Delay Gratification? Chances Are, You'll Succeed More

We've all been there.  I learned today that a friend of my son's from elementary school was shot and killed in his neighborhood over the weekend.  His older brother went to prison for stabbing someone to death -- at the age of 15.  That brother and my son were best friends.

Adversity is in everyone's life, at some point.  And we all try to overcome it -- at least, most of us -- in different ways.

Now a new study says that self-regulation is the key.

Self-what?

Self-regulation may hold the key to helping young adults overcome their risk for developing alcohol and drug problems, according to recent research from the University of Georgia, as reported by newswise.com. 

The study looked at 225 non-college-educated adults aged 18-25 from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who grew up in rural areas. Led by Assaf Oshri, an associate professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences, the research team found that young adults who experience abuse as children have a higher risk for developing alcohol and drug problems. These same young adults also have a decreased ability to self-regulate, or avoid impulsive decision-making in socially stressful situations.

Oshri pointed to the results as evidence of the need for family-focused preventive intervention programs for adolescents that target self-regulation, in hopes of better identifying factors that promote resilience among youth.

“If we use delayed gratification, we can do well in life, but it seems like those who have specific early life experiences are less able to perform this optimal decision-making, and that can affect their risk of substance abuse,” says Oshri, who is housed in the department of human development and family science. 

I don't know if my son's friends had substance abuse problems but it's possible.  They had adversity of a different nature, one of struggling to stay alive.

“The goal is to try to identify mechanisms that will help youth who experience adversity in life,” he said 

During the study, the young adults were assessed twice over two years. In addition to completing surveys measuring their drug and alcohol use and experiences with child maltreatment, participants completed a decision-making task that evaluated their tendency to make impulsive decisions and ability to self-regulate and delay gratification.

To accomplish this, researchers used a tool called “delayed reward discounting," according to the study. The young adults answered questions such as “Would you rather have $14 today or $25 in 19 days?” They also agreed to have their heart rates measured while they completed a series of increasingly difficult math-related tasks in front of an audience of research assistants. These measurements allowed researchers to record stress levels and assess self-regulatory capacities. 

Not surprisingly, study results found that as participants’ maltreatment experiences as children increased, the higher their inclination toward impulsive decision-making and problems delaying gratification.

We all know the marshmallow test.  The marshmallow test is one of the most famous pieces of social-science research, according to The Atlantic: Put a marshmallow in front of a child, tell her that she can have a second one if she can go 15 minutes without eating the first one, and then leave the room. Whether she’s patient enough to double her payout is supposedly indicative of a willpower that will pay dividends down the line, at school and eventually at work. Passing the test is, to many, a promising signal of future success.

Recently, new results showed that affluent children were better at delaying gratification.

And guess why?  

Ultimately, the new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to better outcomes, writes Jessica McCrory Calarco in The Atlantic. "Instead, it suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in large part by a child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success."