Moderating effect of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder tendency on the relationship between delay discounting and procrastination in young adulthood

Abstract

Among adults with ADHD, one of the most common problems in daily life is procrastination. ADHD is characterized by attention as well as suboptimal decision-making deficits, indicating difficulty in making long-term reward choices. However, little is known about the relationship between suboptimal decision-making or temporal discounting (TD) and procrastination among adults with ADHD. This study aimed to investigate whether ADHD symptoms enhance the relationship between TD and procrastination. Fifty-eight university participants completed questionnaires about procrastination and an experimental task which measured TD rates in reward and punishment conditions. Only the reward condition showed that ADHD symptoms significantly strengthened the association between the TD rate and procrastination. This study revealed that even when ADHD symptoms were high, higher TD rates were associated with more procrastination, while lower TD rates were associated with less procrastination. The results suggest that procrastination interventions for adult ADHD-prone individuals need to pay attention to reward responses.

Keywords

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Discounting
• Procrastination
• Reward processing