| Delay of Gratification |
| 1. |
The ability to delay
immediate gratification has long occupied a central role
in theorizing about child development (e.g., Freud, 1959;
Rapaport, 1950; Singer, 1955). For example, Freud
conceptualized development of the personality structure
through redirecting energy from the id to the ego and
superego. When socialization agents prevent an infant
from engaging in socially inappropriate behaviors (e.g.,
smearing food all over ones mother's clothes), immediate
gratification is deferred. According to Freud, the energy
not released from this frustrating experience becomes
invested in a new personality structure, the ego.
Socialization, then, is the delay of gratification that
leads to the acceptance of social expectations and
sanctions (don't mess other people's clothes). In this
way the ego processes are adaptive processes--adaptive to
the constraints of culture. While the id operates on the
pleasure principle, the ego operates on the reality
principle. In this theoretical framework, the ability to
delay gratification appropriately is considered a central
sign of maturity. However, excessive delay of
gratification is considered maladaptive. In Freud's terms
such an individual was stuck at the anal stage of
development and such a person has been known as an anal
personality. |
| 2. |
Before the 1960s there was a
paucity of research. Some research was done using
indirect research methods such as the Rorshach. Levine,
Singer, and others used frequency of human movement in
Rorshach responses to infer "delaying
capacity." |
| 3. |
Walter Mischel began his
research program in 1958. The problem of delay of
gratification was conceptualized as a preference for
larger delayed rewards over smaller immediate rewards.
This research reported positive correlations with
intelligence and father presence in the home (as opposed
to father absence). |
| 4. |
In 1961 Mischel published
"Delay of gratification, need for achievement, and
acquiescence in another culture" in the Journal
of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62, 543-552. The
study was conducted in Trinidad with 112 African children
ages 11-14. Three preferences measures (a behavioral
choice and two questionnaire items) were used to elicit
preferences for immediate reward or delayed reward.
Previous research with comparable Trinidadian samples
showed that these three measures are significantly
interrelated and the combination of them provide a more
useful measure of immediate and delayed preferences than
a single measure. |
| |
a. |
The behavioral measure consisted of a
small candy bar (costing approximately 10 cents)
available immediately or a much larger candy bar (costing
approximately 25 cents) for which the subject must wait
one week. The reward choice was administered as the last
item in the total procedure and was structured as a way
of "thanking" the subjects for their
cooperation. The two verbal items, one inserted near the
beginning, the other near the middle of the procedure |
| |
b. |
One verbal item was inserted near the
beginning of the procedure. "I would rather get ten
dollars right now than have to wait a whole month and get
thirty dollars then." |
| |
c. |
The other verbal item was inserted near
the middle of the procedure. "I would rather wait to
get a much larger gift much later than get a smaller one
now. |
| 5. |
Subjects were divided for
purposes of data analysis into "Consistent Immediate
Reward" preferences over the three measures,
"Consistent Delay of Reward" over the three
measures, and "Inconsistent Reward" (one
immediate reward and two delayed rewards, or the
reverse). |
| 6. |
The purpose of this research
was to extend our knowledge of preference for delayed
gratification by relating delayed choices to motives that
are logically relevant and whose measurements and
empirical correlates appear relatively firm. One such
correlate chosen for this research was need for
achievement (e.g., Atkinson, 1958). It is consistent with
past theorizing and research on need for achievement that
high need for achievement should be related to a
preference for a delayed reward as opposed to an
immediate reward. The essence of the definition of need
for achievement is "competition with a standard of
excellence" (McClelland et. al., 1953). Implied in
such striving is the ability to delay and postpone the
relatively trivial but immediately available for the sake
of later but more important outcomes. Achievement
fantasies may be thought of in part as reflecting as well
as sustaining and mediating individual's striving for
future rewards and attainments of excellence. It has been
argued that one of the crucial conditions that
facilitates the development of the ability to delay
gratification is the acquired reward value of working
itself. Learning to delay starts when behaviors based
only on the pleasure principle are either frustrated or
punished. Then fantasy becomes an acquired primary
process substitute and work a secondary process detour,
both of which are rewarded by eventual (larger)
gratifications, thus ultimately becoming rewarding
activities in their own right. Liking to work for its own
sake is generally assumed to be a basic ingredient of the
high need for achievement pattern. Presumably, persons
high in need for achievement have learned to like to
work, and they have learned this in part as a response to
demands to forego immediate gratification in favor of
more long-term goals. |
| 7. |
Two measures of need for
achievement were used. |
| |
a. |
The first was the standard
group-administered procedure developed by McClelland and
his associates (1953) using five TAT type cards. The five
TAT-type pictures used were two men
("inventors") in a show working at a machine; a
boy in a checked shirt at a desk, an open book in front
of him; a man at his desk in a dark office; a man looking
at photos; a family at dinner. There were administered in
printed booklets with the standard four questions printed
for each picture on a separate page. |
| |
b. |
The second measure was an innovation, in
the form of an open-ended aspiration question. It was
introduced in the context of "let's pretend there is
a magic man": "Now let's pretend that the magic
man who came along could change you into anything that
you wanted to be, what would you want to be?"
Subjects were instructed to answer in one word. |
| 8. |
An additional measure was
included in the study. It was a measure--suitable for
research in another culture--of simple acquiescence or
"agreeing tendency." Research in the United
States has revealed a response set to agree--yeasayers
versus naysayers. Yeasayers have been shown to have weak
ego controls and who accept impulses without reservation.
The naysayer inhibits and suppresses his/her responses.
Yeasayers "can freely indulge in impulse
gratification" whereas "the egos of naysayers
take over the controlling functions of the parents, and
the suppression of impulses subsequently self maintained
and self-rewarded" (Couch & Keniston, 1960, p.
173). A cluster of scales including impulsivity and
dependency characterize yeasaying. The naysaying end of
the scale was defined by ego strength, responsibility,
and trust. Furthermore, in interviews yeasayers (in
contrast to naysayers) described themselves as ". .
. unreflective, quick to act, easily influenced, and
unable to tolerate delays in gratification" (p.
170). |
| |
a. |
A simple measure of acquiescence or
conformity, suitable for large scale research in other
cultures--simple to answer, simple and rapid in
administration, and meaningful in other cultural
contexts--was sought. The measure adopted consisted of
the following instruction, administered orally by the
experimenter: "I have something in mind. I am
closing my eyes and concentrating and thinking of it. . .
it is something that you might agree with or that you
might disagree with . . . you might disagree with what
I'm thinking of or you might agree with it . . . if you
agree put down a Y for Yes; if you disagree put down a N
for No. (This is repeated twice, reversing the position
of Y and N in the sequence of instructions.) Now I'm
concentrating on it (closing eyes); go ahead. |
| 9. |
Data were also collected on
social responsibility, as measured by an independently
validated scale (Harris, 1957), substantially correlated
with other measures of adjustment and maturity. Social
responsibility was determined by response to a quite
carefully constructed and independently validated Social
Responsibility Scale. The Social Responsibility Scale has
been found to correlate substantially with other measures
of personal and social adjustment and was designed to
"discriminate children who have, with their peers, a
reputation for responsibility as contrasted with children
who have little reputation for responsibility" (p.
326). All items from the 50-item Social Responsibility
Scale, with the exception of Item 50, were administered
in a modified form. |