SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

To procrastinate or not

[T]he answer may be down to differences in how our brains are wired, a study suggests.

It identified two areas of the brain that determine whether we are more likely to get on with a task or continually put it off.

Researchers used a survey and scans of 264 people's brains to measure how proactive they were.

Experts say the study, in Psychological Science, underlines procrastination is more about managing emotions than time.

It found that the amygdala - an almond-shaped structure in the temporal (side) lobe which processes our emotions and controls our motivation - was larger in procrastinators.

In these individuals, there were also poorer connections between the amygdala and a part of the brain called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (DACC).

The DACC uses information from the amygdala and decides what action the body will take. It helps keep the person on track by blocking out competing emotions and distractions.

"Individuals with a larger amygdala may be more anxious about the negative consequences of an action - they tend to hesitate and put off things," says Erhan Genç, one of the study authors, based at Ruhr University Bochum.

The researchers suggest that procrastinators are less able to filter out interfering emotions and distractions because the connections between the amygdala and the DACC in their brains are not as good as in proactive individuals.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission