Defensive pessimism influences approaches to learning psychological well-being and academic performance through academic procrastination

This study examined whether defensive pessimism influences university students’ approaches to learning, psychological well-being, and academic performance indirectly through academic procrastination. A sample of 628 undergraduate students completed validated measures of defensive pessimism, procrastination, flourishing, and approaches to learning, along with self-reported GPA. Mediation analyses (PROCESS Model 4, 5000 bootstrap samples) showed that defensive pessimism did not directly predict deep, organized, or surface approaches to learning, psychological well-being, or GPA. Instead, its effects were fully mediated by procrastination. Higher levels of defensive pessimism were associated with increased procrastination, which in turn predicted lower deep and organized learning, higher surface learning, reduced well-being, and lower GPA. These findings suggest that avoidance-based procrastination is a key mechanism linking pessimistic threat appraisals to maladaptive academic and psychological outcomes. Interventions targeting emotion regulation and reducing avoidance-rather than attempting to eliminate pessimistic thinking-may help preserve the preparatory aspects of defensive pessimism while mitigating its negative academic consequences.