The Effects Of Self-control And Trust Propensity On 3-to 5-year-olds’ Delay Of Gratification

Delay of gratification refers to a type of choice orientation to forego immediate gratification for the sake of more valuable delayed outcomes and to the ability of self-control shown during the waiting process. Delay of gratification plays an important role in our study, life choices and work. Young children’s delay of gratification can significantly predict their future study situations, character development and so on. So, what factors will affect children’s delayed gratification ability? The research showed that adults’ self-control ability produce very an effector effects on the delay of gratification. Also some researchers have questioned, besides self-control, the trust propensity will also affect the delay of gratification.This study including two researches investing that the effects of 3-to 5-year-olds children’s self-control and trust propensity on the ability to delay gratification, respectively. Study 1 investigated 3-to 5-year-olds children’s self-control whether affect the ability to delay gratification or not. We useed four tasks to measure children’s self-control ability, they were day/night task, knock the hammer task, cat/dog/fish task and lion/panda task. We useed self-imposed delay of gratification paradigm to measure children’s ability to delay gratification. Study 2 investigated 3-to 5-year-olds children’s trust propensity whether affect the ability to delay graitication or not. Because existing researches have found that the adult’s self control produce very big effect on the ability to delay gratification, so in study 2 we put self-control as a control variable, to examine the individual’s trust propensity’s effect on the ablity of delay gratification alone. We showed children 20 faces which was in neutral emotion and neutral trustworthiness, and asked children whether they trust this person or not. Children’s response representeds his or her trust propensity. We used self-imposed delay of gratification paradigm to measure children’s ability to delay gratification. The main results are as follows:(1) 3-to 5-year-olds children’s ability to delay gratification was growing with age. Delay of gratification showed no significant relevance with gender.(2) 3-to 5-year-olds children’s self-control with age increasing, self-control ability showed no significant relevance with gender. 3-year-olds children’s self-control and the ability to delay gratification had no significant correlation. 4-to 5-year-olds children’s self-control can predict the ability to delay gratification, the contribution rate was 13% and 14%, respectively.(3) 3-to 5-year-olds children’s trust propensity as the growth of the age, the lower the trust propensity, the trust propensity showed no significant relevance with gender. After controlling children’s self-control ability, only 3-year-olds children’s trust propensity can predict the ability to delay gratification, contribution rate was 10%. Whereas 4-to 5-year-olds children’s trust propensity and the ability to delay gratification had no significant correlation.