Gustavson et al. (2014): Genetics of Procrastination
Gustavson and colleagues compared identical and fraternal twins and estimated that procrastination is moderately heritable, with genetic influences accounting for roughly half of the variation between people. More strikingly, the genetic influences on procrastination overlapped almost completely with those on impulsivity, and both were linked to weaker goal-management ability. The authors read this as support for procrastination being an evolutionary by-product of impulsivity rather than a separate trait.
| Citation | Gustavson, D. E., Miyake, A., Hewitt, J. K., & Friedman, N. P. (2014). Genetic relations among procrastination, impulsivity, and goal-management ability: Implications for the evolutionary origin of procrastination. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1178–1188. |
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| Study type | Behavioural genetic twin study (monozygotic vs dizygotic comparison) |
| Key finding | Procrastination heritability estimated at 46%; genetic correlation with impulsivity approximately 1.0 |
| Sample | 663 same-sex twins from the Colorado Longitudinal Twin Study |
What the study found
Identical twins were more alike in their procrastination scores than fraternal twins, which is the signature of genetic influence, and model fitting put heritability at 46%, with the rest of the variation attributed to non-shared environment. The central result is the overlap: the genetic factors behind procrastination were statistically the same ones behind impulsivity, and shared variance in both was tied to everyday failures of goal management, like forgetting or abandoning intentions.
Why it matters
This study connects procrastination to Steel's meta-analytic finding that impulsiveness is its strongest trait predictor: the link appears to run through shared genes, not just co-occurring habits. It also settles the wrong lesson people take from heritability. Height is highly heritable, and nutrition still changes it. Around half the variance in this data was environmental, and every practical technique operates on that half, plus on the task structure genes never touch.
Caveats
Heritability estimates describe variation within one population at one time, in this case American twins in their early twenties, so the figure is not a universal constant and says nothing about any individual. Procrastination was measured by self-report questionnaire, and the near-perfect genetic correlation carries wide confidence intervals in a sample of this size. A follow-up by the same group in 2015 replicated the general pattern.
Peer-reviewed twin study in Psychological Science, with a 2015 extension in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General by the same group.
Related
Steel (2007) meta-analysisSelf-regulation
Frequently asked questions
Is procrastination genetic?
Partly: this twin study estimated about 46% of the variation between people is genetic, largely shared with impulsivity. That leaves roughly half to environment and situation, and heritable does not mean fixed, the levers techniques pull, task structure, deadlines, friction, are environmental.
If procrastination is heritable, can I still change it?
Yes. Heritability describes population variation, not personal destiny, and it does not cap what interventions can do. Treatment studies such as Rozental et al. (2018) show procrastination scores respond to structured interventions regardless of anyone's genetic starting point.