Pychyl says researchers in Germany compared the brains of procrastinators to non-procrastinators using functional MRI. It found that the brains of procrastinators have a larger amygdala, which is part of the limbic system known for fight or flight.
“What’s happening is what we call the ‘amygdala hijack,'” says Pychyl. “The procrastinators are reacting emotionally, and the emotion-focused coping response is to escape. It’s saying, ‘I don’t want these negative emotions I’ll experience during the task,’ and so it avoids the task.”
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Procrastination is an emotion-focused coping strategy. It’s not a time management problem.
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