Media releases

  • Brock researchers find early emergence of procrastination in children

    MEDIA RELEASE: 6 March 2023 – R0019

    A new study out of Brock’s Developing Memory and Cognition Lab shows there may be more to those heartfelt requests from toddlers for “five more minutes” before heading to bed than researchers have previously understood.

    Brock student researchers Taissa Fuke (MA ’22), Ege Kamber and Melissa Alunni (BA ’21), alongside Associate Professor Caitlin Mahy in the Department of Psychology, co-authored “The Emergence of Procrastination in Early Childhood: Relations With Executive Control and Future-Oriented Cognition,” which was published in Developmental Psychology last week.

    The paper shows that not only does procrastination behaviour emerge as early as age three, but it also becomes more characteristic over time and appears to be linked with other future-thinking behaviours, such as delaying gratification.

    One of the key distinctions drawn by the researchers is the difference between task avoidance and procrastination, which boils down to two important factors: a personal need to do something and an intention to do it — eventually.

    “Task avoidance for adults may be as simple as staying away from a social event we don’t want to go to,” says Kamber, a Brock PhD student. “But in procrastination, we know we have to do this task, even if it’s undesirable, but we put it off.”

    Mahy says determining intention, especially in children as young as three, can be challenging, so the team was careful to have parents report on tasks children intended on doing or had to do themselves, such as getting out of bed in the morning.

    As a result, they detected an interesting pattern.

    “The three- and four-year-olds procrastinated in different areas than the five- and six-year-olds,” Mahy says. “The younger children were much more likely to procrastinate on tidying up messes and engaging in bedtime or mealtime routines, whereas the older children were more likely to procrastinate on doing homework or doing chores around the house.”

    Kamber, whose PhD research focuses on episodic future thinking, says the connection between procrastination and future-thinking behaviours, such as delaying gratification, has been of particular interest to him.

    Using the example of the marshmallow test, where children are given a marshmallow and assured that if they don’t eat it right away, they can have a second marshmallow in 10 minutes, he explains how delayed gratification and procrastination involve similar forms of impulse control.

    “You know you need to wait because the future outcome is better, but it’s also hard to wait, because it’s a marshmallow,” he says. “Delayed gratification is our ability is to inhibit our current impulses to focus on greater future outcomes, but with procrastination, we have to inhibit our impulse to not do the undesirable task in order to get it completed.”

    The connection between procrastination and future-thinking is important because it involves “having empathy for your future self,” Mahy says.

    “The thing about procrastination is that you get an instant reward of not vacuuming the carpet or not doing homework — you get to enjoy the current moment,” she says. “But the task that you will eventually have to do still hangs over your head and tends to create more anxiety over time — you’re effectively punishing your future self with the task and also the prolonged anxiety.”

    For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

    * Doug Hunt, Communications and Media Relations Specialist, Brock University dhunt2@brocku.ca or 905-941-6209

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    Categories: Media releases

  • Brock experts available to comment on Niagara Region’s states of emergency

    EXPERT ADVISORY: 3 March 2023 – R0018

    Niagara Regional Council recently voted to declare three separate states of emergency for homelessness, mental health and opioid addiction, appealing to the federal and provincial government for help in dealing with these crises.

    Three Brock University researchers are available to comment on issues surrounding this development.

    Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker, a Professor in the Department of Educational Studies and Director of Teacher Education, conducts research with schools and non-profit communities on poverty-related issues, particularly focusing on high-risk populations and the impact of poverty on schools and communities.

    She was among a Brock University team that partnered with Niagara Region to examine the Niagara Prosperity Initiative (NPI) and its impact on neighbourhoods across the region.

    “Based on my research, the connection to homelessness, mental health and addiction as a state of emergency, sorrowfully, is a reality we can no longer ignore,” she says.

    Ciuffetelli Parker says the intersections of poverty, homelessness, health and stigmatization “requires ‘front-burner’ urgent action, given especially the pandemic’s effects on the most vulnerable in our society.”

    She calls for support “through a wider federal-provincial sustained establishment of communal connectedness and inclusion as a human right. It is through transformative powers and policies that marginalized populations may acquire skills, opportunities, well-being and social needs inherent to their success beyond limited participation in community programs and services.”

    Joanne Heritz, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Research Associate in the Niagara Community Observatory, headed up a research partnership with YWCA Niagara Region last year, which concluded in the policy brief “Improving Safe and Affordable Housing for Women in Niagara, Before and After COVID-19.”

    Several key points have emerged from Heritz’s research, including:

    • People who are working full-time making minimum wage or a living wage cannot afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Niagara.
    • People are in situations where they are renting rooms and fearful for their safety because they do not know their roommates.
    • The recent increases in social assistance came “nowhere near” addressing housing and food costs. Indigenous Peoples in Niagara and immigrants disproportionately experience homelessness compared to the general population, she says.
    • Hidden homelessness is more prevalent for women who strive to avoid the dangers of the street for their children and stay in unsafe relationships.

    “In Niagara, there is a desperate need for housing with supports to assist people who are facing trauma caused by homelessness, addictions and mental health challenges,” says Heritz.

    Scott Neufeld is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology whose research focuses on substance use and housing and homelessness. He says that although some feel such declarations are “largely performative,” it’s important to raise awareness of the “drug toxicity crisis” and other issues.

    “Added awareness can’t hurt and any positive movement or acknowledgement from local politicians is a welcome sign,” he says.

    Neufeld recommends several measures that should be taken to address local crises, such as:

    • Expanding the number, type and scope of supervised drug consumption sites.
    • Urging the Ontario government to remove its “arbitrary cap” on the number of Consumption and Treatment Services sites it will allow in Ontario, “which is rooted in stigma and not the actual emergency public health needs of people at risk of toxic drug death.”

    Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker, Brock Professor in the Department of Educational Studies, Joanne Heritz, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, and Scott Neufeld, lecturer in the Department of Psychology, are available for media interviews on the topic.

    For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

    * Doug Hunt, Communications and Media Relations Specialist, Brock University dhunt2@brocku.ca or 905-941-6209 

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    Categories: Media releases