The Cognitive And Neural Mechanism Of Time Perspective Effect On Procrastination

Procrastination refers to the behavior of putting off impending actions or tasks to a later time,which is a serious psychological failing. Procrastination was always accompanied by some internal subjective discomfort, which might manifest as disstress(Rice, Richardson, & Clark, 2012),anxiety(Ferrari, 1991; Sirois, Melia-Gordon, & Pychyl, 2003), irritation, self-blame,low mindfulness(Sirois & Tosti, 2012) or poor health level(Stead, Shanahan, & Neufeld, 2010). It was no doubt that when procrastination became extreme, individuals would experience low level of heath or well-being(Sirois & Tosti, 2012). So procrastination aroused the extensive attention.Previous studies mainly from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, cognitive and behavioral to explain procrastination, In recent years, it has become a trend to explain the behavior of procrastination from the time orientation. On the basis of previous studies, this study will introduce the time perspective into this field, Combining the behavioral research and fMRI neuroimaging, the present study systemically examed the cognitive processes and neural mechanisms of the effect of time perspective on procrastination.StudyⅠadopted Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, General proerastination Scale and classic delay discounting task to investigate the relationship between time perspective orientations and procrastination, Participants were 553 healthy university students.There are three primary findings as follows: Firstly, The correlation analysis showed that future time orientation was negatively correlated with procrastination, Negative past, Present fatalistic and Present hedonistic three dimensions was positively correlated with procrastination. Secondly, the stepwise multiple regression analysis and the dominance analysis showed that Future dimension in the prediction of procrastination contribution is the largest.Finally, the mediation effect analysis showed that delay discounting rate k plays a partial mediation effect.Time discounting, plays a part intermediary role in time perspective affecting procrastination.so we think the effect the future time perspective affectingprocrastination can be predicted by time discounting.In the Study Ⅱ(fMRI research), we used voxel-based morphometry(VBM) to investigate which brain’s grey matter was corrected with procrastination. The experiment is divided into two group of scanning, a total of 200 people, of which the first batch of 85 subjects, the second batch of115 participants. Results indicate that:(1)The exploratory whole-brain analysis revealed procrastination to be negatively linked to grey matter volume in the presupplementary motor area(pre-SMA), but there were no regions in which procrastination displayed a positive relationship with regional grey matter volume. According to the AAL brain atlas, the cluster could be divided into 5 parts including anterior cingulate cortex(ACC), medial cingulate cortex(MCC), prefrontal cortex(PFC), medial prefrontal cortex(mPFC) and presupplementary motor area(pre-SMA),(2)The grey matter volume of each seed(pre_SMA, mPFC and ACC) was a significat negative predictor to procrastination.(3) The grey matter volume of each regions(pre_SMA, mPFC and ACC)was a significat positive predictor to procrastination.(4) The mediation effect analysis showed that for the relation between independent variable(in this case future) and dependent variable(procrastination), the region(pre_SMA_L, mPFC_L, and PFC_R) emerged as a significant mediator.These brain areas associated with cognitive control, so these findings suggest that time perspective may be on self control ability to the individual as a cognitive mechanism and influence of procrastination. Study Ⅱ suggest that the effect the future time perspective affecting procrastination can be predicted by cognitive control.On the whole, these results indicate that:(1)Time perspective has important effects on procrastination: Negative past, Present fatalistic and Present hedonistic three dimensions was positively correlated with procrastination,the higher the score, the more likely it is to procrastination.Future time orientation is just the opposite.Future dimension in the prediction of procrastination contribution is the largest.(2)The ability of cognitive control representation in PFC_R,mPFC_L and Pre_SMA_L might play an important mediate role in effect of time perspective on procrastination. From the trait perspective, this study investigated the cognitive and neural mechanism of the time perspective effect on procrastination, It not only widening the study field of procrastination, but also provides an important theoretical basis for procrastination intervention.