The power of delayed gratification

Hello friends,

what! Where has the week gone? The last article for this week already, that quick! Since I wrote this article yesterday, looked at my list of topics that I wanted to write and saw this one, I figured, “Well, how unplanned is this. Let’s write about this as a nice follow up to yesterday’s article.”

What is the definition of delayed gratification?

According to Wikipedia delayed gratification describes the process that the subject undergoes when the subject resists the temptation of an immediate reward in preference for a later reward. Generally, delayed gratification is associated with resisting a smaller but more immediate reward to receive a larger or more enduring reward later.

Have you heard about the research called “The marshmallow project?”

The Marshmallow project was carried out before I was born and only in recent years did I really get to understand or even come to learn the concept of delayed gratification. The marshmallow project was published in 1972 I believe.

Kids behaviours were being observed, monitored and noted. Basically, each child was taken into a private room with a marshmallow placed before them. They were told that if they don’t eat the marshmallow, they would get another one but if they ate it, they won’t get another one. Then the researcher left the room for a bit so that the behaviours could be monitored. The minute the researcher left some kids ate the marshmallow straight away, others resisted and waited for the second one, and others tried very hard to resist and eventually ate it. These same kids were then followed by researchers throughout their life (over forty years) and were still being monitored. This is what the observation revealed.

The kids that resisted the marshmallow, actually I found a detailed article that talks about this and it takes you into detailed follow-up studies on this observation. I’ll drop the link in a minute. This article states, “The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and generally better scores in a range of other life measures. (You can see the follow-up studies here, here, and here.)” Here is the source from where I picked the information you see in this paragraph. It also goes into a second observation and study carried out by researchers. The marshmallow project was replicated by researchers at the University of Rochester with an important twist. Read all about that study as well and the results it’s produced.

I really liked that in the article the author pointed out the following:

“And if you look around, you’ll see this playing out everywhere…

• If you delay the gratification of watching television and get your homework done now, then you’ll learn more and get better grades.
• If you delay the gratification of buying desserts and chips at the store, then you’ll eat healthier when you get home.
• If you delay the gratification of finishing your workout early and put in a few more reps, then you’ll be stronger.

… and countless other examples.”

We have become a society where we don’t want pain, discomfort, but we want the gain – T. Dench Patel, 12 August 2020, 21:14

I mean delayed gratification is like a sacrifice, seriously, look, our parents did something right back then and so did their parents. They sacrificed/delayed gratification from an earlier outcome to a better outcome if they were patient just a little bit longer. Almost like delaying short term pleasure for a long-term game, this could be maybe happiness, better lifestyle, greater purpose – T. Dench Patel, 12 August 2020, 21:18

Now I also recommend this article, honestly, read it to the end very good points about impulses, but you know what it’s quite hard to pick out what was my favourite bits of this article because there were so many good points made here with another research discussed. I particularly like the mention of this,

“Delaying gratification isn’t a new concept. Back in 300 B.C., Aristotle saw that the reason so many people were unhappy was that they confused pleasure for true happiness.

True happiness, according to Aristotle, is about developing habits and surrounding yourself with people who grow your soul. This allows you to move towards your greatest potential. True happiness entails delaying pleasure and putting in the time, discipline, and patience required to achieve a goal instead of feeling good now.

A life of purpose, aligned with the seeking of true happiness, creates real joy. It keeps your happiness meter pretty steady throughout your life. So, which path would you like to take?”

Here is the link to that article The benefits of delaying gratification

You know talking about the subject of delayed gratification, today I asked myself, “Why do men like seeing women in bikinis? Like seriously, pretty girls in skimpy wear in front of cars, boxing rings, and racing circuits? (no judgement, just wondering)”

I went and researched it; I think that I can tie this with instant gratification actually. (One sec) Omg! This totally relates to this article you want to read this article and there are studies by scientists on this and some Belgian researches had 358 young men participate in it. The article is titled, Science proves that bikinis turn men into boobs.

The article also goes into George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University and Dan Ariely of MIT found that sexually aroused men would do all sorts of things they might not otherwise do. George Loewenstein is one of the founders of neuroeconomics (basically a brain expert). He also goes into tunnel vision when men are obscured and when they don’t listen to the little voice in their head. Here, have a read, very interesting indeed Science proves that bikinis turn men into boobs.

Reading almost all the articles the thing that repeats is this, “studies have shown that the ability to delay reward is present in highly successful people.”

I recommend this article too delayed gratification it’s pretty good and I found the most value in the subheading Delayed gratification in relationships really good giving a viewpoint of how instant gratification works in romantic relationships with instant texting, and how divorce rates increase as we seek instant pleasure through impulses and that the noise is coming from the impulses, technology, not face to face communication and it also goes into ego depletion.

My opinion, again there should be a balance in delayed gratification because I have been on the down spectrum of this and waiting for change to live my life while thinking things will turn for the better got me sticking to a situation in domestic violence long enough to have gotten my own life in danger.

Further resources

Delayed gratification – Why wait for what you want

Delay of gratification

The Motivational Aspect of Children’s Delayed Gratification: Values and Decision Making in Middle Childhood

What are your thoughts?

Hope this article has helped you a lot.

Yours sincerely,

T. Dench Patel

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