Abstract
Background: Self-caused stressors (dependent stressors) are transdiagnostic risk factors for psychopathology. A variety of factors predict the generation of dependent stressors, including a facet of impulsivity called negative urgency, which is the tendency to act rashly when experiencing negative affect. Importantly, negative urgency may also manifest as impulsive inaction, and thus may be related to procrastination. Impulsivity as a whole predicts procrastination, and procrastination is also associated with greater perceived stress. As few studies have investigated how procrastination may predict stressful life events, as well as how negative urgency may present as impulsive inaction, we sought to test these relations directly through mediation models. Overall, we aimed to better understand the antecedents of dependent stressors and academic outcomes.
Methods: A sample of 131 undergraduate participants (18-24 years old) completed a series of questionnaires across three timepoints, assessing negative urgency, procrastination (general and academic), dependent life stressors, dependent academic stressors, and grades.
Results: Negative urgency generally predicted dependent life stressors, academic stressors, and grades, as mediated by procrastination, though academic procrastination did not mediate the relation between negative urgency and dependent stressful life events.
Conclusions: This study provides support for the idea that negative urgency may present as impulsive inaction in the form of procrastination, and additionally demonstrates that procrastination can predict life stressors and worse academic achievement. Ameliorating negative urgency and procrastination may thus serve as intervention points for the reduction of self-caused life and academic stressful events, or worse grades.