In this survey, we developed a set of questions asking students in the unit of a dormitory. We asked individual students to assess their degree of procrastination, the specific occasions when they have significant sign of procrastination and their difficulties in solving the problem. We then asked them to think about one of two occasions when they were highly productive in order to see and compare what serves for and against their procrastination.
Then, choosing the dormitory as a whole sample, we asked students to name one of them who is most productive generally, and asked them if they’ve noticed the difference and invited them to figure out the reason for this difference in productivity.
In this way, we have managed to attain a number of individual samples to analyze their procrastination as well as group samples from which we may conclude the peer influences in this group of students. Results
Based on the various results of individual survey, we have selected and categorized several typical cases presented in the form of case study as follows.
Case 1: Procrastination with Trivial Things
In one of the dormitory we carried out the survey, a student lost his key but just refused to get another one. Instead, he phones his roommates to open the door for him when he can’t enter, causing much trouble to his roommates. Another student we surveyed was said to have kept his dirty cloths for ages and not want to wash them simply because of the cold weather.
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Everyone may be reluctant with specific tasks for various reasons, especially boring and time-consuming work such as laundry.
Case 2: A Whole Night in Dormitory without Finishing Homework
Many of the students we surveyed mentioned their low-productivity in the dormitory. Often is the case when students find the clock ticks time away without awareness of what they have just done.
In this case, distraction in dormitories plays an important role in students’ procrastination. With roommates playing games, listening to music or simply just walking around, it calls for great effort to stay focused. And it is even worse when there is work to be done on the computer with access to the Internet, as there is much more distraction online such as games, videos, IMs and SNS, which can easily attracts students from what they should be doing.
Case 3: Perfectionism
Perfectionism is another classical cause for procrastination. Students who want to have a perfect outcome often turn out to find nowhere to start, fearing that they would screw things up. Being back and forth with the project ahead may also lower his self-esteem and then possibly put him into a vicious circle of low self-esteem-caused procrastination.
Case 4: Endless Entertainment
No matter if it’s Sitcoms, SNS or computer games, many students have at least one type of entertainment from which they can tear away from. Many students surveyed mentioned the very typical scenario when they tell themselves to start working by six but still enjoying the “last” episode or round hours later. With more and more distraction and entertainment around, students show much more difficulty to stay focused without external control.
Case 5: Vicious Circle
From what we have learned from the survey, it is rather easy to fall into a vicious circle because of procrastination, which in turn worsens one’s procrastination. Many students will feel depressed and low mood because they’ve left too much of tasks behind and therefore cannot focus, suffer low-productivity, thus undermining their self-esteem and making it harder to accomplish the tasks next time.
Case 6: Wrong Reward
Many experts suggest setting a period of time for oneself when he or she focuses the tasks at hand. Then reward him or herself for having concentrated during this period. This may serve to build up one’s self-esteem and concentration with the time period set longer and longer. But there are cases in which the rewards are too appealing (for example one’s favorite game) that students either hurry to finish the task simply to enjoy the reward with poor quality or get stuck with the reward and keep excusing himself for extending the time, which holds up later schedule and puts him back to procrastination.
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Case 7: Enjoying the Last-Minute-Accomplishment
Some of the students surveyed admitted that after accomplishing their tasks right before the deadline for several of times, they become fond of this kind of schedule and planning. These students often achieve extraordinarily high productivity during the last minutes with results turning out to be not bad. Students therefore become dependent on this external driving force and used to completing tasks in the last-minute.
General Analysis
In the cases described above, we can see that lack of self-control is a very dominant cause for procrastination. How well can a person resist his temptation, control his entertainment and avoid distraction largely affects his degree of procrastination. There are also certain psychological mechanisms contributive to one’s procrastination. Noticeably, these many of the causes mentioned above are inter-connected, meaning there’s hardly an easy one-way solution to procrastination. Discussion
From the specific cases mentioned above, we can already spot some of the causes for procrastination. Furthermore, these causes are often also related. We will first further discuss the different causes for procrastination in this section and then specially analyze the peer influences in the scope of procrastination.
Peer Influences on Procrastination
From the group samples we’ve collected in the survey, we analyzed the cases when students become either more or less productive because of their peer and concluded three major types of peer influence on procrastination.
Competition
In one of the dormitories we’ve surveyed, one student who completes tasks much faster than his roommates has been nominated as the most productive and executive. When asked about his productivity, he attributed it to his competition with his high school classmate. Another student also mentioned what he heard form friend in Qinghua University where students in a dormitory are highly competitive and look up to the best and fastest, which creates an atmosphere of positive competition driving each one to speed up and work hard.
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Have you ever put something off? Thinking “Oh, i’ll just do it tomorrow? ” Have you ever thought you were showing signs of a mental disorder by doing that? You’ve probably haven’t. Actions such as putting off your task until the next morning would be called procrastination. The definition of procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing something for another time. Procrastination can be ...
We believe that competition is one of the most effective external driving forces apart from the looming deadline itself. Though there isn’t necessarily a competitive atmosphere, it is not very hard to look for a peer to compete with so as to urge and encourage each other.
Peer Reference
Peer reference here indicates the psychology when one looks on his peer to excuse himself from not working. Many people may have this kind of voice echoing in the mind: “It’s OK. Nick hasn’t started yet. Leave it some other day!” What’s worse, some students admitted that in order to keep this excuse valid, they often do not urge the other one to start working purposely but join in him dragging the to-do list instead.
We believe that this overlooking and following of peer procrastination is due to lack of . And this crowd psychology in many cases contributes to the atmosphere of procrastination. On the other hand, it is rather crucial for the one with higher productivity to actively urge and influence his peers to prevent procrastination as a “shepherd”.
Peer Pressure
Throughout our survey, some students with low productivity turn out to be surprisingly efficient in team work, because they feel compelled to fulfill their share of responsibility in a team working on a same goal otherwise they will hold up the whole schedule. Therefore, it is crucial for team leaders to set a common goal and emphasize the importance of every individual’s work. However, this peer influence doesn’t always work as there are always irresponsible people in a team.
Summary
From the interconnected influences discussed above, peers do have certain influence on procrastination, either positively or negatively. When one wants to drag things on, others’ procrastination can be a good justification. However, it appears a little harder to impose positive influences on procrastination as it calls for certain mechanism, i.e. competition, peer urging or team cooperation. And the conclusion can be safely drawn that when there are more mechanisms functioning, individuals are easier to prevent his or her procrastination with the assistance of his peers. Therefore, apart from one’s own effort, actively seeking positive peer influence is also a good solution. Recommendations
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True as it is that solving procrastination needs multiple methods, we will elaborate our recommendations in a separate way so that students with different types of procrastination can find the suitable solution for his particular case more easily. While the methods are many, the philosophy behind is simple: actively seeking external influence. And specific methods are elaborated as follows.
Avoid Distraction/Disturbance
For students finding it hard to concentrate and work effectively, we recommend they go to the library, classrooms or other quiet places for serious business. One may also turn off the cell phones to further avoid any distraction or disturbance.
For those who find themselves often wasting hours on games (either computer games like DotA or video games on little gadgets like Angry Birds) or surfing, it is also a good idea to go somewhere else to work or study, leaving anything that can distract you back in the dormitory or locked up.
Peer Influence
As discussed earlier, peer influence does play certain roles in the scope of procrastination. So to find a right peer who pushes you to work hard or poses challenge as a competitor is also a solution to procrastination. Or maybe, as some researchers suggest, pre-commitment supervised by peers is also a good idea. You can simply post on your SNS sites that you will finish your thesis in a week or not visiting renren.com for 5 days and encourage your friends to see if you make it.
Technical Assistance
Sometimes you have to use the computer or the Internet to do some research or write an essay when you cannot leave them away. How to avoid the temptations to click on the button? There are certain applications or extensions that help you control your time. For example, stayfocused is a Google Chrome browser extension which limit your visit to certain sites such as Facebook (well, the GFW has already done the favor), renren.com or tudoou.com etc which can easily suck hours out of your schedule. Once you set the time limit, you cannot change it that day. And if you try to change the limit when the allowed time is running out? Small windows will keep popping up to ask you if you’re sure to change the limit and not cheating. And even link to an article on procrastination as you finally clicked “yes”. This is just one example of the use of technology on the fight against procrastination.
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