Action orientation is associated with a metastatic or change-inducing mode of control in our lives that facilitates the enactment of an intended action. In contrast, state orientation represents a catastatic or change-preventing mode of control in which the initiation and maintenance of our intentions is impaired and intention enactment is hindered.

This dual system approach is common in psychology. The most familiar way this is represented in personality psychology is "approach and avoidance" orientations, often associated with sensitivity to reward or punishment, respectively. In any case, Kuhl has identified the "gas and brakes" of our motivation system as action and state orientation.

At Carleton University, Allan Blunt took this a step further. He wondered if we might use these concepts of action and state orientation to describe an individual's projects. Would the projects in a state-oriented person's life be systematically different from someone who would be described as action oriented?

To answer this question, Allan collected data from a sample of 141 undergraduate students. He measured their state and action orientation using the scale noted above. He also got them to complete something called Personal Projects Analysis (You can do this online to explore this further). Personal projects can be thought of as the things that we are working on and caring about in our lives. Examples of projects in research include, "finding a better job", "study for my math exam", "lose 10 pounds", "plan my vacation" and "be a better person." As part of Personal Projects Analysis, research participants appraise each of their projects on a set of dimensions chosen for their psychological relevance such as: importance, self-identity, control, difficulty, outcome, stress, challenge, enjoyment, etc. For example, on a scale from 0 to 10 (where 0 means none of this feature and 10 means a great deal) how enjoyable is this project?

With these data, Allan then selected the 25% highest and lowest scoring individuals on action and state orientation (extreme groups), and then he examined the ratings on their personal projects. He found that state-oriented, as compared to action oriented, individuals scored significantly HIGHER on the project dimensions of:

Boredom, frustration, guilt, uncertainty and (wait for it) . . . procrastination

As well, state-oriented individuals were found to score significantly LOWER on the dimensions of:

Absorption, control, outcome, progress and self-identity.

To flesh this out in a different way, those of us who are state-oriented (procrastination prone) have projects that we're not making much progress on, we don't think we're going to succeed at, we're not feeling in control of, and not only do they not feel typical of us, we don't get deeply absorbed into them when we do engage in them. At the same time, we would describe our projects to others as boring and frustrating. We would say we don't know what to do next on them, and we feel guilty just thinking about them!

This is the project system of a state-oriented individual, and not surprisingly it is associated with higher levels of procrastination.

What does all this mean? In short it comes down to something I'll write much more about in blogs to come - a meaning/manageability trade-off in our lives. Our projects have to be meaningful so that we'll pursue them and manageable so that we will complete them successfully. In the case of state-orientation, both meaning and manageability are compromised.

Allan explained much of this based on Kuhl's theory of action control, particularly as the results relate to the low self-identity found in the state-oriented individuals' project systems. He argues that the significantly lower appraisals on project self-identity reflect Kuhl's notion of falsely internalized goals. False self-attribution of projects can occur when an individual identifies a goal as self-generated when in reality it is incompatible with his or her self-identity. The thing is self-identity is tied closely to our perceptions of meaning and manageability.

Projects that are not tied to our self-identity are low in meaning to us, "they just aren't us." The low ratings of project absorption also reflect this. The projects of the state-oriented individuals aren't goals in which these people are deeply absorbed. They don't get into a "flow state" as Mihály Csíkszentmihályi might say.

Finally, not only do these projects lack meaning because they aren't related to our self-identity, they also lack structure. Again, according to Kuhl's theory, falsely attributed goals are typically associated with poorly defined conditions for carrying out goal-related activities. We see this in Allan's data as the projects lack structure as indicated by the low ratings on control, outcome and progress, and high ratings on uncertainty.

In the end, I really think state orientation reflects the profound issue of self in our consideration of procrastination. Our actions, our goals, our personal projects need to align with our sense of identity and purpose in life or we're more likely to disengage. I'll have much more to say about this in entries to come.

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Blogger's note: As regular readers will know, I have made a great deal about an existential approach to understanding procrastination. Interestingly, state and action orientation, as well as Kuhl's overall theory of action control have been incorporated by a new group of existentially oriented psychologists engaged in something called Experimental Existential Psychology (or XXP). Once again, we see good reason to explore procrastination as what Salvatore Maddi might describe as an "existential sickness." In addition, as Allan demonstrated in his study, our sense of self is tied to our procrastination. I'll come back with some comments on this new XXP group sometime soon.

Reference

Blunt, A., & Pychyl, T. A. (2005). Project systems of procrastinators: a personal project-analytic and action control perspective. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1771-1780.

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Tags: action control, action orientation, brakes, carleton university, consequence, dual system, enactment, existential psychology, individual differences, initiation, julius kuhl, metastatic, motivation system, orientations, personality psychology, score, system approach, theory of action, undergraduate students