1.3 Avoidance

You may avoid situations with maths or choose to only answer questions that require specific maths. Avoidance is not attending to a required task at all, regardless of whether the deadline is looming.

Avoidance behaviour is defined in the American Psychological Association dictionary as any act or series of actions that enables an individual to avoid or anticipate unpleasant or painful situations, stimuli, or events.

Some common reasons for avoidance:

Avoidance behaviour and procrastination both stem from a wish to not put oneself in a situation of stress, but they are different in that procrastination is not complete avoidance and rather is putting something off until the last minute.

Both avoidance and procrastination are recognised ways of dealing with stress (avoidance coping) by simply not putting yourself in that situation. This may provide immediate relief from the stress in the short-term but will increase anxiety in the long term, as it doesn’t address the root of the problem (Tan et al., 2008).

While procrastination and avoidance behaviour are definitionally different, reasons behind them are similar, and similar strategies can be employed to address both of them.