Casey

Question 1

Background

Answer 1

The Marshmallow Test was carried out by Walter Mischel in the 1960s in the USA, to test the ability to delay gratification. This research involved offering 4 year old children the choice between eating one marshmallow now, or waiting 15 minutes to eat 2 marshmallows. The children who couldn’t wait were labelled ‘low delayers’ and the children who could were labelled ‘high delayers’

Question 2

Key Terms

Delay of Gratification

Answer 2

The ability to resist the temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a later reward

Question 3

Key Terms

Cold Cues

Answer 3

Things that we find neutral

Question 4

Key Terms

Hot Cues

Answer 4

Things that we find tempting and appealing

Question 5

Key Terms

Cooling Strategies

Answer 5

Focusing on cool cues to try and resist the temptation of hot cues

Question 6

Key Terms

Ventral Striatum (Hot Systems)

Answer 6

The area of the brain more active when you are presented with tempting stimuli

Question 7

Key Terms

Inferior Frontal Gyrus (Cool Systems)

Answer 7

The area of the brain that’s active when you are resisting temptation

Question 8

Experiment 1

Aim

Answer 8

To investigate if low delayers in the marshmallow test still struggled with resisting temptation in adulthood

Question 9

Experiment 1

Sample

Answer 9

59 participants from the original Marshmallow Test, all aged 44. 27 were low delayers, 32 were high delayers

Question 10

Experiment 1

Procedure

Answer 10

Participants each did four ‘Go/No Go’ tasks. In each task they would be shown a series of faces on a laptop and told to press a button when a specific category of face appeared. The target face could be either a male or female face in the ‘Cool’ tasks, or either a happy or scared face in the ‘Hot’ tasks. The most important task was when participants had to hold back from pressing the button when a happy face appeared (a happy face was considered a tempting ‘hot cue’)

Question 11

Experiment 1

Findings/Conclusion

Answer 11

The high delayers were significantly more successful at not pressing the button when shown a happy face than the low delayers were. This suggests that the ability to delay gratification is a stable characteristic that does not change with age

Question 12

Experiment 2

Aim

Answer 12

To investigate the areas of the brain thought to be associated with resisting temptation

Question 13

Experiment 2

Sample

Answer 13

26 of the participants from Experiment 1 were used. 11 were low delayers and 15 were high delayers

Question 14

Experiment 2

Procedure

Answer 14

Participants were asked to complete the hot versions of the Go/No Go tasks within an fMRI

Question 15

Experiment 2

Findings

Answer 15

Low delayers had less activity than high delayers in their inferior frontal gyrus and more activity in their ventral striatum

Question 16

Experiment 2

Conclusion

Answer 16

Differences between people in their ability to delay gratification can be related to neurobiological differences