ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Performance Science
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1576619
The Impact of Basic Psychological Needs on Academic Procrastination: The Sequential Mediating Role of Anxiety and Self-Control
Provisionally accepted
- 1Wenzhou Seventh People’s Hospital, Wenzhou, China
- 2Cangnan Third Vocational School, Wenzhou, China
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This cross-sectional study investigates the relationship between basic psychological needs, state anxiety, self-control, and psychological resilience in predicting academic procrastination among college students. Drawing from Self-Determination Theory, the study explores how unmet psychological needs contribute to academic procrastination through the sequential mediation of anxiety and self-control, while also examining the moderating role of psychological resilience. A sample of 612 college students participated in the study. The results reveal that basic psychological needs negatively predict academic procrastination (β = -0.14, p < 0.01) both directly and indirectly. Specifically, self-control mediates the relationship between basic psychological needs and procrastination, while anxiety and self-control serve as sequential mediators (95% CI: [-0.12, -0.06]).Furthermore, psychological resilience significantly moderates the relationship between self-control and academic procrastination (β = 0.08, p < 0.01), as well as the sequential mediation pathway. These findings underscore the critical role of psychological resilience and self-regulation in mitigating procrastination behaviors among college students, offering practical implications for educational institutions.
Keywords: basic psychological needs1, Academic procrastination2, State Anxiety3, self-control4, Psychological Resilience5, self-determination theory6
Received: 14 Feb 2025; Accepted: 06 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ye, Chi, Ma and Pan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shengjie Chi, Cangnan Third Vocational School, Wenzhou, China
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