1
Reaction Paper #10
Luke J. Scalo
Department of Psychology, DeSales University
PS 230-02: Cognitive Psychology
Dr. William Bean
December 7, 2025
2
​
While reading through this chapter from Dan Ariely, I was actually both excited and a
little terrified to see some more concrete information on the topic of procrastination. I think, as a
common understanding, most people are aware of how detrimental procrastination is, but not to
the extent of how inefficient and damaging it really is beyond just the classroom and
assignments. Personally procrastination is something I have intensely struggled with for years
and I have had times where I had to really intervene to deal with this. I had an interesting
dynamic that appeared that I believe many other people may also experience. The largest
problem I had associated with procrastination, is that I was never truly punished for it, granted I
suffered lots of side effects from it. But one thing that never happened, was that I never truly
failed or procrastinated to the point where I was not able to get something done. Which meant
that overall I would always be able to procrastinate and get things done. Overtime this just
allowe me to believe that no matter how much I did procrastinate, things would always get done
and to a strong enough degree. Ariely brings up the example regarding professors and their
students between setting deadlines. Fortunately now a days I am not as bad as I used to be, so
initially I had already assumed that those who had more fixed structure would have more
success. One of the biggest lessons I have come to understand especially since my switch to
psychology, is that we are still learning more about ourselves everyday. I think it’s naive and
arrogant to believe that each of us fully understands ourselves to the degree we need. Naturally it
makes sense then that we cannot fully be trusted to know what is best for ourselves. Ariely
brings up a great point that the weight and requirements for things can’t rest solely on our
shoulders through will power and motivation. Instead things like structure, or aiding factors like
rewards or penalties play a huge role in supporting individuals through their achievements. I
truly believe it’s a rare level of discipline that someone can have that they are able to truly hold
3
themselves accountable for things like this. While I was reading through Ariely’s points it
reminded me alot of “grit” when I was learning about it conceptually. The way I understood grit
was that it differed from motivation, on the days we don’t feel like doing things, we do them
anyways with systems in place. This was very aligned with Ariely’s point about needing
commitments and systems in place in order to support success. As I move in to finals week, I am
going to create systems to hold myself accountable for spaced studying and active retrieval.
Throughout the semester it has really proven to help but unfortunately time has been the biggest
obstacle. I do believe it’s an ongoing process, in some cases time management will be easier and
in others it won’t. However the structure and systems we implement will help us to overcome
those obstacles as they come our way. Based on everything we have learned throughout the
course, I would like my study time to match the intervals at which I’m going to be taking my
finals to match the timed environment I will be needing to perform in. Finding things like study
partners or at least people to check in make sure that I am doing what I set out to do can also be
an effective strategy going into finals. Something I adopted over the last few years since
returning to college was the idea of trying to reward myself for proper habits. As I’ve used in my
own coaching for things beyond academics, creating structure or discipline is a long process and
it’s something that isn’t entirely easy to do, otherwise everybody would already be doing it!
Starting slow and building on a foundation then adding in checkpoints and rewards can have a
really long lasting impact on habits. On top of this, the newest concept I have adopted is trying to
attach my own meaning to material, something I had never done before. This was really eye
opening as I always thought there was something specific professors wanted you to learn from
their material (which granted a lot of classes are like this). But when I have been able to engage
4
with the material on my own level, even if my grades per say haven’t reflected a high outcome. I
do feel like I have a much deeper understanding of what I’m talking about.