One cookie or Two: Part 3

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Today I will wrap up this mini-series on delay of gratification. What have you learned from parts 1 and 2? Delay of gratification is the ability to forgo an immediate, but less desirable reward, in order to receive a more desirable reward later. This ability is measured in childhood using the classic paradigm developed by Walter Mischel: Kids try to wait for two treats instead of having one immediately. Finally, you learned that performance during the delay task in childhood relates to important developmental outcomes in later life, such as social competence, well-being, drug use, and SAT scores.

I’d like to conclude with some evidence on what helps or hurts a child’s chances of successfully waiting during the task. Remember, how long kids wait in childhood predicts important future functioning. If we want to help kids develop or cultivate delay of gratification ability in early life we can’t just say “wait for two cookies!” We need to give them tangible strategies to work with.

To identify which strategies help, researchers conducted experiments in which they modified tiny parts of the delay task and measured how these modifications impacted the amount of time children could wait. For a great review of these studies check out Mischel, Shoda, and Rodriguez (1989). Read More->