Background:
Procrastination affects over 20% of adult men and women, with current international data indicating a global preference to sys-tematically delay the start or completion of intended tasks. Procrastination is a common, sub-optimal decision-making strategy that emphasises short-term benefits at the expense of later performance. Some individuals develop a pattern of procrastination which proves difficult to break; worse, they may begin to identify as a procrastinator, setting themselves up for failure.

Participants and procedure:
The current investigation examined what develops a procrastinator identity. Previous research indicated that chronic procrastina-tion is a learned tendency beginning in one’s early development from parental control approaches. We extended that line of research using a cross-cultural sample (n = 2124), self-reported procrastination (behavioural or deci-sional), and retrospective regret scores in 12 domains. We used logistic regression to predict the likelihood of explicitly identify-ing as a procrastinator.

Results:
Across three randomised partitions, results indicated that indecision and regrets about education, career, and finances most in-creased the likelihood of identifying as a procrastinator.

Conclusions:
These findings support that regrets largely influenced by earning-potential best predict procrastination identity. The current re-sults are consistent with other studies assessing the causes and consequences of chronic procrastination regardless of country or ethnic background. Future research is needed.