University of Twente Student Theses

Academic Procrastination and its effects on Perceived Stress and Mental Well-Being : Are Compensatory Health Beliefs and Self-Compassion Mediators or Moderators of the relation between Academic Procrastination on Perceived Stress or Mental Well-being?

Smoletz, F.G (2019) Academic Procrastination and its effects on Perceived Stress and Mental Well-Being : Are Compensatory Health Beliefs and Self-Compassion Mediators or Moderators of the relation between Academic Procrastination on Perceived Stress or Mental Well-being?

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Abstract:	Background: Procrastination is a behavior where people are doing something else and not the most urgent thing that needs to be done. In previous research procrastination was found to be positively related to perceived stress and negatively to mental well-being. Compensatory Health Beliefs (CHBs) describe the beliefs of individuals that unhealthy behavior can be compensated through healthy behavior for example: "Relaxing on the weekend can make up for the stress during the week". CHBs describe characteristics of procrastination such as cognitive dissonance or the time delay of doing the most urgent thing. Self-compassion describes how positive an attitude towards oneself can be and how it can protect someone against negative effects of self-judgment. Previous studies found that self-compassion is negatively related to academic procrastination. Self-compassion was also found to be a mediator between academic procrastination and perceived stress. Aim: The aim of this study was to emphasize the importance of investigating academic procrastination and its negative health outcomes as well as explaining the relation between academic procrastination and perceived stress and mental well-being by conducting moderation and mediation analyses with CHBs and Self-compassion as moderators and mediators. Methods: Participants of this study were students who were sampled through social media. In total 96 respondents completed an online survey with a majority of female participants, mostly psychology students. Results: A prevalence of 45.8 % of students reported more than average level of academic procrastination. Academic procrastination and perceived stress were significantly positively related (r = .42, p < 0.01), a moderate negative relation was found between academic procrastination and mental well-being (r = -.33, p < 0.01). The relation between self-compassion and perceived stress was significantly negative (r = -.69, p < .001) and the relation between self-compassion and mental well-being was significantly positive (r = .65, p < 0.01). The moderation and mediation models were not significant. Conclusion: This study delivers a foundation to understand the relations between academic procrastination, perceived stress and mental well-being. The study confirms correlations between academic procrastination, perceived stress and mental well-being as well as the correlations between self-compassion, perceived stress and mental well-being. Hence, academic procrastination and self-compassion are important factors in relation to health and should be investigated in future studies.
Item Type:	Essay (Master)
Faculty:	BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:	77 psychology
Programme:	Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:	https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/77488
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