delay of gratification

delay of gratification, the act of resisting an impulse to take an immediately available reward in the hope of obtaining a more-valued reward in the future. The ability to delay gratification is essential to self-regulation, or self-control.

Mischel’s experiment

To study the conditions that promote delay of gratification, the American psychologist Walter Mischel and his colleagues designed an experimental situation (“the marshmallow test”) in which a child is asked to choose between a larger treat, such as two cookies or marshmallows, and a smaller treat, such as one cookie or marshmallow. After stating a preference for the larger treat, the child learns that to obtain that treat, it is necessary to wait for the experimenter to return. The child is also told that if he or she signals the experimenter, the experimenter will return and the child will receive the smaller treat. Thus, the smaller treat is available now, but the larger treat requires waiting. To get the larger treat, the child must resist the temptation to get an immediate treat.

That experimental situation has proven very useful both in demonstrating the importance of the ability to delay gratification and in identifying strategies that make it possible for children to delay gratification. Children who were best able to wait in that situation when they were four years old are more socially and academically successful as high-school students and earn higher Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores. The situation, adapted for adolescents and teens by the psychologist Edelgard Wulfert and her colleagues, also revealed that middle- and high-school students who can wait a week for a monetary reward earn higher grades, show less problem behaviour in school, and are less likely to use cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs than their peers who choose not to wait.

The hot-and-cool model

By varying the situation, researchers learned what enables children to wait effectively. Waiting is made more difficult when children attend to the “hot,” or emotional, aspects of the reward, and it is made easier when they attend to the “cool,” or intellectual, aspects of the situation. For example, children who are told to think of marshmallow rewards as little fluffy clouds are better able to wait than those who are told to think of the sweetness and chewy texture of the marshmallows.

Good waiters have learned ways to distract themselves from the hot rewards of tasty fresh food and instead activate their cool systems. A child with a good ability to delay might sing a happy tune and look around the room while waiting. A child with a poor ability to delay might instead focus on the cookie and its sweet taste. Children improve in their cooling strategies over time, such that almost all adolescents can easily endure the 10-minute wait that is very challenging for a preschooler.

Unfortunately, the cool system is most difficult to access when it is needed most. Stress impairs the ability to delay gratification. The first semester in college, for example, when it would be quite advantageous to control urges to drink and eat excessively, is a time when such urges are frequently indulged. In addition, chronic stress during childhood impairs the development of the ability to delay gratification.

Delay as a motivational tendency

Rather than conceptualizing delay of gratification as a distinct ability, the American psychologists Jack Block and David Funder and their colleagues identified it as an expression of ego control—a person’s more-general tendency to inhibit impulses. On the low end of that continuum are the undercontrolled individuals who spontaneously act on their wants, without concern about the future. On the high end are the overcontrolled individuals who restrain themselves even when it is not necessary to do so. Both undercontrol and overcontrol are maladaptive. Undercontrolled individuals are unable to work toward long-term goals, such as pursuing a challenging career path. Overcontrolled individuals miss opportunities to experience pleasure and express feelings.

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To measure the tendency to delay, those researchers developed an experimental situation in which children are shown an attractively wrapped present and told that it is for them but that it will be set aside while they work on a puzzle. Delay of gratification is measured by the degree to which the children resist attending to and opening the gift. Because it is clear to the children that they will receive the gift regardless of their behaviour, delaying behaviour in that situation is not necessarily adaptive.

Gender differences

Interestingly, delaying gratification in those experimental situations has more positive implications for girls than for boys. Girls who delay are described by adults who know them well as “having high intellectual capacity” and being “competent” and “resourceful,” whereas those who do not delay gratification are described as being “emotionally labile” and “sulky or whiny.” Boys who delay gratification, on the other hand, are described as “shy and reserved,” “obedient,” and “anxious,” whereas boys who do not are described as “vital,” “energetic,” “lively,” and “self-assertive.” Such differences may reflect the value that American culture places on self-control for girls, while revealing a cultural acceptance of a certain degree of impulsivity among boys. In that way the culture may encourage boys to develop behaviour patterns that can cause them problems later in life.

Clearly then, waiting is not always rewarded, and it can be difficult, especially for boys, to learn when waiting is desirable and appropriate and when it is not. Hence, in real life, delay of gratification is a function of both ego control and what researchers call “ego resiliency,” the capacity to be flexible and skillful in making social decisions. Such decisions can be more complicated than they appear at first.