Instrumental ideation in delay of gratification.

Abstract

MIsCHEL, WALTER, and UNDERWOOD, BxLL. Instrumental Ideation in Delay of Gratification. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 1083-1088. While waiting in a delay-of-gratification paradigm, preschool children were shown objects that were either the rewards in the delay-of-reward situation or irrelevant to the delay contingency. All children were encouraged to ideate about the objects while waiting. They either were led to believe that ideating about the objects would help terminate the delay period (instrumental ideation) or were not led to think that their ideation would affect the delay time (noninstrumental ideation). As expected, children were able to wait longer in the instrumental ideation condition than in the noninstrumental ideation condition. Most important, this increased waiting occurred only when the reward objects in the delay contingency were the focus of ideation and not when the ideated objects were irrelevant to the delay contingency. Finally, a significant effect was found for sex (girls waited longer) but not for age. The findings were discussed in light of prior experimental and theoretical work on the specific relationship between cognitive activity and delay of gratification.

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