Work

Learning to wait for more likely or just more: greater tolerance to delays of reward with increasingly longer delays

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: Little research has focused on training greater tolerance to delays of rewards in the context of delayed gratification. In delayed gratification, waiting for a delayed outcome necessitates the ability to resist defection for a continuously available smaller, immediate outcome. The present research explored the use of a fading procedure for producing greater waiting in a video-game based, delayed gratification task. Participants were assigned to conditions in which either the reward magnitude, or the probability of receiving a reward, was a function of time waited and the delay to the maximum reward was gradually increased throughout this training. Waiting increased for all participants but less for those waiting for a greater reward magnitude than a greater reward probability. All participants showed a tendency to wait in a final testing phase, but training with probabilistic outcomes produced a significantly greater likelihood of waiting during testing. The behavioral requirements of delay discounting versus delay gratification are discussed, as well as the benefits of training greater self-control in a variety of contexts.

Source: Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

DOI: 10.1002/jeab.132

Authors: Jillian M. Rung, Michael E. Young

Institutions: Utah State University, Kansas State University

Language: English

Topic: Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Subfield: General Decision Sciences

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute on Drug Abuse

Awards: Waiting for a better future: Deciding when to "cash in" when outcomes are continu, G8250982615