investigators conditional awards When presented, he wondered if they would delay the gratification rather than immediately reap the reward.

In 1970, this experiment with preschoolers wanted to measure children’s level or lack of cognitive ability to delay pleasure. Then come this to attempt Let’s look at the details together.

In the first phase, the experiment was started with a group of participants consisting of 56 children. To get the children used to the experiment, the researchers first played some games with them.

The researchers divided the children into five groups from A to E and took them all to separate rooms. Children in groups A, B and C. a marshmallow given.

What happened next was interesting. The children were told that the experts would leave the rooms for a while and then return. It was said that if they waited for them, they would get another marshmallow in front of them. But psychologists can teach children if they want to. that they can eat the candy right away also expressed. Those who ate immediately, however, were not entitled to a second nap.

The waiting time was 15 minutes. So what happened after this time passed?

Children in groups A, B and C, who show sufficient patience, two marshmallows could eat. Children who did not wait and gave up did not get a second nap as mentioned at the beginning. Children in groups D and E were not presented with anything. After the 15-minute period, all children were allowed to play with the toys. While the children were playing with the toys, they were asked to come up with fun things. These can be things like singing and thinking about different types of games.

After observing for a while, experts some children deemed it appropriate to exclude it from the experiment. Because some did not understand the directions of the experts, that is, they did not follow the instructions. It was therefore decided that it was appropriate to continue the study with 50 children.

Then the very surprising second part of the experiment began.

It was said that experts will leave the room, as in the beginning, for 50 children. Then the children were told whether they rang the bell or not. 15 minutes After waiting, they were told they could play with the toys. It must of course be very difficult for them to put small children in a room full of toys and say “you can play with them after such a long time”. On the other hand, the results showed that the children who were in groups A, B and C and waited 15 minutes for two candies were more patient than the other groups.

In another phase of the experiment, the children were divided into three groups and again presented with marshmallows. However, during this waiting period, each group was asked to think differently.

Group A had to think about nice things, group B about sad things and group C had to think quickly about sweet food. The logic was still the same. If they waited 15 minutes without calling the experts they would get more rewards, if they didn’t wait they couldn’t earn anything extra. As result in group A It turned out that the children waited longer than the other groups.

Mischel and his team strive to leave children’s instant fun for later; He suggested that they can learn by ignoring the source of pleasure or by thinking about positive things, regardless of the subject. According to experts, this kind of delay already delays the feeling of immediate gratification. to cognitive activities was attached. In other words, it was necessary to adopt the philosophy of “either you avoid the object of desire or suppress the desire for it”.

In other experiments on this subject, children who internalize the idea of ​​longer-term gain without feeling a moment of pleasure were shown to be patient. they succeeded detected.

Another study led by psychologist Tyler Watts examined a group of 900 children.

Each of these children had a different ethnic origin, socioeconomic status and parental structure. In this study, children social economical status, The relationship with delaying gratification behavior was examined.

The results were quite striking. You ask why? Because experts said that positive results can’t always be achieved with delayed gratification behavior. So we can say that this was the opposite of what Mischel et al. Watts’ team said they could wait to receive a second marshmallow prize. social and economic defined it as a situation determined by its infrastructure.

Simply put, we can say that the importance of the family factor in children’s behavior cannot be ignored. For example, the study found that children who were struggling financially were more impatient for a second nap. According to experts, this was due to the fact that the life of poor children was more precarious than that of rich children. That is, someone who is not in good shape, “If I find food today I will eat it, if I can’t find food tomorrow I will starve” He was thought to act in logic.

In short, waiting is a risk for people with a low socio-economic level. You ask why? Because the parents of these kids may never get them candy. In other words, academics indicated that it is not the right attitude to say that these children have few self-control skills. The children of well-educated and wealthy families easier to delay gratification seen. However, the researchers attributed this easy situation to these economic and status reasons.

Because that marshmallow wasn’t the food these kids needed, their parents had the option to buy them other snacks. In other similar studies, children of poor parents parents who are according to their children It turned out that they had more appetite for this kind of snack.

Ultimately, the different perspectives of the two studies show that: According to the first study, children who delay immediate gratification in order to receive a reward may be considered more successful in adulthood than those who cannot wait for the reward. Or we can say that for children who can wait for a second nap, their self-control skills are higher and they manage not to be influenced by external factors. Which is essentially in this experiment, for more fun. short term fun We could also say that the message that the postponement will be positive wants to be given.

However, when we look at the second study, we can see that the conclusions of the previous study are unsatisfactory. Because when comparing children we should not judge children based on their child identity alone, this id We can understand it very well if we look at the social factors such as the family that builds it, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and education level.

That is, delayed or not delayed in childhood. that pleasure will always benefit the person in the future. Unfortunately, making a generalization in this direction is not valid for every individual. In fact, through such experiments, we see how important it is to think that different dynamics can also play a role in generalizing about a topic.

• Sources: Just psychology, the Atlantic Ocean
• Image Sources: thumb. Magazine, Behavioral Scientist, Medium, Uplifers