The Impact Of Future Scenario Imagination On Procrastination Behavior: Based On The Dual-dimensional Imagination Mode

Procrastination is a widespread and problematic behavior.Procrastination is the act of voluntarily delaying the beginning or completion of a planned task despite the expectation of adverse consequences.The decision to evaluate the procrastination task depends on the episodic future thinking.However,current studies on the relationship between episodic future thinking and procrastination behavior mostly focus on the single perspective of emotional valence or directivity of episodic future thinking,ignoring the interaction between the two.According to the time decision theory of procrastination and the anticipatory emotion-driven hypothesis,episodic future thinkings with different emotional valence and directivity have different effects on procrastination behavior.In addition,previous studies focused on the trait differences of procrastinators and ignored the influence of the cognitive characteristics of procrastinators to imagine future tasks on their procrastination behavior.Therefore,the author first discusses the influence of the two-dimensional model of episodic future thinking on procrastination behavior,and then analyzes how the difference in the level of procrastination trait plays a role in the influence of the two-dimensional model of episodic future thinking on procrastination behavior.Thus,it provides a new research perspective for the intervention methods of procrastination.This paper includes two studies.In the first study,the simulated reality procrastination task paradigm was adopted,and the two factors of 2 imaginary direction(process and result)×2 emotional titer(positive and negative)were used in the in-test design.A total of 77 college students were recruited to explore the influence of episodic future thinking with different emotional titer and direction on procrastination behavior in the laboratory.The results are as follows.First,different emotional titer and direction of episodic future thinking have different effects on procrastination behavior.Positive process imagination and positive outcome imagination can alleviate individual procrastination behavior,and positive process imagination has a greater impact.On the contrary,the negative process imagination and the negative outcome imagination will aggravate the procrastination behavior of individuals,and the negative process imagination has a relatively greater impact.Second,the intensity of emotional change generated by episodic future thinking of the task is significantly related to the level of procrastination behavior.The stronger the pleasure emotion generated by positive imagination,the greater the easing effect on procrastination behavior,while the stronger the task boredom generated by negative imagination,the more aggravating the procrastination behavior.In the second study,the free construction paradigm was adopted to explore the differences in the level of procrastination behavior of individuals with high and low procrastination traits in the reality task scenario under the two dimensions of the episodic future thinking model.A total of 118 subjects in high and low groups participated in the experiment.The results are as follows.First,there are differences between high and low procrastination individuals in the influence of episodic future thinking on their procrastination behavior.Among them,negative process imagination and negative outcome imagination can significantly positively predict the procrastination behavior of individuals with high procrastination traits,and the predictive power of negative process imagination is higher.Positive process imagination and positive outcome imagination have significant negative predictive effects on procrastination behaviors of individuals with low procrastination traits,and the predictive power of positive process imagination is higher.Second,the more negative process or negative outcome the high procrastinator imagines,the more negative emotions the imagines generate,and ultimately the more procrastination behaviors.On the contrary,the more positive process or positive outcome imagination of individuals with low procrastination traits,the more positive emotions generated by the imagination,and ultimately reduce the procrastination behavior.Based on the above research,the author tests a two-dimensional imagination model of episodic future thinking,and explores the influence of episodic future thinking on procrastination.At the same time,the cognitive characteristics of individuals with procrastination trait in episodic future thinking are discussed,and some suggestions for intervention treatment of procrastination are put forward from the perspective of episodic future thinking.