by logging on. New York Times.

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Aspan, M. (February 13, 2008). Quitting Facebook gets easier. New York Times.

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Kessler, D. A. (2009). The end of overeating: Taking control of the insatiable American appetite. New York: Rodale.

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Offer, A. (2006). The challenge of affluence: Self-control and well-being in the United States and Britain since 1950. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Dittmar, H. (2005). Compulsive buying—a growing concern? An examination of gender, age, and endorsement of materialistic values as predictors. British Journal of Psychology, 96, 467–491.

LaRose, R., & Eastin, M. S. (2002). Is online buying out of control? Electronic commerce and consumer self-regulation. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 46(4), 549–564.

Percoco, M. (2009). Estimating individual rates of discount: A meta-analysis. Applied Economics Letters, 6(12), 1235–1239.

Verplanken, B., & Herabadi, A. (2001). Individual differences in impulse buying tendency: Feeling and no thinking. European Journal of Personality, 15, 71–83.

Youn, S., & Faber, R. J. (2000). Impulse buying: Its relation to personality traits and cues. Advances in Consumer Research, 27, 179–185.

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Baumeister, R. F. (2002). Yielding to temptation: Self-control failure, impulsive purchasing, and consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 28, 670–676.

Baumeister, R., Sparks, E., Stillman, T., & Vohs, K. (2008). Free will in consumer behavior: Rational choice and self-control. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 18, 4–13.

LaRose, R., & Eastin, M. S. (2002). Is online buying out of control? Electronic commerce and consumer self-regulation. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 46(4), 549–564.

Lynch, J. G., & Zauberman, G. (2006). When do you want it? Time, decisions, and public policy. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 25(1), 67–78.

Ziglar, Z. (1991). Ziglar on selling. New York: Thomas Nelson.

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Kessler, D. A. (2009). The end of overeating: Taking control of the insatiable American appetite. New York: Rodale.

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Duhigg, C. (July 13, 2008). Warning: Habits may be good for you. New York Times.

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Ji, M., & Wood, W. (2007). Purchase and consumption habits: Not necessarily what you intend. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 17(4), 261–276.