Predicting mid-life capital formation with pre-school delay of gratification and life-course measures of self-regulation ?
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Benjamin D
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7792663 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Delay of gratification captures elements of temptation and self-denial that characterize real-life problems with money and other problem behaviors such as unhealthy risk taking. According to fuzzy-trace theory, decision makers mentally represent social values such as delay of gratification in a coarse but meaningful form of memory called "gist." Applying this theory, we developed a gist measure of delay of gratification that does not involve quantitative trade-offs (as delay discounting does) and hypothesize that this construct explains unique variance beyond sensation seeking and inhibition in accounting for problem behaviors. Across four studies, we examine this Delay-of-gratification Gist Scale by using principal components analyses and evaluating convergent and divergent validity with other potentially related scales such as Future Orientation, Propensity to Plan, Time Perspectives Inventory, Spendthrift-Tightwad, Sensation Seeking, Cognitive Reflection, Barratt Impulsiveness, and the Monetary Choice Questionnaire (delay discounting). The new 12-item measure captured a single dimension of delay of gratification, correlated as predicted with other scales, but accounted for unique variance in predicting such outcomes as overdrawing bank accounts, substance abuse, and overall subjective well-being. Results support a theoretical distinction between reward-related approach motivation, including sensation seeking, and inhibitory faculties, including cognitive reflection. However, individuals' agreement with the qualitative gist of delay of gratification, as expressed in many cultural traditions, could not be reduced to such dualist distinctions nor to quantitative conceptions of delay discounting, shedding light on mechanisms of self-control and risk taking.
| S-EPMC5553984 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PurposeThe influence of social capital has been shown to improve health and wellbeing. This study investigates the relationship between changes in social capital and health outcomes during a 6-year follow-up in mid to later life in Australia.MethodsNationally representative data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey included participants aged 45 years and over who responded in 2006, 2010 and 2012 (N = 3606). Each of the three components of social capital (connectedness, trust and participation) was measured in Waves 2006 and 2010 and categorised as: 'never low', 'transitioned to low', 'transitioned out of low' and 'consistently low'. Health outcomes in 2012 included self-rated overall health, physical functioning, and mental health based on the Short Form 36-item health survey (SF-36). Multivariable logistic regression assessed changes in social capital (measured in 2006 and 2010) predicted poor health (measured in 2012), adjusting for covariates.ResultsConsistently low trust was significantly associated with higher odds of transitions into poor physical functioning (AOR 1.54; 95% Confidence Interval 1.06-1.22), poor mental health (AOR 1.59; 95% CI 1.08-2.36) and poor self-rated health (AOR 1.86; 95% CI 1.27-2.72). Transition into low trust was also a predictor of poor self-rated health after adjusting for covariates (AOR 1.74; 95% CI 1.11-2.73). Changes in social connectedness in both directions (transitioned out of and into low) were statistically associated with poor self-rated health (AORs 1.40; 95% CI 1.00-1.97 and 1.61; 95% CI 1.11-2.34, respectively) after adjusting for confounders as well as other social capital components.ConclusionsOur longitudinal findings reveal social capital dynamics and effects on health in mid to later life. Social trust and connectedness could be important enablers for older persons to be more active in the community and potentially benefit their health and wellbeing over time.
| S-EPMC5891551 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveModification and prevention of risky sexual behavior is important to individuals' health and public health policy. This study employed a novel sexual discounting task to elucidate the effects of social learning and regret expression on delay to sexual gratification in a behavioral task.MethodsAmazon Mechanical Turk Workers were assigned to hear one of three scenarios about a friend who engages in similar sexual behavior. The scenarios included a positive health consequence, a negative health consequence or a negative health consequence with the expression of regret. After reading one scenario, participants were asked to select from 60 images, those with whom they would have casual sex. Of the selected images, participants chose one image each for the person they most and least want to have sex with and person most and least likely to have a sexually transmitted infection. They then answered questions about engaging in unprotected sex now or waiting some delay for condom-protected sex in each partner condition.ResultsResults indicate that the negative health outcome scenario with regret expression resulted in delayed sexual gratification in the most attractive and least STI partner conditions, whereas in the least attractive and most STI partner conditions the negative health outcome with and without regret resulted in delayed sexual gratification.ConclusionsResults suggest that the sexual discounting task is a relevant laboratory measure and the framing of information to include regret expression may be relevant for prevention of risky sexual behavior.
| S-EPMC4539230 | biostudies-literature
Project description:An important category of seemingly maladaptive decisions involves failure to postpone gratification. A person pursuing a desirable long-run outcome may abandon it in favor of a short-run alternative that has been available all along. Here we present a theoretical framework in which this seemingly irrational behavior emerges from stable preferences and veridical judgments. Our account recognizes that decision makers generally face uncertainty regarding the time at which future outcomes will materialize. When timing is uncertain, the value of persistence depends crucially on the nature of a decision maker's prior temporal beliefs. Certain forms of temporal beliefs imply that a delay's predicted remaining length increases as a function of time already waited. In this type of situation, the rational, utility-maximizing strategy is to persist for a limited amount of time and then give up. We show empirically that people's explicit predictions of remaining delay lengths indeed increase as a function of elapsed time in several relevant domains, implying that temporal judgments offer a rational basis for limiting persistence. We then develop our framework into a simple working model and show how it accounts for individual differences in a laboratory task (the well-known "marshmallow test"). We conclude that delay-of-gratification failure, generally viewed as a manifestation of limited self-control capacity, can instead arise as an adaptive response to the perceived statistics of one's environment.
| S-EPMC3773987 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We replicate the Stanford marshmallow experiment with a sample of 141 preschoolers and find a correlation between lack of self-control and 2D:4D digit ratio. Children with low 2D:4D digit ratio are less likely to delay gratification. Low 2D:4D digit ratio may indicate high fetal testosterone. If this hypothesis is true, our finding means high fetal testosterone children are less likely to delay gratification.
| S-EPMC4260846 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We examined the neural basis of self-regulation in individuals from a cohort of preschoolers who performed the delay-of-gratification task 4 decades ago. Nearly 60 individuals, now in their mid-forties, were tested on "hot" and "cool" versions of a go/nogo task to assess whether delay of gratification in childhood predicts impulse control abilities and sensitivity to alluring cues (happy faces). Individuals who were less able to delay gratification in preschool and consistently showed low self-control abilities in their twenties and thirties performed more poorly than did high delayers when having to suppress a response to a happy face but not to a neutral or fearful face. This finding suggests that sensitivity to environmental hot cues plays a significant role in individuals' ability to suppress actions toward such stimuli. A subset of these participants (n = 26) underwent functional imaging for the first time to test for biased recruitment of frontostriatal circuitry when required to suppress responses to alluring cues. Whereas the prefrontal cortex differentiated between nogo and go trials to a greater extent in high delayers, the ventral striatum showed exaggerated recruitment in low delayers. Thus, resistance to temptation as measured originally by the delay-of-gratification task is a relatively stable individual difference that predicts reliable biases in frontostriatal circuitries that integrate motivational and control processes.
| S-EPMC3169162 | biostudies-other
Project description:BackgroundDespite their importance in population health among children and adolescents, our understanding of how individual items mutually interact within and between pediatric health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and school social capital is limited.MethodsWe employed network analysis in a general population sample of 7759 children aged 9-15 years to explore the network structure of relations among pediatric HRQOL and school social capital items measured using validated scales. Furthermore, network centrality was examined to identify central items that had stronger and more direct connections with other items in the network than others. Network structure and overall strength of connectivity among items were compared between groups (by sex and age).ResultsOur analysis revealed that the item related to school/academic functioning and the item related to shared enjoyment among students had the highest strength centrality in the network of HRQOL and school social capital, respectively, underpinning their critical roles in pediatric HRQOL and school social capital. Additionally, the edge connecting "I trust my friends at school" and "trouble getting along with peers" had the strongest negative edge weight among ones connecting school social capital and pediatric HRQOL constructs. Network comparison test revealed stronger overall network connectivity in middle schoolers compared to elementary schoolers but no differences between male and female students.ConclusionThe network approach elucidated the complex relationship of mutually influencing items within and between pediatric HRQOL and school social capital. Addressing central items may promote children's perceived health and school social capital.
| S-EPMC7710098 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background Reproductive events, that is, a preterm birth (PTB), small-for-gestational-age infant (SGA), and vasomotor symptoms of menopause, are associated with subclinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). We evaluated whether women with a past PTB and/or SGA (henceforth PTB/SGA) were more likely to have severe vasomotor symptoms of menopause and whether the estimated 10-year ASCVD risk was higher in women with PTB/SGA and vasomotor exposures. Methods and Results We assigned 1866 women (mean age=55±1 years) in the CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) study to the following categories of reproductive exposures: none, PTB/SGA only, vasomotor symptoms only, or both PTB/SGA and vasomotor symptoms. We used Kruskal-Wallis tests to evaluate the differences in pooled cohort equation ASCVD risk scores by category and linear regression to evaluate the associations of categories with ASCVD risk scores adjusted for study center, body mass index, education, current hormone replacement therapy use, parity, and hysterectomy. Women with PTB/SGA were more likely to have severe vasomotor symptoms, 36% versus 30%, P<0.02. ASCVD risk score was higher in women with both PTB/SGA and vasomotor symptoms (4.6%; 95% CI, 4.1%-5.1%) versus women with no exposures (3.3%; 95% CI, 2.9%-3.7%) or vasomotor symptoms only (3.8%; 95% CI, 3.5%-4.0%). ASCVD risk score was higher in women PTB/SGA (4.8%; 95% CI, 3.6%-5.9%) versus no exposures. PTB/SGA and vasomotor symptoms was associated with ASCVD risk score in white women versus no exposures (β=0.40; 95% CI, 0.02-0.78). Conclusions Women with prior PTB/SGA were more likely to have severe vasomotor symptoms of menopause. Reproductive exposures were associated with an estimated 10-year ASCVD risk in white women.
| S-EPMC7660840 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveDelay of gratification, or the extent to which one can resist the temptation of an immediate reward and wait for a larger reward later, is a self-regulatory skill that predicts positive outcomes. The aim of this research was to conduct initial tests of the effects of a board game designed to increase children's delay of gratification via two experimental studies.MethodsPreschool children were randomized to play the study game or a control game. In Study 1, there were 48 children in the analytic sample, with a mean age of 4.81 ± 0.55 years; Study 2 included 50 children (M = 4.02 ± 0.76 years). Delay of gratification was assessed during the study game, as well as before and after game play sessions using the Marshmallow Test.ResultsIn both studies, the intervention group's likelihood of delaying gratification during the study game increased across game-play sessions (p < 0.05). In Study 1, the intervention group also increased wait times during the Marshmallow Test versus controls (p = 0.047). In Study 2, there was no effect on Marshmallow Test wait times.ConclusionResults provide some initial evidence supporting potential efficacy of a board game designed to increase delay of gratification. Future research can clarify: (1) which components of game play (if any) are linked with broader changes in delay of gratification, (2) impacts of this intervention in more diverse samples, and (3) whether experimental manipulation of delay of gratification affects outcomes like achievement and weight, which have been linked to this skill in observational studies.
| S-EPMC7686572 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Delay of gratification (DG) is the ability to forego immediate temptations in the service of obtaining larger, delayed rewards. An extensive body of behavioral research has revealed that DG ability in childhood is associated with a host of important outcomes throughout development, and that attentional focus away from temptations underlies this ability. In this study, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to identify the neural underpinnings of individual differences in DG among children. We observed a relationship between behavior during the classic DG task, a well-studied and ecologically valid measure, and functional connectivity during a modified version of this task in the scanner. Specifically, greater attentional focus away from temptations was associated with stronger functional coupling between the nucleus accumbens, a brain region that supports approach behavior, and several regions within prefrontal and parietal cortex that support self-control. These results shed light on the network interactions that contribute to DG and that account for individual differences in this capacity.
| S-EPMC4666116 | biostudies-literature