Intervention Strategies for Procrastination through Reinforcement

Running head: BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY
Behavioral Psychology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY
Introduction
Education is one of the most important prerequisites of the human kind. It enables
them to expand their mental horizon and analyze the various occurings in the society
(Dacey, 2016). With the aid of education, important information and knowledge is
passed on to the concerned students from the teachers. This knowledge, in turn, is
utilized by the students for solving the problems that appear in their personal lives by
the way of helping them understand the context of the problem and giving them
several alternative solutions as to how to tackle the issue (Greenwald & De Houwer,
2017). In this regard, it can be seen that education is extremely important for the
growth and development of the individuals of the society. However, often times it is
noticed that individuals engage in procrastination more than utilizing their time to
study which leads to their internal growth (Gross, 2015). This essay tries to
understand how this issue of procrastination can be resolved with the aid of
psychological intervention and reinforces. To this extent, this assignment has also
developed an intervention strategy for bringing about a positive change in the
behavior of the individuals.
Studying without any kind of distraction has been recommended by almost all the
scholars of the world who are related to the field of education.The inculcation of
knowledge depends upon the concentration level of the individual students. In other
words, if they have the ability to concentrate on the various information and
knowledge which is imparted to them, then they would be able to imbibe it within
themselves in an effective manner (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2016). This, in turn, would
aid in their mental maturity and emotional growth. However, often times it is seen that
the concentration level of the students is not that developed. In this regard, they often

2BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY
end up losing the needed concentration and instead, start to procrastinate.
Procrastination refers to the phenomenon of wastage of valuable time on simply doing
nothing worth while (Madden et al., 2016). Even I fall prey to this phenomenon,
which severely affects my performance in my academic field.
Methods
The indulgence in procrastination led me to realize that an intervention strategy
was required for me to utilize my valuable time in a better manner (Andreatta & Pauli,
2015). I subjected myself to a self control program where I set out certain conditions
on my behalf. Studying continuously without any distraction for a period of three
hours in a day was selected as the ultimate goal for my endeavor. The number of
times I got distracted or engaged in procrastination was recorded by me in a chart.
The chart consisted of the number of times I got up while studying and the number of
hours in a day I wasted behind procrastination. The recorded number of times I sat
down down to study for an uninterrupted period of time on a daily basis, was then
graphed by me.
I realized that the average number of hours in a day that I procrastinated was
closer to five hours. This was sought to be reduced to only one hour while the
remaining four hours were divided in to three hours of studying and one hour of home
work. If the goal for the day was achieved then I rewarded myself with a chocolate at
the end of the day. Furthermore, if the goal was reached for the entire week, then I
allowed myself one additional day of engaging in leisure activity of playing football
as it was my favorite sport to play.
Results
The results where compared as collected during the baseline period and during