Beyond Anxiety: The Role of Writing Enjoyment in Predicting L2 Writing Procrastination

Procrastination poses a significant barrier to L2 writing development. Though L2 writing anxiety is a well-established predictor, the potential protective role of positive affective factors remains comparatively underexplored. To our knowledge, no prior research has directly compared the relative predictive power of positive and negative affective-motivational constructs on L2 writing procrastination within a single model. This study investigated unique and joint contributions of L2 writing enjoyment, L2 writing anxiety, and willingness to write (WTW) in predicting L2 writing procrastination among EFL learners. It tested the proposition that fostering positive affect and motivation may complement anxiety reduction in accounting for procrastination. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 160 Iranian undergraduate EFL students. Validated scales measured procrastination, writing enjoyment (English Writing Enjoyment Scale), and writing anxiety (Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory). A newly developed scale assessed WTW, and its findings should be interpreted as preliminary pending further validation. A theoretically driven hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed. L2 writing enjoyment was the strongest negative predictor, uniquely explaining 21% of the variance in procrastination (Δ R ²  = 0.21, p  < .001; f ²  = 0.27). WTW contributed a further 8% of unique variance (Δ R ²  = 0.08, p  < .001; f ²  = 0.09), although its distinctiveness from enjoyment requires further empirical confirmation. In contrast, after accounting for enjoyment and WTW, L2 writing anxiety accounted for a smaller portion of unique variance (Δ R ²  = 0.02, p  < .05; f ²  = 0.02). The full model explained 35% of the total variance. The findings suggest positive affect is a stronger statistical predictor of procrastination than negative affect in this context, though causal inferences cannot be drawn from this cross-sectional design. Pedagogically, the results indicate that effectively reducing procrastination may depend not only on mitigating anxiety but also on systematically cultivating writing enjoyment and motivational readiness, pointing toward a more balanced, strength-sensitive approach to L2 writing instruction.