拖延对工作绩效的影响——压力偏好与任务类型的调节作用

Impact of Procrastination on Work Performance:The Moderating Effects of Pressure Preference and Task Type

本研究探索了压力偏好和任务类型在拖延行为对绩效产生影响中的调节作用。用问卷调查的方法对155人进行调查。结果发现:相比偏好压力者,厌恶压力者的工作绩效更容易受到拖延行为的影响;对于复杂任务,拖延对偏好压力者的绩效影响显著低于对厌恶压力者;而对于简单任务,两种类型人的绩效的差别并不明显。结论是,偏好压力者能够减弱拖延行为对其工作绩效的影响,尤其对于复杂任务,这种影响更加明显。

Procrastination refers to the phenomenon that individuals do not engage in completing tasks immediately but postpone doing the tasks.In general,research indicates that procrastination leads to lower performance.Recent research,however,implies that the relationship between procrastination and performance is contingent on a number of contextual and individual differences,but little is known.In this paper,we investigate the contingencies of individual differences and task characteristics.Specifically,some individuals may prefer pressure when performing tasks,making their performance less impacted by procrastination.In addition,procrastination may influence complex and simple tasks to different degrees.The paper explores these boundary conditions,or the moderating effects. The data of this study were collected from employees in the workplace,offering an advantage over many previous studies on procrastination using student samples.Questionnaires in the survey included three parts.Part one of the questionnaires offered two scenarios of task types and performance scales for respondents to rate.Part two measured procrastination and preference of pressure.Part three measured background and demographic information of respondents.All the scales in the survey used 7-point Likert-type scaling,with 1 representing ＂totally disagree＂ and 7 ＂totally agree＂. Two methods were used to collect data,one through hard-copy questionnaires and the other electronic questionnaires.In all,157 questionnaires were distributed,and 155 valid samples with diverse demographic backgrounds were gained,reaching a high response rate 98.7%.Among all the samples,about two thirds were collected through the internet and one third through traditional way.No significant differences of main variables or demographic information were found on the two subsamples.So they were analyzed together as a whole sample. Theoretical analyses on the boundary conditions of procrastination were tested using regressions and correlations.A number of results were important to inform the theoretical analyses.First,compared to workers preferring pressure,can who dislike pressure will perform poorly to a larger degree if they procrastinate.Second,in completing a complex task,the effect of procrastination on performance is smaller for the workers preferring pressure than those disliking pressure.However,in completing a simple task,the difference between the two kinds of workers did not differ significantly.In conclusion,preference of pressure could ameliorate the effect of procrastination on performance,and the moderating effect will be stronger when completing a complex task.This study contributes to the study of procrastination＇ s effect.Specifically,the effect that procrastination has on performance depends on the individual factor of preference of pressure and the contextual factor of task type.