Attention in Delay of Gratification1

Journal ol Personality and Social Psychology 1970, Vol. 16, No. 2, 329-337 ATTENTION IN DELAY OF GRATIFICATION1 WALTER MISCHEL 2 AND E B B E B. EBBESEN Stanford University The role of altcntional processes in voluntary delay of reward was explored by manipulating children's attention to the rewards for which they were waiting in a delay-of-gratification paradigm. Preschool children waited for a preferred but delayed reward while facing either the delayed reward, a less preferred but immediately available reward, both rewards, or no rewards. The dependent measure was the amount of time they waited for the preferred outcome before forfeiting it for the sake of the less desired but immediately available one. Results contradicted predictions from psychodynamic theory and from speculations concerning self-instructions during "time binding." Un- expectedly, but in accord with frustrative nonreward theory, voluntary waiting time was substantially increased when subjects could not attend to rewards during the waiting period. Implications are discussed for a theory of the development of delay of gratification. The concept of voluntary postponement of measures of delayed gratification and ego immediate gratification for the sake of more control, mainly inferred from human move- distant long-term gains has a central place ment responses on the Rorschach (e.g., in conceptualizations of the development of Spivack, Levine, & Sprigle, 19S9). complex human behavior. Formulations stress- In contrast, the present research is part ing the role of voluntary delay of reward of a larger project to investigate delay of range from the possible origins of "psychop- reward with more direct behavioral measures. athy" and antisocial behavior (e.g., Mowrer For example, subjects were required to choose & Ullmann, 1945) to characterizations of among actual alternatives that varied in delay societal and cultural adaptation patterns in time and value (e.g., immediate smaller ver- terms of the renunciation of immediate sus delayed but larger rewards) in realistic gratifications in favor of disciplined seeking situations (e.g., Mischel, 1966). Past re- of more substantial future gains. At the em- search in this vein has investigated the organi- pirical level, extensive experimental work has zation of self-control by exploring the rela- been done on delay of reward in animals (e.g., tionship between various preference patterns Renner, 1967). Surprisingly, although volun- for immediate smaller rewards or delayed tary delay behavior has been assumed to be larger rewards and other theoretically rele- a critical component of such concepts as "ego vant aspects of personality functioning. The strength," "impulse control," and "internali- network of associations found here so far zation," relatively little attention has been indicates, for example, significant relations devoted to it in empirical work on human between preference for delayed rewards and social behavior. indexes of achievement orientation, social re- One line of research has tried to apply sponsibility, age, sociocultural and rearing psychoanalytic concepts concerning ego func- conditions, and intelligence (e.g., Klineberg, tions to motoric inhibition and impulse con- 1968; Mischel, 1961a, 1961b, 1961c; Mischel trol (e.g., Singer, 1955). Most of the resulting & Metzner, 1962). Relations have also been empirical work has relied on highly indirect found with resistance to temptation (Mischel * This study was supported by Research Grant & Gilligan, 1964) and with severity of psy- M6830 from the National Institutes of Health, United chological disturbances (Shybut, 1968). Cor- States Public Health Service. Grateful acknowledg- relational studies were supplemented in re- ment is due to Jerry Zadny for serving as an experi- cent years by experiments to investigate more menter. 2 Requests for reprints should be sent to Walter precisely the determinants of voluntary delay Mischel, Department of Psychology, Stanford Uni- of reward and similar forms of self-control in versity, Stanford, California 94305. laboratory situations (e.g., Mischel & Staub, 329 330 WALTEK MISCHEL AND EBBE B. EBBESON 1965; Mischcl, Grusec, & Masters, 1969). As cathexes" (e.g., Freud, 1959; Singer, 1955). a result of both correlational and experi In spite of much psychoanalytic theorizing mental studies, some of the determinants of and speculation about the role of the mental choice preferences for delayed rewards are be- representation of blocked gratifications in the coming clearer (Mischel, 1966, 1968). development of delaying capacity, the process Although choice preferences for immediate remains far from clear. or delayed rewards are beginning to be under- In their theoretical discussion of impulse stood, the psychological mechanisms through control, Jones and Gerard (1967) reasoned which persons manage to bridge the temporal that "time-binding," or the capacity to bridge delay of reward required for attainment of delay of gratification, probably hinges on deferred gratification remain remarkably un- self-instructional processes through which the studied. In spite of its seemingly evident im- individual increases the salience of the de- portance, little is known about the self- layed consequences or outcomes of his action. regulatory mechanisms during the actual de- In their view, any factors (situational or lay period when the individual must engage within the individual) that make delayed con- in the waiting dictated by his choice of de- sequences more salient should enhance im- layed, larger gratification. Past research has pulse control and voluntary delay. Their posi- studied verbal choice preferences between re- tion, while emphasizing the self-instructional wards varying in value and in the delay time aspects of attention to deferred outcomes, required to attain them, but just how sub- also implies covert self-reinforcement processes jects are able to wait during the temporal through which the subject may reinforce his delay remains unknown. Given that one has own waiting behavior by vividly anticipating chosen to wait for a larger deferred gratifica- some of the positive consequences to which it tion, how can the delay period be managed? will lead. Finally, a cognitive-developmental 'The mechanisms that maintain goal-directed view might lead one to expect that young delay seem especially important, considering children may readily forget the delayed out- the fact that the ability to sustain self- comes for which they are waiting, and hence imposed delay for the sake of larger but cease to wait unless they are reminded of the delayed consequences appears to be a chief relevant contingencies and rewards involved component of most complex higher order in the delay-of-gratification paradigm. human behavior. A main purpose of the pres- In line with all the foregoing arguments, it ent research, therefore, was to investigate the seems most plausible that conditions that help psychological processes that mediate sustained the individual to attend mentally to the de- waiting behavior for delayed gratification. layed reward for which he is waiting should Freud's (19S9) classic discussion of the help him to sustain the delay. Operationally, transition from primary to secondary process these speculations would suggest that any is one of the few theoretical treatments of cues that make the delayed gratification more how delay of gratification may be bridged. salient—that help the person to make deferred According to the psychoanalytic formulation, consequences more psychologically vivid or ideation arises initially when there is a block immediate (e.g., by letting him look at them, or delay in the process of direct gratification by visualizing them in imagination, or by re- discharge (Rapaport, 1967, p. 315). During minding him of the object for which he is such externally imposed delay, according to waiting)—should facilitate waiting behavior. Freud, the child constructs a "hallucinatory Such expectations also seem congruent with image" of the physically absent need-satisfy- the results of earlier work on choice of im- ing object. Gradually, as a result of repeated mediate but smaller versus delayed but larger association of tension reduction with goal ob- rewards (Maher, 1956; Mischel, 1966; jects, and the development of greater ego Mischel & Metzner, 1962; Mischel & Staub, organization, the imposed delay of satisfying 1965). These earlier studies showed that an objects results in the substitution of hallucina- important determinant of choice preference tory satisfactions and other thought processes for delayed rewards is the individual's expec- that convert "free cathexes" into "bound tation or "trust" that he will really get the ATTENTION IN D LCI-AY OF GRATIFICATION 331 delayed (hut more valuable) outcome. Con- from outside as soon as the child signaled. sequently, conditions that increase the sail After this critical procedure had been clearly ence or visibility of the delayed gratification established, the child was introduced to the may enhance the subject's willingness to wait relevant contingency. He was shown two ob- by increasing his subjective probability that jects (e.g., snack-food treats), one of which the delayed outcome will really materialize he clearly preferred (as determined by pre- and be available after the waiting time ends. testing) ; to attain the preferred object he In light of the foregoing considerations, one had to wait for it until the experimenter re- might expect that voluntary delay behavior is

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