Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification.

Three experiments investigated attentional and cognitive mechanisms in delay of gratification In each study preschool children could obtain a less preferred reward immediately or continue waiting indefinitely for a more preferred but delayed reward Experiment I compared the effects of external and cognitive distraction from the reward objects on the length of time which preschool children waited for the preferred delayed reward before forfeiting it for the sake of the less preferred immediate one. In accord with predictions from an extension of frustrative nonreward theory, children waited much longer for a preferred reward when they were distracted from the rewards than when they attended to them directly Experiment II demonstrated that only certain cognitive events (thinking "fun things") served as effective ideational distractors Thinking "sad thoughts" produced short delay times, as did thinking about the rewards themselves In Experiment III the delayed rewards were not physically available for direct attention during the delay period, and the children's attention to them cogmtively was manipulated by prior instructions While the children waited, cognitions about the rewards significantly reduced, rather than enhanced, the length of their delay of gratification Overall, attentional and cognitive mechanisms which enhanced the salience of the rewards shortened the length of voluntary delay, while distractions from the rewards, overtly or cogmtively, facilitated delay The results permit a remterpretation of basic mechanisms in voluntary delay of gratification and self-control