I want it, and I want it now! The motto of a generation. For the first time in history, in some rich societies, some people are able to enjoy instant gratification. We are all consumers, first and foremost, before we are citizens, and consumers must get what they want. Quickly. Almost everyone, everyday, practices delay of gratification-whether deciding to skip dessert in order to lose weight or give up smoking in order to live longer. The ability to delay gratification is often a sign of emotional and social maturity. Young children, for example, find it more difficult to delay gratification than older children. When kindergartners in one study were offered a choice between getting a small candy bar immediately or a larger one later, 72% chose the smaller candy bar. This number decreased to 67% among first and second graders and 49% for third and fourth graders. By the fifth and sixth grades it had fallen to 38%, nearly half the rate for kindergartners. Left to their own devices, few five-year-olds will pass up something attractive even if they know they will be rewarded later on. When children this age are given the choice between a modest treat (such as a small dish of ice cream) and a more substantial one later (an ice cream sundae), few will hold out for the delayed one unless they are pressured or closely monitored by adults
In the late nineteen-sixties, a four-year-old with long brown hair, was invited into a "game room" at a Nursery School, on the campus of Stanford University. The room was little more than a large closet, containing a desk and a chair. The child was asked to sit down in the chair and pick a treat from a tray of marshmallows, cookies, and pretzel sticks. The child chose the marshmallow. A researcher then made the child an offer: she could either eat one marshmallow right away or, if she was willing to wait while he stepped out for a few minutes, she could have two marshmallows when he returned. He said that if she rang a bell on the desk while he was away he would come running back, and she could eat one marshmallow but would forfeit the second. Then he left the room.
Most of the children struggled to resist the treat and held out for an average of less than three minutes. A few kids ate the marshmallow right away. They didn't even bother ringing the bell. Other kids would stare directly at the marshmallow and then ring the bell thirty seconds later. About thirty per cent of the children, were able to successfully delay gratification until the researcher returned, some fifteen minutes later. These kids wrestled with temptation but found a way to resist. As kids struggle to delay gratification for just a little bit longer, some cover their eyes with their hands or turn around so that they can't see the tray. Others start kicking the desk, or tug on their pigtails, or stroke the marshmallow as if it were a tiny stuffed animal. Some look carefully around the room to make sure that nobody can see them, then they picks up an Oreo, delicately twists it apart, and licks off the white cream filling before returning the cookie to the tray, a satisfied look on their face.
The initial goal of the experiment was to identify the mental processes that allowed some people to delay gratification while others simply surrendered. Once researchers began analyzing the results, they noticed that low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly, seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at home. They got lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had trouble paying attention, and found it difficult to maintain friendships. The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds.
For decades, psychologists have focussed on raw intelligence as the most important variable when it comes to predicting success in life. However, some now argue that intelligence is largely at the mercy of self-control: even the smartest kids still need to do their homework. What they're really measuring with the marshmallows isn't will power or self-control. The marshmallow task forces kids to find a way to make the situation work for them. They want the second marshmallow, but how can they get it? They can't control the world, but they can control how they think about it. Psychologists have spent decades searching for traits that exist independently of circumstance, but what if personality can't be separated from context?
I've always believed there are consistencies in a person that can be looked at. We just have to look in the right way. Most psychologists assume that aggression is a stable trait, but research found that children's responses depended on the details of the interaction. The same child might consistently lash out when teased by a peer, but readily submit to adult punishment. Another might react badly to a warning from a counsellor, but play well with his bunkmates. Aggression was best assessed in terms of "if-then patterns." If a certain child was teased by a peer, then he would be aggressive. This is formally known as interactionism. It is similar to a car making a screeching noise. How does a mechanic solve the problem? He begins by trying to identify the specific conditions that trigger the noise. Is there a screech when the car is accelerating, or when it's shifting gears, or turning at slow speeds? Unless the mechanic can give the screech a context, he'll never find the broken part. Likewise, it can be helpful for all of us to think like mechanics, and look at people's responses under particular conditions. Young kids are pure id. They start off unable to wait for anything-whatever they want they need. But then, they gradually learn how to delay gratification, which makes the ability to learn so many other things possible.
Psychologists assumed that children's ability to wait depended on how badly they wanted the marshmallow. But it soon became obvious that every child craved the extra treat. What, then, determined self-control? The researchers concluded that the crucial skill was the "strategic allocation of attention." Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow, the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from "Sesame Street. Their desire wasn't defeated-it was merely forgotten. If they're thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then their going to eat it. The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.
What's interesting about four-year-olds is that they're just figuring out the rules of thinking. The kids who couldn't delay would often have the rules backwards. They would think that the best way to resist the marshmallow is to stare right at it, to keep a close eye on the goal. But that's a terrible idea. If you do that, you're going to ring the bell before I leave the room. According to the resaerchers, this view of will power also helps explain why the marshmallow task is such a powerfully predictive test. If you can deal with emotions, then you can study. instead of watching television. And as an adult, you can save more money for retirement. It's not just about marshmallows.And if you don't practice then you'll never figure out how to distract yourself. You won't develop the best delay strategies, and those strategies won't become second nature. Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.
Operating on the premise that the ability to delay eating the marshmallow had depended on a child's ability to banish thoughts of it, researchers deseigned a series of tasks that measure the ability of subjects to control the contents of working memory-the relatively limited amount of information we're able to consciously consider at any given moment. This is how self-control "cashes out" in the real world: as an ability to direct the spotlight of attention so that our decisions aren't determined by the wrong thoughts.
What researchers have found is that the brain regions long been associated with self-control, are also related to working memory and focus of attention. According to the scientists, that's not an accident. These are powerful instincts telling us to reach for the marshmallow. The only way to defeat them is to avoid them, and that means paying attention to something else. We call that will power, but it's got nothing to do with the will. The real challenge is turning your will power into habits, and that requires years of diligent practice. This is where our parents are important. Have they established habits that force their children to delay on a daily basis? Do they encourage them to wait? And do they make waiting worthwhile? Even the most mundane routines of childhood-such as not snacking before dinner, or saving up your allowance, or holding out until Christmas morning-are really sly exercises that teach children how to think, so that they can outsmart their desires.
Delaying gratification is the ability to forgo an immediate pleasure or reward in order to gain a more substantial one later. One characteristic of many of today's young people, children and parents, is the need for instant pleasure, and little patience with any need for 'delay of gratification'. This technical sounding term, which actually carries a wealth of meaning, is a description of behavior first demonstrated in experimental studies by developmental psychologists in the 1950s, and then made prominent by the work of US psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1970s. Mischel showed that young children varied in their capacity to wait some time for a reward when they were placed in a challenging situation, which required patience and self-control. Children in his studies were put in a position where they could choose between a small reward available immediately, and a larger one, which could be obtained if they managed to refrain from touching the small reward, during a delay or a waiting period. The waiting situation was set up to be rather boring, with nothing much to do and no one to talk to. There are striking individual differences of self-control that young children show when they're challenged this way.
If you watch children in this situation, when they are unaware of being observed, you will see that some are unable to resist, for more than a few seconds, the temptation to grasp the reward in front of them. Others find ways of resisting the temptation, and will occupy themselves with something else, walk around the room, sing or talk to themselves or play with their fingers, as a way of controlling their impulses. They distract themselves so that they can wait the required time to achieve the larger reward. Others shout angrily to be relieved of this problem. Mischel and many others have shown that the ability to self-regulate, delay gratification and wait for rewards, is a very good predictor of many aspects of psychosocial health and well-being in later life. Poor capacity to regulate oneself, on the other hand, is a predictor of problems attending to or persisting with a task, adapting to changing environments, and considering the perspectives, needs, and feelings of people around them.
Some of us grow up in situations in which instant gratification is the norm. We have all seen children today who are showered with toys, are given any food they like at any time they like, have entertainment on tap, without having to go looking for it. Whatever they want they can have, without actually having to wait for it, to earn it, create it, or to find an alternative if it's not available. For such children, new toys can become a two-minute wonder, played with fleetingly because they are so easy to get. But is soon, quickly cast aside in favor of the next gratification. The children learn to expect that what they want will always be provided and they won't have to wait or make an effort. So, what happens to children who live on this diet of instant gratification? They often are poor learners of social skills, have little appreciation, no gratitude or disregard other people's feelings, and in the longer term, a sense of omnipotence which can lead to difficulties in the face of life's challenges and frustrations.
The lives of families and children in western societies over the last few decades have been increasingly influenced by three major cultural changes. These are affecting the way children are growing up. These influences are firstly, the high value placed on individualism or the culture of self-realization; that is, individual wealth and pleasure rather than collective or community good. The second is a factor which has been called narcissism, or excessive love and pampering of one's self, including intense preoccupation with one's own state of being. The third is the greater disposable income amongst a large proportion of families with young children. Parents of young children today have grown up in this psychological and social climate and they are transferring the values they have absorbed onto the way raise their children. Over the years, the expression of these influences has become more extreme, so that in many families, children are becoming like little emperors: the world is theirs to command. Who hasn't noticed the hapless mother complying with the strident demands of her pre-schooler who must have what he wants from the supermarket shelf instantly.
People who grew up during the Depression were happy to have a job and stuck with one for a lifetime. Yet, many members of generations X and Y were raised in a different light. They expect a buffet of opportunities and are peeved when they don't materialize. This goes beyond social conditioning and technology, though. Entitlement is something that's part of human narcissism. It's an ego thing that transcends generations. When something goes wrong for others, it's their fault. When something goes wrong for you, it's not your fault; it's the fault of external forces. You project blame. This projection often antagonizes a situation. Feeling entitled to something you aren't getting leads to frustration, which leads to emotional eruptions and exaggerated reactions. Nearly 80 percent of Americans say rudeness -- particularly behind the wheel, on cell phones and in customer service -- is a trigger to their emotions. Here is where you need to tame the elephant and use reasoning to counterbalance you impulsive infantile insistence on getting what you want when you want it. If you have reached adulthood without having the skill to delay gratification, you can focus on developing this ability now, to reduce impulse-related problems throughout your life.
Before this age of instant gratification, more of us grew up in conditions where some level of hardship was the norm. Thrift, that rather old-fashioned habit, was an essential part of even middle class life; things you longed for did not appear instantly but often had to be earned. As a result they were much more valued and appreciated. There was a sense of pride in mastery and achievement, in having worked one's way to a goal, in having had the experience of some responsibility and power in achieving it, even in very early childhood.
In this kind of scenario, children experience more challenge, can learn to 'make-do', to improvise, and to wait, or to work for sometimes even lengthy periods, to get a prized object, activity, or entertainment. Such self-regulatory experiences are embedded in the child psyche as a result of early learning, as are those feelings of satisfaction and pride that come with personal responsibility for making things happen. One learned, that it wasn't life-threatening to go without, and that alternative sources of gratification could be found. You also understood that it was not the job of parents or anyone else for that matter, to satisfy one's every need. The learning that results from these kinds of experiences contribute to the growth of resilience. The resilient person has the capacity to withstand setbacks, to rise to a challenge, to find new ways of solving problems, to feel a sense of self-confidence in managing the social and material world, and to know that hardship can be overcome.
Expectations of instant gratification on the one hand, versus the capacity to self-regulate to work for reward, become embedded early in life and are reinforced by the culture in which we live. Strong fibers are developed by our early experience, which make a difference throughout life. Children need to have successful experiences with self-control and a use of effort. Well-being does not come from easy indulgence, but from the sense of being in control of life by personal effort, by being the master of one's fate. Difficulties in life for both children and adults are very much related to problems with impulse control or self-regulation. This is a central component of many psychological disorders. Of course nobody would suggest that we should increase family hardship and oblige all children to earn everything they want or need. There has to be some happy medium which does not associate love and happiness with more and more material goods, and which empowers children to manage the challenges in their lives as they grow to adulthood. Of course they want everything that attracts them when they are young, that's what infancy is about. Maturity is about finding out that you can't always have what you want, that you can deal with that, and still be healthy and happy, and likable.
About this Author
http://sites.google.com/site/aaronkarmin
Aaron Karmin MA, LCPC. Through Roosevelt University he holds an advanced certification in stress management which involves teaching six mind-body techniques which enhances relaxation. Aaron has worked at all levels of mental health care from inpatient to outpatient, private to community, not for profit to Fortune 500 executives. He is a highly effective guest lecturer, group therapy leader, and individual therapist who is able to discuss a variety of topics including: Anger Management, Leadership, Relaxation Techniques, Communication Skills, and Goal Setting Strategies.
Aaron recognizes the need for flexibility and creativity to address the mind and body and uses solution-based instructions to promote a healthy lifestyle. His approach to anger management focuses on increasing frustration tolerance and impulse control by understanding triggers, identifying physical cues, recognizing thoughts, considering consequences, implementing solutions, choosing behaviors, and promoting expression. When individuals feel in control of their situations and their lives, their depression and anxiety are replaced with feelings of security, confidence, competence, identity, responsibility, belonging, and self-respect, which is the prerequisite for success at home and at work.
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