Cited by 1,266Perfectionism, Procrastination, Anxiety StudiesDecision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsGrit, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation

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RETRACTED: Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Control by Precommitment

Ariely, Dan, Wertenbroch, Klaus·2002·Psychological Science

DOI 10.1111/1467-9280.00441

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Abstract

Procrastination is all too familiar to most people. People delay writing up their research (so we hear!), repeatedly declare they will start their diets tomorrow, or postpone until next week doing odd jobs around the house. Yet people also sometimes attempt to control their procrastination by setting deadlines for themselves. In this article, we pose three questions: (a) Are people willing to self-impose meaningful (i.e., costly) deadlines to overcome procrastination? (b) Are self-imposed deadlines effective in improving task performance? (c) When self-imposing deadlines, do people set them optimally, for maximum performance enhancement? A set of studies examined these issues experimentally, showing that the answer is "yes" to the first two questions, and "no" to the third. People have self-control problems, they recognize them, and they try to control them by self-imposing costly deadlines. These deadlines help people control procrastination, hit they are not as effective as some externally imposed deadlines in improving task performance.

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Study More Tomorrow
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Background
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Background
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Result
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Background
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Background
Pure hyperbolic discount curves predict “eyes open” self-control
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MethodResultInfluential
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Result
Nudge to the future: capitalizing on illusory superiority bias to mitigate temporal discounting
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Authors: Ariely, D., & Wertenbroch, K.
Affiliations: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
INSEAD (FR)
Corresponding author: Ariely, Dan
ORCID: Ariely, Dan
Wertenbroch, Klaus
Venue: Psychological Science
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2002-05
Volume: 13
Issue: 3
Pages: 219-224
ISSN: 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
1467-9280
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.00441
OpenAlex: W2107406322
Cited by: 1,266
References: 0
Citations by year: 2026: 59 · 2025: 43 · 2024: 67 · 2023: 62 · 2022: 67 · 2021: 79 · 2020: 78 · 2019: 140 · 2018: 81 · 2017: 73 · 2016: 76 · 2015: 61 · 2014: 72 · 2013: 42 · 2012: 55
FWCI: 10.60
Type: journal article
Language: en
Status: Retracted
Update notices: retraction (2026-09-02)
Open access: closed
Licence: journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations: Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics: Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Perfectionism, Procrastination, Anxiety Studies
Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Grit, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation
Keywords: procrastination, self-control, precommitment, task performance, self-control problems
MeSH terms: Behavior, Humans, Pilot Projects, Students, Task Performance and Analysis, Self Efficacy

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