Behavior: The Proof of Parkinson

In 1955, British Historian C. Northcote Parkinson puckishly formulated the basic law of bureaucracy that bears his name: work expands to fit the time at hand for doing it. Parkinson himself regarded his "law" as satire; inevitably, several American psychologists have decided to take it seriously. What is more, they have not only proved, at least to their own satisfaction, that the theory is true, but have extended it.

One of those investigators is Social Psychologist Elliot Aronson of the University of Texas, who became interested in the law after suffering through a Parkinsonian procrastination of his own making: he took three desultory summer weeks to prepare a lecture that could have been written in three hours. Deciding to test the work-delaying proclivities of others, he divided a number of volunteer students into two groups. Those in one section were allowed five minutes to prepare a talk on the subject of smoking; the others were given 15 minutes for the job. Aronson then gave each group a new but similar chore, allowing them to take as much time as they wanted. The five-minute students managed to finish the job in accordance with their original deadline; the others, having initially decided that the job required more time, took an average of eight minutes to complete the assignment.

Aronson and some bemused colleagues report in the current Journal of Applied Psychology that they have now tested Parkinson's principle under laboratory conditions, with the same discouraging results. "Not only does a piece of work expand to fill the time available," Aronson notes, "but once it has expanded it continues to require more time." He hopes that his explorations of human work habits may explain why and how people fall prey to procrastination. Meantime, he has started giving himself firm three-hour deadlines to prepare his lectures.