It’s too difficult! Frustration intolerance beliefs and procrastination
Introduction
Cognitive theories derived from Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) have been prominent as explanations of procrastination (Ellis & Knaus, 1977). REBT proposes that dysfunctional (‘irrational’) beliefs are central to emotional and behavioural problems. It also suggests that these beliefs may be grouped within two separate categories (Ellis & Dryden, 1987). The first category involves intolerance of frustration and represents the demand that reality should be as we wish it to be (e.g., “Life must be easy and free of hassle”). The second category represents the evaluation of self-worth based on meeting certain absolute conditions (e.g., “I must succeed to be worthwhile”). Whilst these two belief categories interact, they are assumed to have distinct and unique relationships with psychological problems (Ellis, 1979).
Theoretically, REBT suggests that both belief categories play a role in procrastination, although Ellis and Knaus (1977) suggest that frustration intolerance ‘constitutes the main and the most direct cause of procrastination’ (p. 19). However, empirical evidence regarding the relationship between frustration intolerance beliefs and procrastination, and the relative importance of frustration intolerance and self-worth, is limited. One reason has been the lack of adequate measures of ‘irrational’ beliefs, with earlier scales based on outdated theory and the sub-scale content failing to reflect a clear theoretical framework. This may explain why several studies have found little overall relationship between ‘irrational’ beliefs and measures of procrastination (Beswick et al., 1988, Ferrari and Emmons, 1994). A more robust association has been found with the measures of self-worth, although Beswick et al. (1988) note that the amount of variance accounted for by low self-esteem was modest, suggesting that other factors were involved.
The investigation of specific beliefs has also been restricted by frustration intolerance being treated as a unidimensional construct, with the content of frustration intolerance beliefs and their factor structure remaining unexplored (Neenan & Dryden, 1999). Nevertheless, several different areas of belief are described in the REBT literature as characteristic of frustration intolerance, including intolerance of emotional distress, the intolerance of frustrated goals and hassles, and demands for fairness and immediate gratification (Dryden & Gordon, 1993). These beliefs are likely to show quite distinct relationships with specific problems, and will therefore be inadequately assessed by a unidimensional scale.
To redress this problem, the Frustration-Discomfort Scale (FDS) was developed as a multi-dimensional measure of frustration intolerance beliefs, as distinct from self-worth beliefs (Harrington, 2003). Initial analysis of the FDS yielded a factor structure involving four dimensions. These dimensions were emotional intolerance (e.g., “I can’t stand situations where I might feel upset”), discomfort intolerance (e.g., “I can’t stand doing tasks when I’m not in the mood”), entitlement (e.g., “I can’t stand having to give into other people’s demands”) and achievement frustration (e.g., “I can’t stand doing a job if I’m unable to do it well”). It was hypothesised that these dimensions would have distinct relationships with procrastination. However, evidence from the research literature involving similar concepts has been inconsistent. Regarding emotional intolerance, it has been argued that procrastination is related to attempts to gain immediate relief from negative affect by indulging in enjoyable distractions (Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001), with anxiety suggested as a core emotion (McCown & Johnson, 1991). However, other studies report no such relationship between negative affect and procrastination (Pychyl, Lee, Thibodeau, & Blunt, 2000), or suggest that this may only be relevant to a small sub-set of procrastinators with fear of failure (Schouwenburg, 1992). As regards discomfort intolerance, evidence does suggest that individuals are more likely to procrastinate on tasks perceived as boring, difficult, or demanding of greater effort (Milgram, Srolof, & Rosenbaum, 1988).
Ellis and Knaus (1977) have also proposed that oppositional behaviour and resentment play a role in procrastination, which suggests an association with entitlement beliefs. Supporting this, procrastination has been reported as having a significant although low correlation with anger, revenge, and just world beliefs (Ferrari and Emmons, 1994, Ferrari et al., 1995).
Beliefs regarding perfectionistic achievement have also been linked to procrastination, although the evidence suggests a complex relationship involving different types of perfectionism (Flett, Hewitt, & Martin, 1995). In general, perfectionistic beliefs that primarily reflect an evaluation of self-worth are significantly correlated with procrastination. In contrast, perfectionistic beliefs that just refer to high standards are not associated with increased procrastination. Therefore, it has been suggested that high-standards by themselves may reflect adaptive striving for personal goals, and it is the association of high standards with negative self-evaluation that is dysfunctional (Frost, Heimberg, Holt, Mattia, & Neubauer, 1993). However, unlike the present achievement frustration sub-scale, existing perfectionism measures do not specifically assess intolerance of frustrated standards or goals. Therefore, it remains unclear whether achievement frustration, independent of self-worth beliefs, will be related to procrastination.
The present paper reports on the validation of the FDS by examining the relationship between these dimensions of frustration intolerance and academic procrastination. As a measure of procrastination, the Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS) (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984) was chosen because the ‘reasons for procrastination’ sub-section contained two factors: fear of failure and task aversiveness. Since these two factors are conceptually similar to self-worth and frustration intolerance, it was hypothesised that they would be differentially related. More specifically, that fear of failure would be related to self-esteem and task aversiveness to the discomfort intolerance sub-scale. However, because the reported factor structure of the PASS indicated possible methodological flaws, this measure was subjected to a preliminary analysis.
An additional consideration was the expected interrelationship between frustration intolerance and self-worth beliefs. For this reason, it was necessary to demonstrate that any relationship between the FDS and procrastination was not simply a reflection of shared variance. This was addressed by controlling for self-worth beliefs in a regression strategy. Since the FDS was designed as a measure of frustration intolerance, and therefore did not include items related to self-worth, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) was used as a measure of dysfunctional self-worth.
Section snippets
Participants and procedure
Participants comprised undergraduate psychology students from two consecutive third year honours courses in abnormal psychology (22% male and 78% female). Two cases were eliminated due to missing data leaving 86 replies for analysis. Questionnaires were completed by students at the beginning of a workshop conducted by the author.
Frustration-Discomfort Scale (FDS)
The development of the FDS involved two studies both employing combined student and clinical populations (Harrington, 2003). Part of this student sample was used in the
Descriptive analysis
The total PASS mean score was 19.40 (SD = 3.66), with mean procrastination frequency 10.35 (SD = 2.12) and mean procrastination problems 9.08 (SD = 2.22). There was no gender differences for either problem (t(55) = .27, ns) or frequency scores (t(55) = 1.23, ns). Defining dysfunctional procrastination in terms of high scores (‘always’ or ‘nearly always’), 40% of students reported high procrastination frequency on exams, and 54% on essays. In contrast, only 21% of students had high procrastination problem
Discussion
One aim of this study was to validate the FDS against an established procrastination measure. Consistent with REBT theory, self-worth and frustration intolerance beliefs were both independently related to procrastination problem scores. Furthermore, frustration intolerance and self-esteem were differentially correlated with task aversiveness and fear of failure, supporting convergent and discriminative validity. The FDS sub-scales also showed specific relationships with procrastination, with
Acknowledgement
This paper is based on research submitted to the University of Edinburgh in part fulfilment of a Doctorate of Philosophy degree. I would like to thank Professor Mick Power for his supervision and encouragement.
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