Assessors and Locomotors: Are You Judging or Moving?
Assessment predicts more procrastination (r = .26), locomotion less (r = -.53), yet locomotion raised GPA only in students who also scored high on assessment.
In this article6 sections
In a 2011 package of six studies, Pierro, Giacomantonio, Pica, Kruglanski and Higgins found that people who score high on assessment procrastinate more, and people who score high on locomotion procrastinate less (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(6)). In a later sample of 196 Hong Kong undergraduates, the correlations with general procrastination were r = -.53 for locomotion and r = .26 for assessment (Choy and colleagues, 2018, PLoS ONE). If you are stuck, the first question is whether you are judging or moving.
What assessment and locomotion mean
Kruglanski, Thompson, Higgins, Atash, Pierro, Shah and Spiegel (2000, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5)) split self-regulation into two jobs. Assessment compares goals and means and appraises performance. Locomotion is movement from state to state: starting, and staying in motion. The paper opens with a parking lot. One spouse takes the first space, the other keeps circling for a perfect one.
The two are nearly independent (r = .11, N = 4,256). You can be a fast critic, a slow dreamer, both or neither.
Where judging pays
The case against “just do it” is in the same paper. In 655 Maryland undergraduates, locomotion predicted GPA only among students above the median on assessment (beta = .23); below it, beta was .04. Among 490 applicants to an elite army unit, about 60% of whom withdrew or were removed, locomotion predicted finishing only for above-median assessors. The authors’ summary: go-getters who never evaluate are not high performers.
In a proofreading task (99 students), higher assessment scores predicted catching more of the 63 planted differences, while locomotion predicted finishing sooner. Assessors found more mistakes. Locomotors were quicker.
Locomotors also chose differently. In a 63-student study they picked goals that seemed likelier to succeed, while assessors picked goals they valued more.
Where judging costs
Assessment correlated .28 with depression scores and -.26 with self-esteem; locomotion correlated -.18 and .30. Assessment also tracked self-consciousness and fear of invalidity. Judging can keep you from starting, as the procrastination work shows.
What this does not show
All of this is correlational and self-reported, with mostly student samples. The GPA interaction was modest (p < .05). The 2018 authors note that their data cannot establish direction of cause. And “assessor” is a tendency, not a type.
A five-minute self-check
This is my own checklist, not the questionnaire, which I have not reproduced. Take the last two things you tried to start, and answer in writing.
- Options: How many alternatives did you compare, and did the comparing change the plan?
- Wait: Did you hold off until conditions felt right?
- Critique: Did you review work-in-progress more than you produced?
- Momentum: When you picked, how long until your hands were on it?
- Finish: Did you check the result once, or keep polishing?
Mostly 1-3 and slow 4 means judging is running the show. Fast 4 and a skipped 5 means moving without checking.
Using both
Give each mode a slot. Do the comparing once, with a deadline, then move. Review at the end, not mid-draft. This is also why a night-before choice, as in waking up as a decision made earlier, works: the assessment is finished before the morning requires locomotion. DontSnooze, the alarm app this blog belongs to, fits that pattern, but the research above does not test any app.
For the stage after judging, the Rubicon model lays out when to stop deliberating and begin.