Casey et al (2011) Flashcards
Background of the study
-The ability to delay gratification refers to the ability to resist a small reward now in favour of a greater reward in the future
-From the 1960s marshmallow test, children were labelled ‘low’ or ‘high’ delayers
Low delayers
The children that were unable to wait and and just ate the marshmallow straight away
High delayers
The children that were able to wait and got two marshmallows
Hot cues
Things that we find tempting and appealing
Cold cues
Things that we find neutral
Cooling strategies
Focusing on cool cues to try and resist the temptation of a hot cue
Aim of the study (1)
Casey wanted to find out whether the people who had difficulties delaying gratification at the age pf four would still have difficulties delaying gratification 40 years later
Sample (1)
-Taken from people who participated in the original marshmallow test
-27 low delayers and 32 high delayers
-All aged 44
Experimental design (1)
-Independent measures-high and low delayers
-Repeated measures-did both hot and cool tasks
Procedure (1)
-Go/no-go task
-Shown as series of faces ‘cool’ had neutral expressions ‘hot’ had happy/fearful expressions
-Press button when they saw the fearful faces, but hold back for happy faces
Controls (1)
-Same faces used
-Displayed for 500ms
-One second in between faces
Findings/conclusions (1)
-High delayers were found to be better at resisting pressing the button when seeing a happy face than the low delayers
-Suggest that the ability to delay gratification is a relatively stable characteristic within people
Aim (2)
Casey wanted to see if there was a brain based explanation for the ability to delay gratification
Sample (2)
-27 participants from the initial study agreed to participate
-11 low delayers, 15 high delayers
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