Motivação e procrastinação acadêmica: o papel da imprevisibilidade ambiental durante a
pandemia da COVID-19
COVID-19; Procrastination; Fundamental Social Motives; Life History strategy.
Defined by Steel (2007) as the voluntary delay of an intended course of action despite execting
inevitable negative consequences, procrastination still remains poorly understood. Earlier
researches focus primarily on decision-making, and only recently has individual motivation begun
to be included as a possible explanation for procrastination. In addition, there are very few studies
regarding this behavior from an evolutionary perspective, and the global pandemic created by
COVID-19 provides a rare opportunity to evaluate the influence of environmental cues on human
motivation and procrastination. Therefore, the objective of this work is to investigate, from an
evolutionary perspective, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on motivation and procrastination
among university students. To achieve this, the following hypotheses will be tested: 1.
Environmental clues influence procrastination levels in the face of a pandemic situation (Study 1);
2. The Life History strategy influences the fundamental motives presented in the post-pandemic
scenario, providing a good predictor for procrastination behavior (Study 2); 3. There is a
relationship between anxiety, depression, and stress indicators and current levels of academic
procrastination (Study 2). At least 118 participants will be recruited who will answer, anonymously
and online, six questionnaires referring to the parameters to be analyzed: Sociodemographic
Questionnaire; Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21); Fundamental Social Motives
Inventory; Mini-K (shortened version); Scale of Unpredictability Beliefs; and the Tuckman
Procrastination Scale, the last two referring to three periods: 2019, 2020 and 2022.