Alternatively, the psychodynamic approach may offer an explanation for this behaviour. According to Freud, the id, one of the three components of the psyche, operates on the pleasure principle. That is, it seeks immediate gratification for its needs. If revision does not fulfil such needs, it may be necessary to try other things, which could explain why students go out with friends or watch the television as an alternative. In addition, doing school work may be a distressing concept for the ego, another component of the psyche, meaning that defence mechanisms must be used. An example of such a defence mechanism is denial: the student may involuntarily deny that he or she has revision or school work to complete, telling themselves for example that there is still plenty of time, and instead spend time with their friends (which could also be seen as a form of rationalisation). In addition to this, the student may feel guilty for not doing revision, and to avoid punishment from the superego will do things that they would normally not, such as tidying their room or washing up. Having done such things, they may feel that they have achieved at least some positive results, mitigating the fact that they have not done their school work.
(b) A strength of the psychodynamic approach in explaining procrastination is that it is able to explain the reasons why students may preoccupy themselves in unusual activities in order to put off or avoid carrying out a large task. This is particularly advantageous as it explains why the students do things such as washing up, which may under normal circumstances seem unstimulating, when more attractive alternatives may available. A limitation of the approach is, however, that since this explanation relies on the unconscious mind to explain the behaviour, it assumes that students have little or no conscious choice over their procrastination. It is therefore a deterministic explanation. Similarly, it also removes from the student both accountability for their work, and responsibility for not doing it. This may not necessarily be a limitation, however: it may in fact be that the students cannot control this procrastination, meaning that the explanation has the advantage of having implications to teaching and academia.
(c) In order to investigate procrastination in students using the psychodynamic approach, a case study could be carried out on a student who is prone to procrastination. A variety of methods could be used in order to identify the usage of defence mechanisms (such as denial and rationalisation), signs of a dominant id, and abnormal behaviour which might constitute the gratification of the superego. One such method is free association: using an initial prompt such as asking the student to talk about themselves, their desires or even their school work, the student would then be left to speak freely, and what they say would be interpreted by the psychoanalyst. It may also be possible to use hypnosis to identify the causes of the procrastination, as hypnosis allows direct access to the unconscious mind. Dream analysis could also be used in order to find any correlation between what experiences the student has in their dreams, and the characteristics of procrastination and associated behaviours.
(d) This method of investigation may be criticised for only using one person in the case study. This means that the findings are unlikely to be representative of all people. This especially applies, since the psychoanalyst would be studying someone who already procrastinates, as opposed to a randomly selected student. Advantageously, however, the fact that a case study is being used means that lots of qualitative data can be derived from the findings. In addition, a particular problem of psychoanalytic methods is that they are very open to interpretation and may be subject to bias. Since psychoanalysis is based upon unfalsifiable theories, the findings from research using psychoanalytic methods may be open to a multitude of different interpretations, some of which may even be mutually exclusive, and yet none of which can be proved or disproved. Another disadvantage of this particular study is that by carrying out a case study on one person who procrastinates, it is impossible to explain why some students don't procrastinate. Nonetheless, the findings from the research could have implications for teaching and examination methods; for example, in order to avoid procrastination, it may be necessary to offer guidance to students.
