Attentional control predicts procrastination through cognitive reappraisal: Behavioral mediation and connectome-based predictive modeling evidences.

Theories and empirical studies have consistently shown a negative association between attentional control and procrastination. However, the cognitive and neural basis underlying this association remain unclear. To address these questions, we integrated resting-state functional MRI with measures of attentional control, cognitive reappraisal, and procrastination across a discovery dataset (N = 302) and a held-out validation dataset (N = 104). The behavioral results showed that attentional control negatively predicted procrastination, and this association was mediated by cognitive reappraisal. At the neural level, connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) revealed that functional connectivity between the medial frontal, fronto-parietal, limbic, and motor/sensory networks positively predicted attentional control. More importantly, mediation analyses showed that cognitive reappraisal mediated the association between attentional-control-related neural networks and procrastination. These findings provide the first evidence that the association between attentional control and procrastination is related to cognitive and neural processes involving cognitive reappraisal.