A person's ability to delay gratification relates to other similar skills such as patience, impulse control, self-control and willpower, all of which are involved in self-regulation.
Cognitive strategies, such as the use of distracting or "cool" thoughts, can increase delay ability,[5] as can neurological factors, such as strength of connections in the frontal-striatal pathway.
[9] The inability to choose to wait rather than seek immediate reinforcement is related to avoidance-related behaviors such as procrastination, and to other clinical diagnoses such as anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.
[10] Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalytic theory, discussed the ego's role in balancing the immediate pleasure-driven desires of the id with the morality-driven choices of the superego.
[11] Finally, environmental and social factors play a role; for example, delay is affected by the self-imposed or external nature of a reward contingency,[12] by the degree of task engagement required during the delay,[13] by early mother-child relationship characteristics,[14][15][16] by a person's previous experiences with unreliable promises of rewards (e.g., in poverty),[17] and by contemporary sociocultural expectations and paradigms.
Research on animals comprises another body of literature describing delayed gratification characteristics that are not as easily tested in human samples, such as ecological factors affecting the skill.
[4] In "hot" processing, a person thinks intently about the object causing temptation, and especially about its most appealing elements, and is subsequently less able to resist the immediate reward.
As teenagers, they had higher SAT scores, social competence, self-assuredness and self-worth, and were rated by their parents as more mature, better able to cope with stress, more likely to plan ahead, and more likely to use reason.
[1][22] These compelling longitudinal findings converge with other studies showing a similar pattern: The ability to resist temptation early in life translates to persistent benefits across settings.
Forty years after the first marshmallow test studies, neuroimaging data has shed light on the neural correlates of delayed gratification.
their self-control and delay of gratification decreases, while directing attention to a symbol of the reward by focusing on its abstract, "cool" qualities (shape, color, number, etc.
Behavioral researchers have found that a choice for instant versus delayed gratification is influenced by several factors including whether the reward is negative or positive reinforcement.
[33] In a Year 3 elementary classroom in South Wales a teacher was having difficulty keeping three girls on task during designated private study times.
However, researchers have empirically shown that these impulsive behavior patterns can be changed through the implementation of a simple self-control training procedure in which reinforcer immediacy competes with the frequency, quantity or saliency of the reward.
[36] In another study, three children diagnosed with ADHD and demonstrating impulsivity were trained to prefer reward rate and saliency more than immediacy through manipulation of the quality of the reinforcers and by systematically increasing the delay with a changing-criterion design.
[8] Developmental psychologists study the progression of impulse control and delay of gratification over the lifespan, including deficiencies in development that are closely related to attention deficits and behavior problems.
Between 8 and 13 years old, children develop the cognitive ability to differentiate and employ abstract versus arousing thoughts in order to distract their minds from the reward and thereby increase the delay.
Some researchers suggest this gender difference may correspond with a mother's tendency to sacrifice her wants and needs in order to meet those of her child more frequently than a father does.
[42] Self-control has been called the "master virtue"[44] by clinical and social psychologists, suggesting that the ability to delay gratification plays a critical role in a person's overall psychological adjustment.
People with better ability to delay gratification report higher wellbeing, self-esteem and openness to experience, as well as more productive ways of responding to anger and other provocations.
[10] Early delay ability has been shown to protect against the development of a variety of emotional vulnerabilities later in life, such as aggression and features of borderline personality disorder.
In psychotherapy, treatment for impulse-control issues often involves teaching individuals to realize the downsides of acting on immediate urges and in turn to practice delaying gratification.
[23] In a 2010 study, teenagers and young adults with stronger abilities to delay gratification were less likely to drink alcohol, or to smoke cigarettes or cannabis.
[49] A depressed person who has difficulty pushing themself to engage in previously enjoyed activities is (deliberately or not) prioritizing short-term comfort and is demonstrating an impaired ability to delay gratification.
The ego, operating under the reality principle, serves to moderate the id's desire for instant gratification against the superego, which is guided by a person's internalized sense of morality.
[45] According to psychoanalytic theory, a person with difficulty delaying gratification is plagued by intrapsychic conflict – the ego cannot adequately regulate the battle between the id and the superego – and experiences psychological distress, often in the form of anxiety or "neurosis".
[13] The more positive emotions and behavior that a 12- to 24-month-old toddler displays when coping with separation from a parent, the better they are 3.5 years later at using cooling strategies in order to defer gratification.
Comparing these children to ones who received their promised rewards reliably revealed different results on subsequent Marshmallow tests measuring delayed gratification.
Although predicting reward preference seems simple when using empirical models, there are a number of ecological factors that seem to affect the delayed gratification behavior of animals.
Future research with animal models then can expand our own understanding of how people make decisions about instant versus delayed gratification in the real world.