Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification
Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E.B., & Zeiss, A.R. (1972). Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 21(2), 204-218.
Arhe Vaninetti
Research Methods, PSY301, Pacific University, Oregon
April 18, 2023
In Mischel et al.’s (1972) collection of studies on self-control and regulation in children, they aimed to illustrate how delayed gratification can be learned from reframing a situation. While the study was often interpreted as an example of how personality and tendencies are innate, the full study aimed to exhibit how they could alter a child’s desire for a marshmallow.
Colloquially referred to as the ‘marshmallow test,’ this was actually a collection of three experiments that were done between 1970 and 1972. In the first experiment, Mischel et al. compared the effects of external (a toy) and internal (being told to ‘think fun’) distraction from an acceptable reward on how long 50 convenience sampled preschool children would wait for a better reward. In experiment I, they found that children who were not presented with a physical reward (but were promised one) waited longer than children who were presented with just the acceptable reward, or both the acceptable and better reward. Experiment I indicated that attending to any physical reward did not increase the waiting time when compared to the children who had no physical reward in front of them. Mischel et al. suggested that the children used the suppression of desire instead of enhanced attention and focus.
In experiment II, a similar design was used, but the researchers used only the internal distractions of being told to ‘think fun,’ ‘think sad,’ ‘think rewards,’ and no instruction. In this experiment, the 32 convenience sampled children were presented with a situational choice to delay gratification, and the children instructed to ‘think fun’ were able to resist the temptation for over twice as long as the other groups. Mischel et al. found that the internal distraction instruction of ‘think fun’ allowed the children to exhibit self-control times of up to 13 or more minutes.
In the final experiment, Mischel et al. created the internal distractions of ‘think fun,’ ‘think reward,’ and no instruction, but in this experiment, they placed the reward under the table in a tin instead of having it out in front of the child. When the children did not have the reward in sight, they were still not able to delay gratification when thinking about the reward. Both the ‘think fun’ and no instruction groups were able to delay gratification for over 13 minutes, implying that the absence of attending to the reward assists in delayed gratification.
Overall, throughout all three experiments, Mischel et al. (1972) found that the ‘think fun’ + visible reward group, the no instruction + hidden reward group, and the ‘think fun’ + hidden reward group all exhibited the highest times for delayed gratification ( > 13 minutes), when compared to the other groups ( < 4 minutes). This expanded the idea that children primarily used suppression and avoidance techniques, and that these techniques failed when instructed to think about the reward. In essence, these studies demonstrated that it is possible to alter the length of time that a child will delay gratification within certain limits, suggesting that self-control is a learnable feature that can be strengthened.
These studies could be strengthened with the addition of other experimental instructions, like having children count to a certain number, to create a distracting task that is not particularly fun. Furthermore, the influence of social expectations may hinder or enhance waiting time for the children, as some children may be afraid to disobey the researcher, making this a potential confound. Lastly, the demographics of the children were not included in the study, but it would likely benefit from some diversification of ethnicity and/or culture, which would allow further analysis for significance.