Delayed Gratification Theory

Delayed Gratification: Understanding the Effects of Socioeconomic Status
Studying the ability of children to delay gratification has been consistently popular in psychological research. Studies have shown that children with a higher ability to delay gratification go on to have higher self-confidence, better interpersonal skills, higher SAT scores, and are even less at-risk for psychopathy (Kidd, Palmeri, & Aslin, 2012; Sturge-Apple et al., 2016). Various research has attempted to understand why some children are better at delaying gratification that others. Kidd, Palmeri, and Aslin (2012) offered two potential hypotheses for these differences: Deficient capacity and the rational decision-making hypothesis. The researchers found that it was

The first predicted that differences in wait-times were due to deficiencies in self-control, where some children were simply unable to inhibit their need for instant-gratification (Kidd, Palmeri, and Aslin, 2012). However, the second hypothesis offered another explanation, stating that children may be using rational reasoning to make the decision whether to wait or not. This reasoning would then be influenced by their external environment and previous experiences. Kidd, Palmeri, and Aslin (2012) completed a study to show that children’s differences in wait-time could be attributed to rational decision making, ultimately finding evidence to support this conclusion. They found that when children were exposed to unreliable experimenters, they waited significantly less time during the marshmallow delay of gratification task, when compared to those exposed to reliable experimenters. These results show that it is not simply that some children have lower levels of self-control than other children, but that experience and environmental factors can actually affect the reasoning behind the decision to wait or to take the immediate

The researchers conclude that the negative outcomes associated with low wait-times through lack of self-control could in fact be linked to a child’s unreliable environment. However, they never offer any potential interventions to increase stability and reliability in children’s lives, which could help mitigate some of these associated consequences. In addition, they mentioned but did not investigate the effect of socioeconomic status on wait-time, as lower SES could potentially correlate with lower reliability