Procrastination and Participation in Telephone Surveys

To minimize survey nonresponse, psychological characteristics of respondents should be taken into consideration. One characteristic that could be related to survey response is procrastination, that is, the tendency to delay intended and necessary important activities. We applied exploratory factor analysis and IRT analysis to assess the dimensionality, reliability, and validity of a short procrastination scale (PFS-4, see Glöckner-Rist et al., 2014) in a general population telephone survey in Germany. Furthermore, we used logistic regression to determine what activities were interrupted in order to participate in the survey and whether procrastination played a role in this regard. Procrastination can be measured economically and easily in telephone surveys and is an important predictor of survey participation when individuals are engaged in work activities or satisfying basic needs when they are called. This knowledge may help to develop strategies to further reduce nonresponse in population surveys conducted on landline and mobile phones.