Error processing deficits in academic procrastinators anticipating monetary punishment in a go/no-go study

Procrastination is a failure of self-regulation in which people delay some actions despite knowing that their behavior will lead to discomfort. Although some previous studies have revealed a significant relationship between procrastination, impulsivity and poorer executive control, and indicated that encountering negative emotions escalates procrastination, this evidence has mainly come from questionnaire-based research. This study aimed at investigating executive control in individuals with high and low academic procrastination tendencies using monetary go/no-go task that was performed in three following contexts: punishing for errors, rewarding correct responses, and a neutral condition. Results revealed executive dysfunction in academic procrastinators in the context of aversive motivation. Specifically, in the punishment condition this group showed reduced post-error-slowing and longer reaction times than low procrastinating controls. However, the two groups did not differ with regard to various indicators of executive control in the neutral and reward conditions. Questionnaires revealed greater susceptibility to punishment in high than low procrastinating students but there were no group differences in the sensitivity to reward. This study suggests that error-processing deficits occurring in emotionally negative contexts may hinder adjustments of faulty behaviors in procrastinators and reduce their level of performance and intensify negative emotions by means of a vicious cycle.