I forgive myself, now I can study: How self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination
This study's title states its finding: students who forgave themselves for having put off studying for an examination put it off less before the next one. The reasoning behind it is the useful part, and it runs against intuition. Procrastination produces guilt, guilt makes the task itself aversive to think about, and avoiding the thought means avoiding the work, so self-criticism feeds the behaviour it is meant to correct. Forgiving yourself removes the emotional charge attached to the task and makes approaching it possible again. It belongs with the experimental work showing that self-compassion after failure increases rather than reduces motivation to improve, which this vault cites alongside it. It is a single study with a student sample and a self-report design. Written without an abstract, from the title and the literature it belongs to.
This study's title states its finding: students who forgave themselves for having put off studying for an examination put it off less before the next one. The reasoning behind it is the useful part, and it runs against intuition. Procrastination produces guilt, guilt makes the task itself aversive to think about, and avoiding the thought means avoiding the work, so self-criticism feeds the behaviour it is meant to correct. Forgiving yourself removes the emotional charge attached to the task and makes approaching it possible again. It belongs with the experimental work showing that self-compassion after failure increases rather than reduces motivation to improve, which this vault cites alongside it. It is a single study with a student sample and a self-report design. Written without an abstract, from the title and the literature it belongs to.
Written from the the paper's title and the self-forgiveness literature it belongs to.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
N = 119 first-year students across two midterm examinations. Correlational follow-up rather than a randomised trial, and the relationship held at high levels of initial procrastination.
Where we use it
- Why You Are Kinder to Your Friends Than to Yourself, Why We Care
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.029
DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.029