ASSESSMENT COVER SHEET
Student Information: Student Name: Mehveen Ali Student ID: 160101616
Course Information Course Code: GE 132 Course Title: Personal Management
Faculty Name: Mustafa AfifiAssessment Submission Information Title of Assessment: Panel Discussion Individual Report
Assessment Type: Report Number of pages: 9
Due Date: 25/7/2018 Date Submitted: 25/7/2018
All work must be submitted by the due date. If extension is required, student must submit official request for late submission. Marks will be deducted for late submission in accordance with university assessment policy.
Has an extension been approved FORMCHECKBOX Yes FORMCHECKBOX No If yes, please give the new submission date Please note that it is student’s responsibility to keep copies of their assessments.
Best services for writing your paper according to Trustpilot
Student Declaration: I hold a copy of this assessment if the original is lost or damaged.
Student Signature:…………………Mehveen………………… Date: 25/7/18………………………
Table of Contents
TOC o “1-3” h z u INTRODUCTION: PAGEREF _Toc520240641 h 1MAIN RESEARCH: PAGEREF _Toc520240642 h 2Procrastination: PAGEREF _Toc520240643 h 2Academic procrastination: PAGEREF _Toc520240644 h 2Causes of Procrastination: PAGEREF _Toc520240645 h 2Perfectionism PAGEREF _Toc520240646 h 4A major factor affecting Perfectionism: PAGEREF _Toc520240647 h 4Perfectionism and its relation with Procrastination: PAGEREF _Toc520240648 h 5CONCLUSION: PAGEREF _Toc520240649 h 6REFERENCES: PAGEREF _Toc520240650 h 7
Procrastination and Perfectionism
INTRODUCTION:Dawson Trotman the founder of well-known NGO, The Navigators, once said: “The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started”. (Trotman, 2018)
Every human has faced procrastination i.e. delaying things or leaving things till the last moment, and this could be due to various psychological interdependencies. Academic procrastination amongst all is the most common type among college students, certain estimates show that about 50-80% college students tend to procrastinate. Perfectionism is related to psychopathological activities, having negative outcomes like procrastination. (Benson, 2003) The following report is going to present a hypothesis that there is a correlation between procrastination and perfectionism.
MAIN RESEARCH:Procrastination:Procrastination is the phenomenon of delaying important tasks in hand for tasks that are easier, enjoyable and less important. According to Piers Steel a researcher, 95% of population procrastinates to some degree. (AH ; JN, 2005)
Procrastination as seen through stats is increasing almost every year, making it a rapid phenomenon among all type of people.
Academic procrastination:This procrastination is related to delaying academic tasks like preparing for exams or projects till the last minute for attaining temporary comfort and out of fear of making errors.
(Daniel E. Gustavson, 2017)
Students nowadays pay more attention in looking for an easy escape from all situations which is why they delay their important work and this leads to procrastination. Different studies show that academic procrastination comes from lack of goal management skills. Students have high self efficacy and set high level and unrealistic goals which makes it difficult for them to achieve such goals and hence they start delaying in starting or finishing the entire task itself.
Causes of Procrastination:Self Efficacy- This can be defined as an individual’s belief in their own abilities. Many psychologists consider self efficacy to be an essential element for achieving success. For an individual it is very important to ensure they pay enough attention to their self efficacy when setting goals, so as to make sure their efficacy works in line with their goals and not against them. CITATION Mir08 l 1033 (Akhtar, 2008) According to Albert Bandura the originator of self efficacy theory, there are four sources of efficacy out of which the factor of emotional state relates closely to the topic of procrastination, because this factor states that the emotional condition we experience influences our efficacy, for example when we start stressing over things our efficacy reduces, whereas when we are happy our efficacy increases and we become more motivated in achieving goals. This factor relates to procrastination because we tend to set goals for ourselves assuming high efficacy and hence set high level goals, such high level goals can become burden and lead to stress which reduces our efficacy. This means that self efficacy is important but higher efficacy can lead to it working against our aim and hence a person starts procrastinating in doing the work because now they think they don’t have enough capabilities for accomplishing the goals.
CITATION Alb03 l 1033 (Bandura, 2003)A study by Nader Hajloo on relationship between self efficacy, self esteem and procrastination among graduate students, found that there is a mediate relationship between the three factors indicating that efficacy leads to procrastination in some way.
CITATION Haj14 l 1033 (Hajloo, 2014)Unrealistic Goals-
Goals that are not attainable or far from reach are called unrealistic goals. For eg: An individual’s goal of becoming a Dean of a university without any experience is an unrealistic goal. Goals that are too far from reality puts immense pressure on a person and this leads to the person procrastinating in finishing the goals, because he is well aware that it is not possible even if he tries hard, which is why he starts delaying it further until the last moment. Setting SMART goals i.e. ( Specific , Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely ) is important to overcoming procrastination.
PerfectionismPerfectionism is usually defined as a necessity of seeming to be perfect. Brene Brown a research professor at University of Houston says, “Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best”. She is trying to convey that perfectionism isn’t always a positive trait; rather people are using it as a shield for protecting themselves from judgments and humiliation. (Benson, 2003)
Perfectionism has two dimension; 1) Personal Dimension- which focuses on a person setting high standards for themselves, evaluating one’s behaviors and performance while at the same time trying to avoid errors. (Hewitt & Flett, 1991; Flett, Hewitt & Martin, 1995); 2) Interpersonal Dimension- This type of perfectionism involves critical assessment of performance and behaviors of others, which leads to one accusing others, and having opposing feelings against them. (Hewitt & Flett, 1991; Flett, Hewitt & Martin, 1995).
A major factor affecting Perfectionism:Hesitation: It is a phenomenon of one delaying their tasks because of anxiety or fear of uncertainty of being able to deliver upon your expectations. CITATION Col18 l 1033 (Collinsdictionary, 2018) An article published in PLOS showing the study on perfectionism and manifest anxiety found links between the two factors. This indicates that perfectionism does lead to certain level of anxiety among people, because when one tries to ensure everything he does is perfect he starts to self doubt and worry whether the work is good enough and what would others say? CITATION Jaq12 l 1033 (Guignard, et al., 2012)Perfectionism and its relation with Procrastination:There have been researches conducted and also authors indicated that procrastination has some relation with perfectionism. The common characteristics between the two are high standards, fear of failure and unrealistic beliefs. Ferrari believed that procrastinators usually have a perfectionist attribute regarding how others assess them. Such people can’t complete their tasks because they set unrealistically high standards as they think about how others will view them if their task is not perfect. This indicates somewhat of a relationship between perfectionism and procrastination. CITATION Seo08 l 1033 (Seo ; Hee, 2008)Example:
In a study conducted by Bahtiyar Eraslan Capan, a faculty of Anadlou University Turkey, titled as “Relationship among Perfectionism, academic procrastination and life satisfactions of university students” he collected data from students of each department of university for the spring semester of the academic year 2007-2008. The Scatter diagram of SPSS program a statistical software program that allows quick evaluation of data, was used to investigate whether a linear relationship occurred amongst perfectionism, academic procrastination and life satisfactions. A linear relationship was determined between the three traits in consideration. The study results indicated that there were negative as well as well as positive correlation between self-oriented or personal perfectionism and academic procrastination.
CITATION Bah10 l 1033 (Capan, 2010)CONCLUSION:The report focused on determining a correlation between academic procrastination and perfectionism. It was found that a large percentage of individuals tend to procrastinate due to fear of making mistakes, setting unrealistic goals and high standards for oneself, which also happens to be a common characteristic of perfectionism. Examples indicate positive and negative correlation between academic procrastination and the two types of perfectionism. I being a procrastinator myself believe my procrastination too is related to me trying to do things perfectly and this does leave a positive impact i.e., highly motivated work and good grades but it also leaves a negative impact i.e. me procrastinating my work until the last moment which puts pressure for completing the work in the due time frame. Hence it is important to understand the thin line of difference between doing things perfectly for better outcomes and expecting perfection all the time because that could lead to procrastination.
REFERENCES: BIBLIOGRAPHY AH, C. ; JN, C., 2005. Rethinking procrastination: positive effects of “active” procrastination behavior on attitudes and performance: ncbi. Online Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_96.htmAccessed 24 july 2018.
Akhtar, M., 2008. What is Self-Efficacy? Bandura’s 4 Sources of Efficacy Beliefs. Online Available at: http://positivepsychology.org.uk/self-efficacy-definition-bandura-meaning/Accessed 24 July 2018.
Anon., 2017. Academic Procrastination and goal achievement: Pubmed. Online Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5608091/Accessed 23 July 2018.
Anon., 2018. Is perfectionism associated with academic burnout through repetitive negative thinking?. Online Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6011823/Accessed 24 July 2018.
Bandura, A., 2003. Negative Self-Efficacy and Goal Effects Revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(1), pp. 87-99.
Benson, 2003. Perfectionism: Goodtherapy.org. Online Available at: https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/perfectionismAccessed 23 july 2018.
Capan, B. E., 2010. Relationship among perfectionism, academic procrastination and life satisfaction of university students. Procedia, Volume 5, pp. 1665-1671.
Collinsdictionary, 2018. Hesitation. Online Available at: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/hesitation Accessed 24 July 2018.
Daniel E, G., Miyake, A., Hewitt, J. K. & Friedman, N. P., 2014. Genetic Relations Among Procrastination, Impulsivity, and Goal-Management Ability: Implications for the Evolutionary Origin of Procrastination. Online Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4185275/Accessed 24 July 2018.
Garratt-Reed, D., Howell, J., Hayes, L. & Boyes, M., 2018. Is perfectionism associated with academic burnout through repetitive negative thinking?. Online Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6011823/Accessed 24 July 2018.
Guignard, J.-H., Jacquet, A.-Y. & Lubart, T. I., 2012. Perfectionism and Anxiety: A Paradox in Intellectual Giftedness?. Online Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0041043Accessed 24 July 2018.
Gustavson, D. E. & Miyake, A., 2017. Academic Procrastination and Goal Accomplishment: A Combined Experimental and Individual Differences Investigation. Online Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5608091/Accessed 23 July 2018.
Hajloo, N., 2014. Relationships Between Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem and Procrastination in university students. Online Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4359724/pdf/ijpbs-8-042.pdfAccessed 24 July 2018.
Handley, A. K., Egan, S. J., Kane, R. T. & Rees, C. S., 2014. The relationships between perfectionism, pathological worry and generalised anxiety disorder. Online Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4234287/Accessed 24 July 2018.
Seo & Hee, E., 2008. SELF-EFFICACY AS A MEDIATOR IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-ORIENTED PERFECTIONISM AND ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION. Scientific Journal Publishers, 36(6), pp. 753-764.
Trotman, D., 2018. Procrastination: Keepinspiring.me. Online Available at: http://www.keepinspiring.me/procrastination-quotes/Accessed 23 july 2018.
