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. 2015 Feb 17:3:e774.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.774. eCollection 2015.

Your wish is my command! The influence of symbolic modelling on preschool children's delay of gratification

S Kumst  1 , D Scarf  2
Affiliations

Your wish is my command! The influence of symbolic modelling on preschool children's delay of gratification

S Kumst et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

The ability of children to delay gratification is correlated with a range of positive outcomes in adulthood, showing the potential impact of helping young children increase their competence in this area. This study investigated the influence of symbolic models on the self-control of 3-year old children. Eighty-three children were randomly assigned to one of three modelling conditions: personal storytelling, impersonal storytelling, and control. Children were tested on the delay-of-gratification maintenance paradigm both before and after being exposed to a symbolic model or control condition. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed no significant differences between the two storytelling groups and the control group, indicating that the symbolic models did not influence children's ability to delay gratification. A serendipitous finding showed a positive relationship between the ability of children to wait and their production and accurate use of temporal terms, which was more pronounced in girls than boys. This finding may be an indication that a higher temporal vocabulary is linked to a continuous representation of the self in time, facilitating a child's representation of the future-self receiving a larger reward than what the present-self could receive.

Keywords: Delay of gratification; Preschool children; Symbolic modelling.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Questionaire and behavoural measures.
Differences between girls and boys in (A) the use of temporal terms; (B) the frequency with which they use temporal terms; (C) the accuracy of use of temporal terms; (D) the amount of time they were willing to wait across pre- and post-intervention. The error bars represent the standard error of the mean.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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