It’s interesting that “fun” thoughts increased the delay while “sad” thoughts shortened it. This makes complete sense to me... the fun thoughts increased the momentary happiness of the participant, while the sad thoughts decreased it. The impulse to take a short-term reward is driven by a thirst for pleasure in one who is lacking it.
A man lost in the desert will stop at the first oasis he finds. It’s hard to resist something when we’re in dire need of it. This is an important factor in the process of addiction.
I became interested in this topic after listening to David Goleman, he has nice talks [1] on Youtube about emotional intelligence, one of them at Google[2], he often mentions in his talks about the marshmallow experiment and how it predicted success on long-term better than grades.
Study: Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification
Citation: Mischel, Walter; Ebbesen, Ebbe B.; Raskoff Zeiss, Antonette. American Psychological Association Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol 21. Issue 2. 204-218. 1972.
Abstract: Three experiments investigated attentional and cognitive mechanisms in delay of gratification In each study preschool children could obtain a less preferred reward immediately or continue waiting indefinitely for a more preferred but delayed reward Experiment I compared the effects of external and cognitive distraction from the reward objects on the length of time which preschool children waited for the preferred delayed reward before forfeiting it for the sake of the less preferred immediate one. In accord with predictions from an extension of frustrative nonreward theory, children waited much longer for a preferred reward when they were distracted from the rewards than when they attended to them directly Experiment II demonstrated that only certain cognitive events (thinking "fun things") served as effective ideational dis- tractors Thinking "sad thoughts" produced short delay times, as did thinking about the rewards themselves In Experiment III the delayed rewards were not physically available for direct attention during the delay period, and the children's attention to them cogmtively was manipulated by prior instructions While the children waited, cognitions about the rewards significantly reduced, rather than enhanced, the length of their delay of gratification Overall, atten- tional and cognitive mechanisms which enhanced the salience of the rewards shortened the length of voluntary delay, while distractions from the rewards, overtly or cogmtively, facilitated delay The results permit a reinterpretation of basic mechanisms in voluntary delay of gratification and self-control.
It seems important to me that we be sure to ask some questions of what the "task" consists of, and the effects of variable tasks, before making too much use of this.
A man lost in the desert will stop at the first oasis he finds. It’s hard to resist something when we’re in dire need of it. This is an important factor in the process of addiction.