Procrastination is a common self-regulation failure that has been studied mainly in the educational context, but has been largely neglected in life-span psychology. Adopting a life-span motivational perspective, we focus on adult development and maintain that, historically seen, adults nowadays have to take on a more active role in pursuing their goals due to the deregulation of the life course and increased life expectancy. This requires higher self-regulatory skills, particularly with increasing age. When self-regulation fails, people may postpone developmental goals and experience negative consequences. We propose research questions that might foster the understanding of procrastination from a life-span perspective.

拖延症是一种常见的自我调节失败，主要在教育背景下进行了研究，但在寿命心理学中却被很大程度上忽略了。从终身激励的角度出发，我们关注成年人的发展，并坚持认为，从历史上看，当今的成年人由于生活过程的放松管制和预期寿命的延长，在实现其目标方面必须发挥更加积极的作用。这需要更高的自我调节能力，尤其是随着年龄的增长。当自我调节失败时，人们可能会推迟发展目标并遭受负面后果。我们提出了一些研究问题，这些问题可能会从整个生命周期的角度促进对拖延症的理解。