This entry was posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 12:16 pm and is filed under All Posts, Family and Parenthood, Usability and Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
On Delaying Gratification
Previous research suggests that higher intelligence is related to better self-control, but the reasons for this link are unknown. Psychologists Noah A. Shamosh and Jeremy R. Gray, from Yale University, and their colleagues, were interested in testing the idea that certain brain regions supporting short-term memory play a critical role in this relationship.
[…]
The results show that participants with the greatest activation in the brain region known as the anterior prefrontal cortex also scored the highest on intelligence tests and exhibited the best self-control during the financial reward test. This was the only brain region to show this relation. The results appear in the September issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. [via PhysOrg]
A very wise educator taught me that impulsivity or the lack of ability to delay gratification reflects immaturity. He holds that children are more emotion-driven than intellect-driven, but that balance swings the other way with age. Once a person is an adult, the ability to defer gratification for a later, greater reward indicates maturity of development. This exactly correlates with the above findings,
“It has been known for some time that intelligence and self-control are related, but we didn’t know why. Our study implicates the function of a specific brain structure, the anterior prefrontal cortex, which is one of the last brain structures to fully mature,” said Dr. Shamosh [italics mine].
Here are the questions that we absolutely must ask:
- Is the ability to delay gratification solely a natural result of the chronological development of the anterior prefrontal cortex (the ability to wait develops naturally)? Or does it flow the other way, with exercise of self-control helping to mature the brain (practice makes perfect)?
- Do “external” conditions that negatively impact working memory (hormonal disruptions, physical illness, depression) also have a negative effect on self-control capacity?
- Is intelligence coincidentally correlated with the ability to delay gratification (for example, are intelligence and self-control controlled by the same brain structures?), or is there a functional relationship between the two (for example, does greater intelligence lead to greater self-control, or vice-versa?)? Alternatively, is the correlation an artifact of how we test intelligence?
And the “threatening questions” (I ought to copyright the term…):
- Does the electronic virtual environment in which so much time is spent actually inhibit or discourage the development of self-control skills?
- Could spending too much time as a child in virtual environments which usually provide instant gratification affect adult levels of intelligence?
- As a professional working to improve User Experience, is it possible that “making life easier” for people is actually doing them less of a favor than it is helping them? Am I destroying individual worlds while trying to “save the world”? (OK, I’m being a bit dramatic here, but I do feel strongly about design responsibility.)
October 6th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
[…] Mobilists #144 is now up at Xen Mendelsohn’s Xellular Identity blog (cheers from Israel!). My “On Delaying Gratification” post of Sept. 28 is included. Have a look to see this week’s best writing on everything […]
November 17th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I think you are on track with your “threatening questions.” Maturity comes through practice as much as biology, just as regression comes through lack of practice or disruption by biological problems. I believe the US has lost much of its creativity, because we have had less need to practice it in recent decades. Then again, maybe it was, because we became less friendly towards immigration. Well, the need for creativity (and experimenting and education) is back. I hope that it will be happening here. That businesses won’t only be recruiting from other countries’ labor pools or depending on others’ ideas.
Is there anything to be done about decreased self-control? Obviously, we are not going to revert back to using tools that are more difficult or take more time-not most of us. It’s also not good to take away the technological, since familiarity from childhood makes it possible to use technological tools quicker in the adult world. My kids’ childhood looks nothing like mine, but I do restrict the tech toys some and push the kids to do things in their own surroundings. We have had fights, and my middle one has little self-control still (partly do to asthma and oxygen issues, I think). I think the answer will be a stronger focus on balance than was necessary in the past. A more conscious effort to promote self-control. Some people already do this. It needs to become a cultural norm. Not so good at it myself.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Ugh, I already submitted this once and didn’t save first.
I think you’re on track with your “threatening questions.” Maturity comes from practice as much as biology, just as regression comes from lack of practice and disruption by biological problems. Obviously, we won’t stop using the devices, but we can limit them with children to help them learn self-control. Have to admit this has only worked so-so with my kids. It is a source of conflict daily, plus regular dishonesty on their part. My oldest only started being honest about it when I stopped limiting him-because he was using the computer as a tool instead of a toy. The middle one thinks he should have the same privileges, though he exhibits almost no self-discipline.
The atmosphere in our society is not conducive to self-control. More focus on balance will be required. More of a conscious effort to learn self-control. This is true of adults as well. Some people are already good at this, but it needs to become a cultural norm.