While waiting for more marshmallows could correlate to a brighter future, self-control may not be everything it’s cracked up to be. This week we look at research on the subject to find out whether clinicians can effectively teach a delay to gratification and, more importantly, if we should. Plus, a board game review from Rob!

This episode is available for 1.0 LEARNING CEU.

Articles discussed this episode:

Schweitzer, J.B. & Suzler-Azaroff, B. (1988). Self-control: Teaching tolerance for delay in impulsive children. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 50, 173-186. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1988.50-173

Dixon, M.R., & Holcomb, S. (2000). Teaching self-control to small groups of dually diagnosed adults. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33, 611-614. doi: 10.1901/jaba.2000.33-611

Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., & Aslin, R.N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126, 109-114. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.08.004

Watts, T.W., Duncan, D.J., & Quan, H. (2018). Revisiting the marshmallow test: A conceptual replication investigating links between early delay of gratification and later outcomes. Psychological Science, 29, 1159-1177. doi: 10.1177/0956797618761661

Anzman-Frasca, S., Singh, A., Curry, D., Tauriello, S., Epstein, L.H., Faith, M.S., Reardon, K., & Paper, D. (2020). Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1-11. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.581025

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