October 25, 2023

The first paper featuring the famous marshmallow test by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel was published in October 1970. It is arguably one of the most memorable studies on Delay-of-Gratification (DoG) in children, which tests children for their ability to withstand short-term temptation in view of a possibly better long-term reward.

While much DoG research so far has focused on Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) populations, ‘Delayed Gratification Predicts Behavioral and Academic Outcomes: Examining the Validity of the Delay-of-Gratification Choice Paradigm in Singaporean Young Children’ (PsyArXiv, 2023) by Dr Chen Luxi (NUS Centre for Family and Population Research (CFPR)) and Professor Jean Yeung (NUS Sociology and Anthropology & CFPR) extends this research to Singapore—an Eastern, educated, industrial, and affluent society.

Singapore arguably provides an illuminating case for cross-cultural comparisons in DoG studies because of its multicultural society (allowing for a study of cross-cultural effects), Chinese-majority population (allowing it to be compared to studies on East Asia), as well as its openness to Western cultural products (thereby being conducive for comparison to studies on Western societies).

The participants and findings reported in this paper are drawn from a larger study, the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG LEADS), led by Prof Yeung. In the first wave of the study, a nationally representative sample of 2,956 Singaporean children was tested on 1. working memory tasks, 2. DoG tasks, and 3. parent-reported self-control measures. Two years later, in the second wave, academic achievement (measured by standardised test scores in English and Mathematics) and behavioural problems of the same participants were examined.

Substantively, the researchers found interesting demographic correlates regarding DoG development. In terms of gender, girls start to delay gratification from age four, but boys only tended to start doing so from age five onwards.

Parents’ educational background matters too. Children of parents with low educational backgrounds (defined here as primary education) started delaying gratification from age six, those whose parents have middle educational backgrounds (defined as post-secondary or diploma certifications) started at age five, and those with high parental education backgrounds (i.e., bachelor’s degree and above) started at around age four to five.

Ethnicity also seems to influence results. Chinese children were reported to begin delaying gratification at age four, compared to children of other ethnic groups who started at age six. The authors tentatively explain this by pointing out that being of Chinese ethnicity might be correlated with a Confucian upbringing, which emphasises self-restraint.

The study also showed that children who show greater self-restraint and willingness to delay their gratification in their pre-school years also tended to have better academic results and fewer behavioural problems when tested again two years later.

Of perhaps more academic interest, the article explains that the results show that the DoG choice task employed in the study is highly consistent across different age and demographic groups. This means that the DoG choice task is suitable to test for self-control in multicultural Asian contexts like Singapore, and across ethnic groups. The results from the DoG choice task are also consistent with self-control results obtained from the other two tests: working memory and parental reports of self-control.

Read the pre-print article in PsyArXiv here: https://psyarxiv.com/nr5x9/