The Relationship Among Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Academic Procrastination in Students

Procrastination is considered as an avoidance by which students get rid of negative experiences such as anxiety, however, underlying mechanisms in this relationship are not fully known. While mindfulness and acceptance are correlated with procrastination and anxiety, to date, the role of mindfulness and acceptance in procrastination have not been fully studied. This study aims at investigating whether mindfulness and acceptance can increase the prediction of academic procrastination over and beyond trait anxiety. The statistical community was Shahed University. A total of 111 students were selected through cluster sampling method. They were assessed on different variables, including mindfulness (KIMS), acceptance (AAQ-II), anxiety (TAI), and procrastination (PASS). Data were analyzed in SPSS-23 using hierarchical regression. Results showed that there is a significant correlation between anxiety and procrastination. Furthermore, this study showed that acceptance and mindfulness did not contribute to the prediction of academic procrastination over and beyond trait anxiety. Non-acceptance of private experiences is one route to anxiety, which can lead to lack of persistence to avoid the tasks. Cultural differences may explain the findings.