NAMED NATIONAL FOUR-YEAR DAILY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR FOR 2020-21 IN THE COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION’S PINNACLE AWARDS
Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022
Volume 159 No. 40 WW WWW WW W..SJ .SSJ SJSUN SU UNEW U EWS WS.C .CO CCO OM/S M// PAR ARRTAN T _DA TA DAILY ILY WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
SERVING SE SER VVIN I G SSAN IN AN JOS AN JJOSE O OSE SE SSTATE TTAAT TAT AT E U UNIV UNIVERSITY NIVER NIV IVVEER ERS RSITY RSITY RS TTYY SINCE SIN SI NCCE NCE CE 19 1934 1934 34
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BY BRYANNA BART
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Procrastination does not equate to laziness Local experts weigh in on underlying factors By Hailey Fargo STAFF WRITER
Local psychology experts say procrastination negatively affects almost everyone at some point in their lives, but it’s not necessarily a matter of self-control or laziness. Ghiath Arodaki, San Jose State industrial and systems engineering senior, said he finds himself procrastinating quite often. “On one side, you want to achieve something, you have goals in mind and . . . that ambition is your drive, your motivation,” Arodaki said in a Zoom call. “But on the other side, there is this ‘live in the moment’ feeling.” Lesther Papa, SJSU psychology assistant professor, defined procrastination as putting off something important even though the consequence of doing so will likely lead to a negative outcome. Papa said people often simplify
the cause of their procrastination to laziness, bad time management or that they work better under pressure. He said there are many unseen factors that drive procrastination and hinder a person from completing tasks until the last minute. Those elements can include mental health, low self-esteem, self-sabotage and other environmental factors. Joseph Zamaria, University of California, San Francisco associate clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and program director of psychotherapy, said these factors will be unique from person to person. “There’s conflict involved inside a person,” Zamaria said in a Zoom call. “There’s a part of oneself that wants to get the thing done and there’s another part of oneself where they don’t want to do the thing.” Papa said deadlines are also a component that contribute to a person’s procrastination.
“The biological processes in your body will respond to deadlines, for example, in the same way that it would to a bear attack, lion, spider,” he said. Papa said our bodies react to deadlines as if it will harm us and putting it off allows us to avoid the threat. “The thing though is that the deadlines are often not harmful, right, and so what happens is the deadline tends to trigger something that you perceive as harmful,” he said. Papa said the key is attempting to figure out what people individually find so threatening. “It’s usually not the deadline itself but then something connected with that deadline,” he said. “Whether it be fear of failure, fear of not doing a good job, maybe realizing that you’re unprepared for that deadline and being too afraid to ask for help.” Papa said bodily response occurs PROCRASTINATION | Page 2
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