Delayed Gratification

Studies of mental functions, behaviors and the nervous system.

Moderators: kiore, Blip, The_Metatron

Delayed Gratification

#1  Postby Keep It Real » Feb 01, 2014 7:32 pm

Studies show that the ability to relinquish an immediate gain in favour of a superior future gain is highly beneficial. Here's the wiki page. I personally struggle with this in many respects - procrastinating writing my novel in favour of smoking a cigarette, or having a lie-in instead.

What strategies do people employ to ensure delayed gratification? Hard work is a difficult thing to come to terms with when there's no immediate pressure - although one knows the rewards are substantial. Any thoughts?
Dinosaurs = atheism
User avatar
Keep It Real
Banned User
THREAD STARTER
 
Posts: 9341
Age: 42

Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#2  Postby laklak » Feb 01, 2014 8:20 pm

The only delayed gratification I want is called "foreplay".
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. - Mark Twain
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! - Chicken Little
I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that - Oscar Wilde
User avatar
laklak
RS Donator
 
Name: Florida Man
Posts: 20878
Age: 69
Male

Country: The Great Satan
Swaziland (sz)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#3  Postby Keep It Real » Feb 01, 2014 8:40 pm

:lol:
Dinosaurs = atheism
User avatar
Keep It Real
Banned User
THREAD STARTER
 
Posts: 9341
Age: 42

Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#4  Postby Beatsong » Feb 01, 2014 9:38 pm

It's certainly an interesting area. I don't think there's any magic bullet: delaying gratification is a habit, not a trick, and like most habits its strengthened or weakened over years and years of one's life by being practised (or not) in myriad different ways.

One thing I know has always made a huge difference to me is the degree of genuine confidence I feel in the delayed reward actually appearing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_m ... experiment

A 2012 study at the University of Rochester altered the experiment by dividing children into two groups: one group was given a broken promise before the marshmallow test was conducted (the unreliable tester group), and the second group had a fulfilled promise before their marshmallow test (the reliable tester group). The reliable tester group waited up to four times longer (12 min) than the unreliable tester group for the second marshmallow to appear.[6][12] The authors argue that this calls into question the original interpretation of self-control as the critical factor in children's performance, since self control should predict an inability to wait, not strategic waiting when it makes sense. The authors suggest that the correlations between marshmallow performance and later life success may therefore be confounded, with successful children being raised in reliable situations.


This makes a lot of sense to me. When you have life experiences that lead to high degree of TRUST in the rewards of delayed gratification (or maybe even just a high of trust generally) it's relatively easy for it to become a habit. When you have life experiences that make those rewards seem capricious and unreliable, there's much less motivation to wait for them.

There's a huge amount of data documenting the superior life outcomes, in many different ways, of children from stable two-parent families, for example (as referred to in your wiki link). I've seen this over and over again first hand. Previously happy, well adjusted kids with strong habits and ambitions - their parents split up and they turn almost overnight into no-hopers (literally) with little sense of any value to anything but whatever they feel like doing in the moment. It's almost like the long-term bond both between the parents themselves, and between each parent and the child, is the ultimate model for delaying gratification. If that's shown to be not worth it, then what is?

The problem is that this can create a viscous circle: by giving in to desires for short-term gratification, you reduce your long term success outcomes; then because you're not getting the experience of long-term success outcomes, you figure you might as well give in to short-term gratification.

Keep It Real wrote:I personally struggle with this in many respects - procrastinating writing my novel in favour of smoking a cigarette, or having a lie-in instead.

What strategies do people employ to ensure delayed gratification? Hard work is a difficult thing to come to terms with when there's no immediate pressure - although one knows the rewards are substantial. Any thoughts?


I'd be interested to know the situation surrounding your novel. Are you writing this to a commission, with a guaranteed advance, or are you just writing it in the hope that a publisher might be interested in it one day? I think in relation to what I've described above, this could make a huge difference to the ability to delay gratification for it.

Not that the former case makes delaying gratification impossible. But it takes total belief, of a kind you can't really talk yourself into. I know when I was a young musician I could avoid any gratification at all, for as long as I needed to, to achieve whatever long term project I was working on. But as I got older and life experience eroded my confidence, that ability got eroded accordingly.
User avatar
Beatsong
 
Posts: 7027

United Kingdom (uk)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#5  Postby cherries » Feb 02, 2014 12:23 am

my life :thumbup:
"Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked.
This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men."
-Terry Pratchett / Neil Gaiman




A theists for Conservation
User avatar
cherries
 
Posts: 6834
Age: 60
Female

Country: deutschelande
Germany (de)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#6  Postby The_Piper » Feb 02, 2014 1:42 am

:popcorn:
"There are two ways to view the stars; as they really are, and as we might wish them to be." - Carl Sagan
"If an argument lasts more than five minutes, both parties are wrong" unknown
Self Taken Pictures of Wildlife
User avatar
The_Piper
 
Name: Fletch F. Fletch
Posts: 30367
Age: 49
Male

Country: Chainsaw Country
United States (us)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#7  Postby Imza » Feb 04, 2014 1:17 am

There are great methods from mindfulness based psychological treatments that focus on distress tolerance that can be applied to everyday delay of gratification as well. Mindfulness essential helps you defuse from your thoughts and feelings long enough to notice your having them, allowing you to delay giving in.

One that is particularly well researched psychological strategy is the psychological flexibility model, which is essentially being behaviorally flexible in the presence of distress. In clinical cases this would be related to having emotionally strong memory of trauma but still being able to take action. In everyday cases, it can help tackle that big assignment that is very aversive and your tempted to procrastinate.

There is a good self help book to try out if your interested
http://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Int ... 1572244259
Imza
 
Name: Imza
Posts: 219
Male

Country: United States
United States (us)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#8  Postby Mr.Samsa » Feb 04, 2014 2:37 am

What you're describing is essentially just a problem of self-control. More specifically, you're just observing the conflict of choosing between a smaller immediate reward over a larger delayed reward.

What this means is that even though we would obviously assess a larger reward as better than a smaller reward, this value is diminished due to the element of delay. Most research in the area will frame this in terms of economic value, so they'll present subjects with a situation where they will offer a person $10 right now or $100 next week and they'll observe the responses. They will then either alter the size of the rewards (e.g. $50 now vs $100 next week) or the size of the delay (e.g. $10 now vs $100 in a year). By altering the conditions like this they get what they call a 'discounting function' - basically, a variable that predicts how much delay and/or reward magnitude will affect your overall choice.

One of the main principles underlying choice is known as "the matching law". Basically it tells us that people more or less attempt to allocate choices in accordance with the relative value of the rewards on offer. Importantly, Howard Rachlin and Leonard Green found that when we plot self-control as a result of the matching law, we predict something called "preference reversal".

Preference reversal is in fact a problem that economists had with their understanding of behavior as they had previously assumed that people were "rational agents"; that is, they would choose the larger reward over the smaller one and time shouldn't affect this. However, the matching law tells us that as delay decreases, the value assigned to each option should change on an exponential curve. As such, the relative value of each option switches.

To tie this back into your original question, what this means is that from a [temporal] distance we can make the more rational decision. If, continuing the example I give above, we change the scenario to offering someone $50 in a year or $100 in a year and one month, then people will obviously choose the latter option. But as the time gets closer, if we give them the option to change their minds people can start to experience preference reversal.

George Ainslie (I think?) suggested that we think of self-control like judging the relative size of two buildings, one behind the other. From a distance we would clearly be able to see which building was bigger, but as we walk closer towards the building it becomes harder to see over the top of the building in front. In terms of self-control, as delay decreases it becomes harder to choose otherwise, so even though the evening before we can see that we really should go for a 6am jog to work off some of the holiday weight we've gained, when the alarm goes off the next morning we will tend to hit the snooze button.

There have been proposed ways around it. One option is known as "precommitment", which means that when you are able to rationally judge the size of the rewards you set up a situation where you cannot back out. For example, if I keep meaning to go to the gym but never get around to it, I sign up and put down a deposit. Once I've paid money towards it I'm forced to either go to the gym or lose out on all that money.

People have suggested other options like reward schedules, where basically you counter the delay of larger rewards by scattering smaller rewards within the delay. For example, if I'm trying to get healthy then it can be easy to defect on my choice because the reward of "being healthy" is offset so far in to the future - that is, I won't notice any of the benefits of being healthy, like a better physique or feeling better about myself, unless I've been subscribing to the approach for a while. Instead, it can be useful to join a community that tracks and supports your progress, or I can make note of my weight and waist measurements every week, or I can simply tick off goals I've set for the week like going for a run on Monday, etc.

The long and short of it is that it's easy to fall in to habits like the ones you describe because they are "easy" rewards. The key is to restructuring many aspects of your life so that you are less likely to choose the "easy" reward and, to be honest, simply being aware that you are choosing the easy reward can sometimes be enough to make a good start (which is what Imza's suggestion is about).

If you wanted to read more on the topic then I recommend Howard Rachlin's "The Science of Self-Control", or (for heavier reading) George Ainslie's "Breakdown of Will".
Image
Mr.Samsa
 
Posts: 11370
Age: 38

Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#9  Postby Imza » Feb 04, 2014 9:48 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
The long and short of it is that it's easy to fall in to habits like the ones you describe because they are "easy" rewards. The key is to restructuring many aspects of your life so that you are less likely to choose the "easy" reward and, to be honest, simply being aware that you are choosing the easy reward can sometimes be enough to make a good start (which is what Imza's suggestion is about).

One of these days I'm going to have to figure out where you get the motivation to so elegantly and thoroughly cover these topics on online forums :)

Glad to see you back Samsa! :cheers:
Imza
 
Name: Imza
Posts: 219
Male

Country: United States
United States (us)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#10  Postby Mr.Samsa » Feb 04, 2014 10:13 pm

Imza wrote:One of these days I'm going to have to figure out where you get the motivation to so elegantly and thoroughly cover these topics on online forums :)


Thank you, I appreciate that. I guess when you get so obsessed with a topic it doesn't become hard at all to bash out a few hundred words on it. I just hope that it all makes sense afterwards because once I'm finished I usually don't have the patience to spellcheck!

Imza wrote:Glad to see you back Samsa! :cheers:


:cheers:

Also, did you see the recent Simon Baron-Cohen controversy? I blogged about it but it really blew up. He suggested that radical behaviorism needs to be retired from science, based on the reasoning that orca are horribly mistreated as Sea World... :doh:
Image
Mr.Samsa
 
Posts: 11370
Age: 38

Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#11  Postby Imza » Feb 04, 2014 10:38 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
:cheers:

Also, did you see the recent Simon Baron-Cohen controversy? I blogged about it but it really blew up. He suggested that radical behaviorism needs to be retired from science, based on the reasoning that orca are horribly mistreated as Sea World... :doh:


I did, it was pretty shocking coming from Simon considering his area of focus is AUTISM! I mean talk about some serious cognitive dissonance there, I wonder if he rejects ABA and other behavioral treatments for it too. I've worked with many neuro-cognitive psychologists and even though they have serious reservations about RD and ABA, they recognize it's effectiveness and utility in science and don't deny the facts.
Last edited by Imza on Feb 04, 2014 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Imza
 
Name: Imza
Posts: 219
Male

Country: United States
United States (us)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#12  Postby Mr.Samsa » Feb 04, 2014 10:40 pm

Imza wrote:
I did, it was pretty shocking coming from Simon considering his area of focus is AUTISM! I mean talk about some serious cognitive dissonance there, I wonder if he rejects ABA and other behavioral treatments for it too. I've worked with many neuro-cognitive psychologists and even though they have serious reservations about RD and ABA, they recognize it's effectiveness and utility in science and don't deny the facts.


I honestly just think that he had no idea what he was talking about or what radical behaviorism is.
Image
Mr.Samsa
 
Posts: 11370
Age: 38

Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#13  Postby Imza » Feb 04, 2014 11:03 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
Imza wrote:
I did, it was pretty shocking coming from Simon considering his area of focus is AUTISM! I mean talk about some serious cognitive dissonance there, I wonder if he rejects ABA and other behavioral treatments for it too. I've worked with many neuro-cognitive psychologists and even though they have serious reservations about RD and ABA, they recognize it's effectiveness and utility in science and don't deny the facts.


I honestly just think that he had no idea what he was talking about or what radical behaviorism is.

Yeah, that generally seems to be the case when people have a very distorted view of RD. Unfortunately, my personal experience has been that even after being corrected, the misrepresentation continues. I guess I should assume the best and just hope that Simon would change his position if he understood the historical context better.
Imza
 
Name: Imza
Posts: 219
Male

Country: United States
United States (us)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#14  Postby Beatsong » Feb 05, 2014 10:25 pm

Interesting stuff Mr Samsa and I think I'll have a look at that Rachlin book. As a non-specialist, it's refreshing to see self-control described in an objective scientific, rather than judgmental and moralising way.

Mr.Samsa wrote:One of the main principles underlying choice is known as "the matching law". Basically it tells us that people more or less attempt to allocate choices in accordance with the relative value of the rewards on offer. Importantly, Howard Rachlin and Leonard Green found that when we plot self-control as a result of the matching law, we predict something called "preference reversal".

Preference reversal is in fact a problem that economists had with their understanding of behavior as they had previously assumed that people were "rational agents"; that is, they would choose the larger reward over the smaller one and time shouldn't affect this. However, the matching law tells us that as delay decreases, the value assigned to each option should change on an exponential curve. As such, the relative value of each option switches.

To tie this back into your original question, what this means is that from a [temporal] distance we can make the more rational decision. If, continuing the example I give above, we change the scenario to offering someone $50 in a year or $100 in a year and one month, then people will obviously choose the latter option. But as the time gets closer, if we give them the option to change their minds people can start to experience preference reversal.

George Ainslie (I think?) suggested that we think of self-control like judging the relative size of two buildings, one behind the other. From a distance we would clearly be able to see which building was bigger, but as we walk closer towards the building it becomes harder to see over the top of the building in front. In terms of self-control, as delay decreases it becomes harder to choose otherwise, so even though the evening before we can see that we really should go for a 6am jog to work off some of the holiday weight we've gained, when the alarm goes off the next morning we will tend to hit the snooze button.


Just one question here: Isn't the relative value of opposing choices changed as they get closer, not just because they're closer but because they're more subject to the emotions one is feeling at the time? (Maybe this is even part of what you meant, I don't know).

Value is inextricably tied to emotion. Somebody who feels a strong emotional desire for comfort food will place more value in a chocolate bar than somebody who doesn't. Similarly, either of those individuals will place a higher value in the chocolate bar (and thus a lower relative value in forgoing it) at a moment in their life when that emotion is strong than when it is weak or non-existent.

Surely this is why choices that seem obvious and rational from a distance get changed as the moment for enacting the choice approaches. It's easy to decide I'll go to the gym tomorrow after work, because I'm not currently feeling the combination of tiredness, desire to stay warm inside etc. that I'm going to be feeling tomorrow after work.
User avatar
Beatsong
 
Posts: 7027

United Kingdom (uk)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#15  Postby Mr.Samsa » Feb 06, 2014 6:53 am

Beatsong wrote:Just one question here: Isn't the relative value of opposing choices changed as they get closer, not just because they're closer but because they're more subject to the emotions one is feeling at the time? (Maybe this is even part of what you meant, I don't know).

Value is inextricably tied to emotion. Somebody who feels a strong emotional desire for comfort food will place more value in a chocolate bar than somebody who doesn't. Similarly, either of those individuals will place a higher value in the chocolate bar (and thus a lower relative value in forgoing it) at a moment in their life when that emotion is strong than when it is weak or non-existent.

Surely this is why choices that seem obvious and rational from a distance get changed as the moment for enacting the choice approaches. It's easy to decide I'll go to the gym tomorrow after work, because I'm not currently feeling the combination of tiredness, desire to stay warm inside etc. that I'm going to be feeling tomorrow after work.


I think most people in the field would argue that what you're describing is simply reinforcement value; so as emotional desire increases for a comfort food then it's reinforcement value will increase (i.e. it's more likely to increase the probability of you choosing it).

I'm not sure if researchers have found any need to explicitly include emotion into the equations at this point, but I think it's probably just a case of looking at the same problem from different levels of analysis. So things like cognitive processes and emotions would be higher order processes composed of the lower order processes described in things like the matching law, if that makes sense.
Image
Mr.Samsa
 
Posts: 11370
Age: 38

Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#16  Postby NoFreeWill » Feb 06, 2014 12:56 pm

I think the problem that one can't be sure that the gratification will ever arrive.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.
Michel de Montaigne
User avatar
NoFreeWill
 
Posts: 551
Age: 57
Male

Country: Australia
Australia (au)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#17  Postby THWOTH » Feb 06, 2014 3:49 pm

Beatsong wrote:… I know when I was a young musician I could avoid any gratification at all, for as long as I needed to, to achieve whatever long term project I was working on. But as I got older and life experience eroded my confidence, that ability got eroded accordingly.

That's jazz. ;)
"No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly."
Michel de Montaigne, Essais, 1580
User avatar
THWOTH
RS Donator
 
Posts: 38706
Age: 59

Country: Untied Kingdom
United Kingdom (uk)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#18  Postby Imza » Feb 06, 2014 6:51 pm

NoFreeWill wrote:I think the problem that one can't be sure that the gratification will ever arrive.


Well actually there is evidence it indicate that early biopsycho factors greatly influence how much delay of gratification a person will display as well as more current context the person lives in. Sometimes it's very adaptive to be not delaying gratification.
Imza
 
Name: Imza
Posts: 219
Male

Country: United States
United States (us)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#19  Postby Beatsong » Feb 06, 2014 8:01 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
Beatsong wrote:Just one question here: Isn't the relative value of opposing choices changed as they get closer, not just because they're closer but because they're more subject to the emotions one is feeling at the time? (Maybe this is even part of what you meant, I don't know).

Value is inextricably tied to emotion. Somebody who feels a strong emotional desire for comfort food will place more value in a chocolate bar than somebody who doesn't. Similarly, either of those individuals will place a higher value in the chocolate bar (and thus a lower relative value in forgoing it) at a moment in their life when that emotion is strong than when it is weak or non-existent.

Surely this is why choices that seem obvious and rational from a distance get changed as the moment for enacting the choice approaches. It's easy to decide I'll go to the gym tomorrow after work, because I'm not currently feeling the combination of tiredness, desire to stay warm inside etc. that I'm going to be feeling tomorrow after work.


I think most people in the field would argue that what you're describing is simply reinforcement value; so as emotional desire increases for a comfort food then it's reinforcement value will increase (i.e. it's more likely to increase the probability of you choosing it).


How is reinforcement value different from "value" as we're talking about it generally?

I'm not sure if researchers have found any need to explicitly include emotion into the equations at this point, but I think it's probably just a case of looking at the same problem from different levels of analysis. So things like cognitive processes and emotions would be higher order processes composed of the lower order processes described in things like the matching law, if that makes sense.


I don't think I understand what you mean.

On the necessity of including emotion in the equation, I'm pretty sure that could be shown by demonstrating that the effect of pure time is not regular and predictable, and that the emotional situation is the variable that changes it.

Take the following two scenarios for example, identical in terms of time but different in terms of emotion:

1. On Thursday at 5.00 PM, I make a solemn vow that I will start going back to the gym to get fit, starting as soon as I get home from work on Friday at 5.00 PM.

2. On Friday at 5.00 PM, I make a solemn vow that I will start going back to the gym to get fit, starting on Saturday at 5.00 PM.

The difference between the long term and short term appraisal of values is 24 hours in both cases. But in the first case, the short term decision is made when I'm knackered after a long working week, everyone else in my family is winding down and relaxing etc. In the second case, the short term decision is made on my day off when I am refreshed and relaxed, and have had a lie in and some time to chill out first.

I think I'd be much more likely to fulfill my vow in the second case than the first, but the time element you describe can't account for that. So there must be another variable as well, which I'd suggest is my emotional state at the time.
User avatar
Beatsong
 
Posts: 7027

United Kingdom (uk)
Print view this post

Re: Delayed Gratification

#20  Postby Mr.Samsa » Feb 06, 2014 10:45 pm

Beatsong wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:I think most people in the field would argue that what you're describing is simply reinforcement value; so as emotional desire increases for a comfort food then it's reinforcement value will increase (i.e. it's more likely to increase the probability of you choosing it).


How is reinforcement value different from "value" as we're talking about it generally?


"Value" is generally described as the sum total of a number of factors that contribute to how something affects or motivates certain behavior. So value would be a result of taking variables like amount, delay, difficulty of behavior, etc, into account. Reinforcement value is arguably an interchangeable concept but I'd suggest that it slightly differs in that it comments on the specific way in which consequences of behavior affect future behavior, whereas value is more of a static figure taken at a specific point.

Beatsong wrote:
I'm not sure if researchers have found any need to explicitly include emotion into the equations at this point, but I think it's probably just a case of looking at the same problem from different levels of analysis. So things like cognitive processes and emotions would be higher order processes composed of the lower order processes described in things like the matching law, if that makes sense.


I don't think I understand what you mean.

On the necessity of including emotion in the equation, I'm pretty sure that could be shown by demonstrating that the effect of pure time is not regular and predictable, and that the emotional situation is the variable that changes it.

Take the following two scenarios for example, identical in terms of time but different in terms of emotion:

1. On Thursday at 5.00 PM, I make a solemn vow that I will start going back to the gym to get fit, starting as soon as I get home from work on Friday at 5.00 PM.

2. On Friday at 5.00 PM, I make a solemn vow that I will start going back to the gym to get fit, starting on Saturday at 5.00 PM.

The difference between the long term and short term appraisal of values is 24 hours in both cases. But in the first case, the short term decision is made when I'm knackered after a long working week, everyone else in my family is winding down and relaxing etc. In the second case, the short term decision is made on my day off when I am refreshed and relaxed, and have had a lie in and some time to chill out first.

I think I'd be much more likely to fulfill my vow in the second case than the first, but the time element you describe can't account for that. So there must be another variable as well, which I'd suggest is my emotional state at the time.


The point I was trying to make is that the "emotional response" that you're referring to is just made up of more fundamental processes, namely things like the choice laws affected by the variables of delay and time. In the case you're describing the variables are sometimes referred to as establishing/motivating operations, which basically just means there are prior variables that affect the interpretation of the value of something - for example, someone may be motivated to perform a task for hamburgers but if they start the experiment 5 minutes after getting back from an all-you-can-eat lunch then the burger is likely to have very little effect on their behavior.

This doesn't mean that emotion is irrelevant, of course, it's just a higher level description of what is actually going on at a lower level. Compare for example the difference between a neuroscientific and social level explanation of why someone would vote for Obama. The neuroscientific explanation would involve appeals to neural networks, action potentials, the activation of certain brain structures, whereas the social explanation would appeal to conformity effects, cognitive biases, perception of information, etc. The two aren't incompatible and they aren't even really giving different explanations, it's just that the neuroscientific data is describing the same social effects at a much lower level. So things like "conformity" aren't processes that exist completely independently of the brain, they are just the label we give to a very specific pattern and activation of the brain; in the same way that things like "emotion" don't exist completely independently of lower behavioral (and neuroscientific) processes, they are just a label we give to a very specific pattern of behavioral data.
Image
Mr.Samsa
 
Posts: 11370
Age: 38

Print view this post


Return to Psychology & Neuroscience

Who is online

Users viewing this topic: No registered users and 1 guest

cron