The mediating role of cognitive avoidance and anxiety in the relationship between negative perfectionism and procrastination

Perfectionism as a stable personality characteristic that influences various aspects of human life in a complex way. Several studies show that perfectionists reduce their anxiety by doing procrastinating behaviors. So, the purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of cognition avoidance and anxiety as cognitive factors in the relationship between perfectionism and procrastination. For this purpose, a sample of 278 undergraduate, master and doctoral students (118 male and 160 female), with a mean age of 25.4 and standard deviation of 5.50 from five state university were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. In order to collect data, students answered Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), Solomon and Rothblum Academic Procrastination Scale, DASS-21 Scale and Cognition Avoidance. In order to analyze data, structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used. The results showed that there were significant and positive causal relationships between perfectionism, anxiety and procrastination and the mediating role of cognition avoidance, indirectly through anxiety in the relationship between perfectionism and procrastination has been verified. Thus when cognition avoidance causes more anxiety in people who are perfectionist, this leads to more procrastination.