YOUR FAVOURITE FOOD
Imagine that you are in a gourmet restaurant
Once upon a time a psychology professor at Stanford University conducted an experiment evaluating relationship between thinking, delay of gratification and reward. (Experiment II, Mischel et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1972;21:204-218) . Forty years ago, 32 children from 3 to 5 years old were faced at the beginning with both a immediately available but less preferred reward and a more preferred but delayed one (marshmallow or pretzel). Delay period was 15 minutes maximum. Children hence waited for reward objects. Researchers emphasized to children that they could ring the bell on their desk, if they wanted immediately the reward, or wait. Every time the bell was rung, the experimenter immediately returned to the room. Furthermore children were informed that at the end, in either event, they would play, together with the experimenter, with all the toys.
Children were then randomly assigned to one of the following three groups depending on a precise instruction: “Think fun”, children were told to think about fun or happy thoughts while waiting; “Think sad”, children could think unhappy or sad thoughts; “think food reward”, they could think about marshmallows or pretzel (reward objects).
What happened? What would you have done in the “Think food reward” group?
Your favourite food at home Back home
