Deferred gratification or delayed gratification is the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants. This ability is usually considered to be a personality trait. Daniel Goleman has suggested that it is an important component of emotional intelligence. People who lack this trait are said to need instant gratification and may suffer from poor impulse control. Personality psychology is a branch of psychology which studies personality and individual differences. ... Emotional Intelligence, also called EI and often measured as an Emotional Intelligence Quotient or EQ, describes an ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of ones self, of others, and of groups. ...

Psychoanalysts have argued that people with poor impulse control suffer from "weak ego boundaries". The term comes from Sigmund Freud's theory of personality where the id is the pleasure principle, the superego is the morality principle, and the ego is the reality principle. The ego's job is to satisfy the needs of the id while respecting other people's needs. According to this theory, a person who is unable to delay gratification may possess an unbalanced id that the ego and superego are unable to control. Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Freud) May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939; (IPA: ) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... The ego, superego, and id are the tripartite divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory compartmentalizing the sphere of mental activity into three energetic components: the ego being the organized conscious mediator between the internal person and the external identity. ...

Poor impulse control may be related to biological factors in the brain. Researchers have found that children with fetal alcohol syndrome are less able to delay gratification.^[1] Fetal alcohol syndrome or FAS is a disorder of permanent birth defects that occurs in the offspring of women who drink alcohol during pregnancy. ...

The marshmallow experiment is a famous test of this concept conducted by Walter Mischel at Stanford University and discussed by Daniel Goleman in his popular work. In the 1960s a group of four-year olds were tested by being given a marshmallow and promised another, only if they could wait 20 minutes before eating the first one. Some children could wait and others could not. The researchers then followed the progress of each child into adolescence, and demonstrated that those with the ability to wait were better adjusted and more dependable (determined via surveys of their parents and teachers), and scored an average of 210 points higher on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.^[2] Walter Mischel (b. ... The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University (or simply Stanford), is a private university located approximately 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles northwest of San José in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County. ... Daniel Goleman (born March 7, 1946) is an internationally renouned author, psychologist, science journalist and corporate consultant. ... Pink marshmallows. ... The SAT (pronounced S-A-T) Reasoning Test, formerly called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test, is a type of standardized test frequently used by colleges and universities in the United States to aid in the selection of incoming students. ...

References

1. ^ Williams, B. F.; Howard, V. F.; McLaughlin, T. F. (1994). Fetal alcohol syndrome: Developmental characteristics and directions for further research. Education & Treatment of Children, 17, 86-97.
2. ^ Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology, 26(6), 978–986.

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See also

• Gratification
• Steven Kirkup