Precrastination: The potential role of trait impulsivity and physical effort.

Abstract

Precrastination is the choice to complete or begin a behavior unnecessarily early and at some cost. In Experiment 1, we investigated if trait-level impulsive choice (delay discounting) was predictive of precrastination. In Experiment 2, we tested the boundaries of precrastination behavior by systematically manipulating task effort. We found, that trait-level impulsivity was not predictive of precrastination behavior. We also found that as the physical effort required to complete a task increased, participants tended to precrastinate less, until finally, participants chose more optimally. These results suggest that precrastination is not related to trait-level impulsive choice in the form of delay discounting behavior, though it may still be related to other types of impulsivity. The results also show that there are limits to precrastination behavior and that the tendency to complete a task, or parts of a task, unnecessarily early and at some cost may be limited to tasks in which there is little effort involved. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).