Defensive pessimism influences approaches to learning psychological well-being and academic performance through academic procrastination

This study investigated the indirect effects of defensive pessimism on university students’ approaches to learning, psychological well-being, and academic performance, focusing on academic procrastination as a mediating variable. Participants were 628 undergraduate students (78% female) from the School of Philosophy, University of Ioannina, who completed validated self-report measures: a theory-based composite of the Defense Style Questionnaire–88 (DSQ-88) to assess defensive pessimism, the Procrastination Assessment Scale Students (PASS), the Flourishing Scale (FS), and the HowULearn questionnaire for approaches to learning. Grade point average (GPA) was self-reported. Mediation analyses (PROCESS Model 4, 5,000 bootstrap resamples) revealed a consistent pattern across outcomes: defensive pessimism did not predict deep, organized, or surface learning, psychological well-being, or GPA directly, but exerted significant indirect effects via procrastination. Specifically, defensive pessimism was associated with higher procrastination, which in turn predicted lower deep and organized learning, higher surface learning, reduced psychological well-being, and lower GPA. These findings support the definition of procrastination as an avoidance-based emotion regulation/defensive mechanism connecting pessimistic threat appraisals to maladaptive academic and psychological impacts. Although perceived academic pressure was not directly measured, the results may reflect internalized stress responses or evaluative threat appraisals that drive avoidance behaviors. The findings suggest that it may be more effective to focus on improving coping strategies than on attempting to remove pessimistic thoughts altogether. Interventions that preserve the preparatory benefits of defensive pessimism while reducing its link to avoidance may enhance both academic performance and psychological well-being in higher education.