Chapter 17 Exercises

Motivation and Procrastination: The Science of Getting Yourself to Actually Do the Thing

These exercises are designed to move you beyond recognition toward genuine understanding and application. Try to answer from memory before checking the chapter. If you find yourself avoiding any of these exercises — well, that's data. Notice the avoidance. What emotion is driving it? That noticing is exactly what this chapter taught you to do.

Part A: Conceptual Understanding

These questions test whether you can define and explain the chapter's core concepts. Aim for your own words, not quoted definitions.

A1. Define intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation in your own words. Then explain why the popular framing of "intrinsic = good, extrinsic = bad" is an oversimplification.

A2. Name the three basic psychological needs in self-determination theory. For each one, give a concrete example of what it looks like when that need is (a) satisfied and (b) frustrated in a learning context.

A3. Write out the core equation of expectancy-value theory. Explain why the multiplicative relationship matters — what happens when one component is near zero?

A4. Define temporal discounting. Why does your brain discount future rewards, and how does this tendency specifically undermine academic motivation?

A5. Explain the chapter's reframe of procrastination: it's an emotion-regulation problem, not a time-management problem. What does this mean concretely? What emotion is typically being regulated, and how?

A6. Define self-efficacy and explain how it differs from general self-confidence. Why does this distinction matter for motivation interventions?

A7. What is temporal motivation theory? How does it explain the phenomenon of motivation spiking the night before a deadline?

A8. Define all three techniques from Section 17.6: implementation intentions, temptation bundling, and the Premack principle. For each, explain the psychological mechanism that makes it effective.

Part B: Applied Analysis

These questions present scenarios and ask you to analyze them using the concepts from this chapter.

B1. Scenario: Priya is a graduate student working on her dissertation. She finds her research topic genuinely fascinating, but she hasn't made progress in three weeks. She spends her work days reorganizing her references, re-reading papers she's already read, and perfecting her literature review formatting. She tells herself she's "getting ready to write."

Using the concepts from this chapter, diagnose what's happening. Is this a motivation problem or a procrastination problem? Which components of expectancy-value theory are likely involved? What emotion might Priya be regulating through her avoidance behavior?

B2. Scenario: Tyler is taking a required statistics course for his psychology major. He has no interest in statistics, sees no connection to his career goals (he wants to be a therapist), and finds the content genuinely boring. He has decent math skills and could probably pass if he tried, but he can't bring himself to open the textbook.

Analyze Tyler's motivation using both SDT and expectancy-value theory. Which specific needs are unmet? Which expectancy-value component is the primary barrier? Design two interventions — one targeting an SDT need and one targeting an expectancy-value component.

B3. Scenario: Amara started learning Spanish with great enthusiasm three months ago. She signed up for an app, bought a textbook, and told all her friends about her goal. For the first month, she practiced every day. Now she practices maybe once a week. She says, "I guess I'm just not motivated anymore."

Reframe Amara's situation using the concepts from this chapter. What's likely happening in terms of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation? How does the competence component of SDT explain the pattern? What would temporal discounting predict about her situation? What specific intervention would you recommend?

B4. Scenario: Jake is a college sophomore who procrastinates on every assignment. He has a planner, a to-do list app, three different organizational systems, and a color-coded calendar. He knows exactly what he needs to do and when. He still can't start.

Based on this chapter, explain why Jake's time-management tools aren't solving his procrastination. What does the research say about the relationship between procrastination and time management? What type of intervention is Jake actually missing?

B5. Scenario: A parent tells their child, "If you get an A on your math test, I'll give you $50." The child studied hard and earned the A. Over the next month, the child's interest in math declines noticeably.

What phenomenon does this illustrate? Under what conditions would the reward have been less likely to undermine intrinsic motivation? Describe the nuance that the research actually shows about rewards and motivation.

B6. Scenario: Two students have identical levels of skill and knowledge in organic chemistry. Both face the same problem set. Student A starts immediately and works through it in two hours. Student B procrastinates for three days, then does it in a frantic two-hour session the night before it's due.

Using temporal motivation theory, explain the difference between these two students. Is it that Student A has "more motivation"? What other psychological variables might account for the difference?

Part C: Real-World Application

These questions ask you to apply chapter concepts directly to your own life.

C1. Identify the task or subject you're most likely to procrastinate on right now. Run the full expectancy-value diagnostic from Section 17.3: - Rate Expectancy (0-10) - Rate Intrinsic Value (0-10) - Rate Utility Value (0-10) - Rate Cost (0-10)

Which component is the weakest link? Write a one-paragraph analysis of why this specific component is low.

C2. For the same task, run the SDT check: - Rate Autonomy (0-10) - Rate Competence (0-10) - Rate Relatedness (0-10)

Which need is most frustrated? How could you modify the situation to better meet that need?

C3. Think about the last time you procrastinated on something important. Walk through the procrastination loop described in Section 17.5: 1. What was the task? 2. What emotion arose when you thought about starting? 3. What did you do instead? 4. How did the avoidance make you feel in the short term? 5. How did it make you feel in the long term?

Now that you can see the loop, what would you do differently next time?

C4. Design three specific interventions for your most-procrastinated task: 1. Write one implementation intention in the "If [situation], then [behavior]" format 2. Design one temptation bundle (pairing the task with something enjoyable) 3. Design one Premack-principle sequence ("After [task], then [reward]")

Be as concrete as possible — specify times, places, durations, and the exact activities involved.

C5. Reflect on a time when your motivation for learning something shifted from intrinsic to extrinsic — when something you found genuinely interesting started to feel like an obligation. What caused the shift? Can you identify which event or change triggered the transition? Using the concepts from this chapter, what could have prevented or reversed the shift?

Part D: Synthesis and Critical Thinking

These questions require you to integrate multiple concepts, evaluate arguments, or think beyond what the chapter explicitly stated.

D1. The chapter argues that procrastination is an emotion-regulation problem, not a laziness or time-management problem. Do you agree? Make the strongest case you can for this position. Then make the strongest case you can against it. Are there situations where procrastination really IS a time-management problem? A motivation problem? A skills problem? How would you tell the difference?

D2. Compare and contrast self-determination theory and expectancy-value theory as diagnostic tools. What does each framework capture that the other misses? In what situations would SDT be the more useful diagnostic? In what situations would expectancy-value be better? Could you imagine a student whose motivation problem is clearly explained by one framework but invisible to the other?

D3. The chapter describes the "competence paradox" — the idea that improving your metacognitive monitoring (Chapter 13) can temporarily decrease your sense of competence and therefore your motivation. How would you advise a student who has just become more aware of their own knowledge gaps and is feeling demoralized? How do you encourage accurate self-assessment without undermining the competence need?

D4. Temporal discounting predicts that people will always prefer immediate rewards over delayed ones. But clearly, some people regularly choose delayed rewards — they save money, train for marathons, pursue graduate degrees. What factors moderate temporal discounting? How does this connect to implementation intentions and other strategies from the chapter?

D5. The chapter briefly mentions the overjustification effect and notes that it depends on the type of reward. Imagine you're a teacher designing a reward system for your class. Based on the research discussed in this chapter, how would you design a reward system that motivates without undermining intrinsic interest? What would you definitely avoid?

Part M: Mixed Practice — Retrieval from Earlier Chapters

These questions deliberately pull from earlier chapters to promote interleaving and spaced retrieval. Answer from memory.

M1. (From Chapter 14) What is an implementation intention, and where was this concept first introduced? How does the use of implementation intentions in this chapter (for overcoming procrastination) differ from their use in Chapter 14 (for planning)?

M2. (From Chapter 10) The chapter mentions that "productive struggle" is a feature, not a bug. How does this connect to the concept of desirable difficulties from Chapter 10? How might understanding desirable difficulties help a student like Mia reframe the discomfort she feels when starting her calculus problem set?

M3. (From Chapter 13) The chapter suggests that Mia's thought "I can't do this" should be treated like an unreliable metacognitive judgment. Using the concepts from Chapter 13, explain why this thought is similar to an inaccurate JOL. What type of metacognitive judgment is it most similar to?

M4. (From Chapter 1) The chapter references growth mindset from Chapter 1. How does the growth mindset concept relate to the expectancy component of expectancy-value theory? Can someone have a growth mindset and still have low expectancy for a specific task? How?

M5. (Integration) Create a flowchart or step-by-step description showing how these concepts from different chapters work together in a single study session: (1) implementation intentions (Ch 14 and Ch 17), (2) metacognitive monitoring (Ch 13), (3) the procrastination-as-emotion-regulation reframe (Ch 17), and (4) retrieval practice (Ch 7). Show how each connects to the next.

Part E: Research and Extension (Optional)

These questions go beyond the chapter content. They're designed for students who want to explore further.

E1. Locate research by Timothy Pychyl on procrastination and emotion regulation. What evidence does he cite for the claim that procrastination is fundamentally an emotion-regulation problem? Are there any limitations to this view that his research acknowledges?

E2. The self-determination theory literature distinguishes between different types of extrinsic motivation on a continuum from "external regulation" to "identified regulation" to "integrated regulation." Research this continuum. How does the type of extrinsic motivation affect learning quality and persistence? How does this nuance change the chapter's treatment of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation?

E3. Research the concept of "implementation intentions" as developed by Peter Gollwitzer. What is the proposed mechanism by which if-then plans increase goal attainment? Are there conditions under which implementation intentions are less effective? What does the most recent research suggest about their limitations?

E4. Design a study to test whether the procrastination-as-emotion-regulation framework leads to better interventions than traditional time-management training. Specify: (a) your hypothesis, (b) your participants, (c) your experimental conditions, (d) your measures, and (e) potential confounding variables.

E5. The marshmallow test is described in the chapter as more complicated than its popular reputation suggests. Research the replication and extension studies conducted since Mischel's original work. What did Watts, Duncan, and Quan (2018) find? How did controlling for socioeconomic factors change the results? What does this tell us about the relationship between self-regulation and life outcomes?

End of Chapter 17 Exercises. Complete these before moving to Chapter 18 to maximize the spacing effect on your retention of motivation and procrastination concepts.