Casey Flashcards
Aim
to investigate the extent to which the ability to resist temptation at preschool age affected the same participants in adult hood by examining impulses and sensitivity to social cues
Sample
longitudinal study (tracking same ppts from age 4 till forties) initially drawn from 562 pupils aged 4 from stanford nursery school who completed the original delay of gratification task during the late 1950s. From that group 155 then did a self control scale in their twenties, and then 135 participants did the same measure in their thirties. Out of those who scored either below average in terms of delay of gratifaction and self control tests 117 were contacted then 59 ppts (23 male 36 female) did experiment 1 and of these 27 took part in experiment 2
IV
naturally occuring- the ability to delay gratification operationalised as high delayers or low delayers
experimental method
quasi experiment
experiment 1 sample
from the 59 ppts in experiment 1, they were divided into 32 high delayers and 27 low delayers
what happened in experiment 1
ppts took part in a hot and cool impulse control task in their owns via pre programmed laptops
they completed 2 versions of the go/no-go task in which they had to press a button or withold a button
the cool version included presentation of male and female faces with netural epression, one sex was the go stimulus and one sex was the no go and they were told which one was go / no go prior
the faces appeared for 500 milliseconds followed by 1 minute intervals between
the hot version was the same however it used happy expressions or netural/fearful expressions
this was done 4 times
sample in experiment 2
15 high delayers and 11 low delayers
what happened in experiment 2
ppts were scanned with an fMRI scanner while completing a hot version of the go/nogo task which enabled them to view the task via a rear projection screen and an electronic response pad was used to record responses to facial stimuli and reaction times
48 trials were presented (35 go, 13 no go)
each face was presented for 500 milliseconds followed by intervals of 2 to 14.5 seconds
Results from experiment 1
both group were highly accurate in their correct repsponses to go trials in both cool and hot conditions
low delayers were slightly more likely to respond mistakenly in go- no trails and performed slightly worse than high delayers in the hot version of the task
low delayers at 4 showed greater difficulty suppressing their responses to happy faces than high delayers
Results from experiment 2
experiments found no sig. difference between the 2 delay groups on reaction times in correct go trials
low delayers had higher false alarm rates in no go trials
3 conclusions
- resistance to temptation appears to be a relatively stable characterisitic of an individual over time
- cognitive control can be strongly influenced by contexual factors (hot cues) in alluring situations
- there is lowered activity in the inferior frontal gyrus and increased activity in the ventral straitum in low delayers
what is a low delayer
someone that couldn’t delay gratification eg. when they were young they ate the marshmellow
what are hot cues
aspects that make it attractive eg the nice taste of the biscuit
what are cold cues
aspects that are not appealing eg the shape of the biscuit
Validity
weak because the nature of the go/no go task was artificial and different from how we normally encounter and respond to facial expressions
