Stimulation of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex enhances willingness for task completion by amplifying task outcome value.

Procrastination, an irrational delay of intended action, has caused harms in many life domains. Although procrastination has a robust link with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the causal role of DLPFC in this behavior remains unclear. A recent temporal decision model (TDM) proposed that people pit task aversiveness against outcome value to decide to procrastinate or not. In short, people would procrastinate if task aversiveness has a stronger effect than outcome value. According to the TDM, the DLPFC might reduce procrastination by inhibiting task aversiveness, or amplifying outcome value, or both. The present study tested those possibilities by investigating whether brain stimulation on DLPFC changes procrastination and its underlying mechanism. One hundred and three participants with high procrastination were randomly assigned to receive either active or sham stimulation over the left (active,