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A Hot/Cool-System Analysis of Delay of Gratification: Dynamics of Willpower
Abstract
A 2-system framework is proposed for understanding the processes that enable--and undermine--self-control or "willpower" as exemplified in the delay of gratification paradigm. A cool, cognitive "know" system and a hot, emotional "go" system are postulated. The cool system is cognitive, emotionally neutral, contemplative, flexible, integrated, coherent, spatiotemporal, slow, episodic, and strategic. It is the seat of self-regulation and self-control. The hot system is the basis of emotionality, fears as well as passions--impulsive and reflexive--initially controlled by innate releasing stimuli (and, thus, literally under "stimulus control"): it is fundamental for emotional (classical) conditioning and undermines efforts at self-control. The balance between the hot and cool systems is determined by stress, developmental level, and the individual's self-regulatory dynamics. The interactions between these systems allow explanation of findings on willpower from 3 decades of research.
... Other developmental researchers have argued that there should be greater consideration of emotional processes within a framework of self-regulation (Cole et al., 2004;Eisenberg et al., 2001;Lewis & Stieben, 2004;Mischel & Ayduk, 2004). Consequently, considerable work has examined self-regulation as a regulatory system that involves distinct "hot" (i.e., motivationally or affectively mediated) and "cool" (i.e., cognitively mediated) processes (Backer-Grøndahl et al., 2019;Bechara et al., 1994;Cameron Ponitz et al., 2008;Denham et al., 2012;Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999;Simpson & Carroll, 2019;Willoughby et al., 2011). For instance, some factor analysis research has demonstrated that tasks designed to assess the inhibitory control aspect of self-regulation-the ability to inhibit responses to irrelevant stimuli in pursuit of a cognitively represented goal-load onto separate latent "hot" and "cool" factors (Bridgett et al., 2015;Carlson & Moses, 2001;Murray & Kochanska, 2002;Simpson & Carroll, 2019). ...
... Cognitive regulatory processes include, for instance, sustained attention (i.e., the ability to maintain focus on a given task over prolonged periods), inhibitory control, and higher-order executive functions. Affective regulatory processes include, for instance, the ability to delay gratification (i.e., the ability to resist temptation in favor of long-term goals) and regulate emotions (Bridgett et al., 2015;Gagne et al., 2021;Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999). ...
Self‐regulation is thought to show heterotypic continuity—its individual differences endure but its behavioral manifestations change across development. Thus, different measures across time may be necessary to account for heterotypic continuity of self‐regulation. This longitudinal study examined children's (N = 108) self‐regulation development using 17 measures, including 15 performance‐based measures, two questionnaires, and three raters across seven timepoints. It is the first to use different measures of self‐regulation over time to account for heterotypic continuity while using developmental scaling to link the measures onto the same scale for more accurate growth estimates. Assessed facets included inhibitory control, delayed gratification, sustained attention, and executive functions. Some measures differed across ages to retain construct validity and account for heterotypic continuity. A Bayesian longitudinal mixed model for developmental scaling was developed to link the differing measures onto the same scale. This allowed charting children's self‐regulation growth across ages 3–7 years and relating it to both predictors and outcomes. Rapid growth occurred from ages 3–6. As a validation of the developmental scaling approach, greater self‐regulation was associated with better school readiness (math and reading skills) and fewer externalizing problems. Our multi‐wave, multi‐facet, multi‐method, multi‐measure, multi‐rater, developmental scaling approach is the most comprehensive to date for assessing the development of self‐regulation. This approach demonstrates that developmental scaling may enable studying development of self‐regulation across the lifespan. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
... (Zelazo & Müller, 2002). La distinction FE chaude et FE froide est analogue à certains égards à la distinction Hot/Cool de Metcalfe et Mischel (1999), bien qu'il y ait une différence cruciale : dans leur cadre conceptuel, les processus chauds ne sont pas des processus de la FE, mais plutôt des influences émotionnelles de type bottom up (du bas vers le haut) sur le comportement (e.g., associées aux amygdales). ...
... Les enfants sont enclins à faire attention à des aspects hautement saillants des objets ou des événements, bien souvent trompeurs (Carlson & Zelazo, 2008 ;DeLoache, 1987). Par substitution de symboles aux référents, cependant, les enfants peuvent réduire la saillance (i.e., l'intensité prégnante 46 ) de ces derniers ; ceci les libère ainsi d'une tendance à répondre d'une façon conduite par le stimulus, de type bottom up (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999). De plus, les symboles (y compris les artefacts mais aussi les labels verbaux et les pensées) peuvent aussi diriger l'attention de l'enfant vers des aspects de la situation actuelle non remarqués antérieurement, les aidant à réfléchir sur ladite situation et à se comporter avec plus de souplesse. ...
Nous présentons ici la traduction d’un texte sur les aspects développementaux de la fonction exécutive chez les enfants typiques et atypiques.
Il s’agit d’une synthèse, assez unique en son genre. En effet, s’appuyant sur l’expérience clinique et la recherche (plus de 400 références expérimentales), elle privilégie une approche qui intègre la multiplicité des niveaux d’analyse en abordant notamment les phénomènes de la plasticité cérébrale et les influences multiples intervenant dans le développement des fonctions exécutives. Les auteurs abordent également les influences dynamiques réciproques des processus et des contextes (notamment familial et scolaire), sans oublier les implications possibles dans le domaine de l’éducation.
Ce chapitre, rédigé par des chercheurs de pointe en psychologie du développement, présente donc un intérêt majeur pour les professionnels de l’enfance, pédopsychiatres, pédiatres, psychologues et neuropsychologues, rééducateurs (psychomotriciens, orthophonistes, ergothérapeutes ou thérapeutes occupationnels), infirmiers, éducateurs et enseignants (voire les parents informés). Mais ces aspects de la trajectoire développementale jettent un éclairage singulier sur la psychopathologie adulte, ce qui n’est pas sans intérêt pour la psychiatrie.
Comme le rappelait encore tout récemment Adele Diamond (2016), les fonctions exécutives sont des facteurs clés qui prédisent la réussite à l’école et la réussite professionnelle, bien mieux que le QI : la prise en compte de la trajectoire développementale des composantes de la fonction exécutive d’un individu permettra de spécifier et d’optimiser les thérapeutiques, de favoriser une prévention optimale des troubles psychosociaux psychiatriques et développementaux, d’assurer une meilleure qualité des apprentissages réalisés par les enfants. Par ailleurs, de plus en plus d’équipes oeuvrent au développement de techniques et de programmes de remédiation cognitive, susceptibles de promouvoir le rétablissement (Franck, 2016 ; Giraud-Barod & Roussel, 2012) des patients en souffrance psychique.
Ces programmes validés ne sont pas des procédures standard d’application indifférenciée mais doivent s’accorder avec les attentes, les points forts et les faiblesses du sujet qui s’y engage et vis-à-vis du contexte dans lequel il vit. Il s’agit de rendre au patient la capacité d’agir, d’être et de trouver un équilibre physique et mental dans son milieu.
« Les techniques de remédiation cognitive ont pris une place centrale, incontournable au sein des techniques classiques de réhabilitation psychosociale » (Giraud-Baro & Roussel, 2012). Elles visent des processus neuropsychologiques extrêmement subtils et notamment les fonctions exécutives, indispensables à la réalisation des comportements adaptés aux situations nouvelles. Elles sous-tendent la capacité de se reconnaître être humain à part entière parmi les autres, doté et responsable d’un réel pouvoir de compréhension, de décision, d’action et d’échange.
Un des premiers programmes est le CRT, pour Cognitive Remediation Therapy ou thérapie par remédiation cognitive, dont les versions initiales australiennes cherchaient à lutter contre les conséquences délétères des lésions cérébrales chez l’enfant (Frontal/executive program, Delahunty et al., 1993). Développé par T. Wykes et C. Reeder en Grande-Bretagne dans le domaine de la schizophrénie (2002), il a été traduit et validé en français par l’équipe du Professeur Nicolas Franck (2009).
Depuis, l’alliance de cliniciens et de chercheurs permet d’adapter ou d’utiliser ce programme (et bien d’autres), de type crayon-papier, avec des enfants ou des adolescents présentant un TSA, un TDA/H, un trouble des apprentissages non verbaux, du contrôle de soi, des troubles des conduites ou une anorexie (i.e., Doyen, 20127 ; Doyen et al., 2015 ; Lapasset et al., 2013). De nouveaux programmes sont en cours de développement, y compris dans le cadre d’une déficience intellectuelle et peuvent combiner les approches informatisée et crayon papier (Cognitus et moi, Demily et al., 2016), mais tous tirent profit de l’affinement des connaissances sur la nature et le rôle des fonctions exécutives, y compris dans le domaine des relations sociales et affectives.
Bien qu’il y ait un intérêt considérable pour ces dernières et de nombreuses recherches, nous ne disposions d’aucune synthèse complète en langue française, notamment sur le développement du fonctionnement exécutif et les facteurs qui l’influencent. Nous remercions donc le professeur Nicolas Franck de nous avoir permis de collaborer pour réviser la première traduction de Jérôme Alain Lapasset (psychomotricien en pédopsychiatrie après l’avoir été en psychiatrie, et praticien en remédiation cognitive) du chapitre des professeurs Stephanie Carlson, Philip David Zelazo et Susan Faja.
Au fur et à mesure, nous est apparue la portée de l’enjeu. Comprendre le développement (typique et atypique) des fonctions exécutives depuis les stades les plus primaires, où elles ne sont encore qu’un concept unitaire, à l’adolescence, en suivant leurs différenciations et leurs spécifications, ouvre bien des perspectives quant à la prévention et la réhabilitation des troubles psychiatriques et autres conditions singulières.
Tout homme, et le sens de soi, étant le fruit de ses expériences, de ses capacités d’adaptation et d’intégration, il est heureux que nous commencions à disposer d’éléments fiables susceptibles de déboucher sur de nouveaux modèles de la santé et de soins, liant la réhabilitation avec les dispositifs médicaux sociaux psychiatriques dont la pédopsychiatrie.
En conséquence, nous mettons à la disposition de nos collègues francophones, et des étudiants, une traduction de cette synthèse remarquable.
... In these circumstances, cues can instigate pathological reward seeking in disorders determined by co-occurrence of dysfunctional inhibitory processes and Martino Schettino and Ilenia Ceccarelli contributed equally to this work. strongly triggered impulses (Hofmann et al., 2009;Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999), such as in compulsive eating, gambling, hypersexuality, and drug use. ...
Pavlovian conditioning holds the potential to incentivize environmental cues, leading to approach behavior toward them, even outside our awareness. Animal models suggest that this is particularly true for the so-called sign-tracker (ST) phenotype, which is considered to reflect a predisposition toward developing addiction-related behaviours. Despite its potential clinical relevance, few studies have demonstrated the translational validity of this model, likely due to difficulties in studying Pav-lovian processes in humans. To fill this gap, we combined an ecological momentary assessment with ambulatory peripheral autonomic monitoring to test the hypothesis that traits associated with ST in preclinical studies would be associated with attribution of high incentive salience to reward-related cues. Several times for 2 days, participants were asked to rate the attractiveness of several preselected ecological rewards (e.g., coffee) and the preceding cues (the smell of coffee) while their electrocardiogram was recorded. While no absolute difference in subjective and physiological measures of motivational approach to daily cues compared with rewards emerged, individuals with high levels of impulsivity, obsessive-compulsive, and addiction-prone behaviors rated as more attractive and showed a greater increase in sympathetic arousal to cues versus rewards. The opposite pattern emerged for those with low levels in those dispositional traits, who responded more (both subjectively and physiologically) to rewards compared with their preceding cues. This study represents an attempt to answer the call to parcel complex behaviors into smaller constructs, improving the early detection of those who are vulnerable to develop psychopathological disorders, particularly in the domain of impulse control such as addiction.
... Besides, being more skilled at the delay of gratification and selfregulation predicts better adult adjustment as well as a better performance at school, higher self-worth, the ability to cope with stress, and lower drug use (Ayduk et al., 2000). On the other hand, the costs of failure in selfregulation range from crime and teen pregnancy to alcoholism and drug addiction, to domestic violence, and even academic failure (Metcalfe and Mischel, 1999). Considering these negative outcomes, examining selfregulation, impulse control, and delay of gratification in early development is crucial. ...
In the early childhood period, self-regulation and delay of gratification are important skills. The lack of these skills may have a negative impact on children's development and learning. In this study, the relationship between preschool children's delay of gratification and self-regulation skills was examined. Fifty-seven preschool children from Ankara, the capital of Turkey, aged between four and five, participated in this study. Delay of gratification was measured with Marshmallow Test, whereas self-regulation skills were assessed with Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the variables that predict the delay of gratification. The results indicated that self-regulation, particularly in terms of impulse control and effortful control, affects the delay of gratification, and that gender is not a determining factor in the delay of gratification. Besides, children's success, particularly in impulse control and effortful control, was found to increase the delay of gratification. Identifying children with extreme difficulty in the delay of gratification may help to detect those with poor self-regulation skills. Accordingly, various tasks could be designed to improve self-regulation skills in early childhood, and potential problems regarding delay of gratification and self-regulation could be minimized. This is likely to have a positive impact on society as a whole.
Delay of gratification (DofG) refers to an inter-temporal choice phenomenon that is of great interest in many domains, including animal learning, cognitive development, economic decision-making, and executive control. Yet experimental tools for investigating DofG in human adults are almost non-existent, and as a consequence, very little is known regarding the brain basis of core DofG behaviors. Here, we utilize a novel DofG paradigm, adapted for use in neuroimaging contexts, to examine event-related changes in neural activity as healthy young adult participants made repeated choices to continue waiting for a delayed reward, rather than take an immediately available one of lesser value. On DofG trials, choose-to-wait events were associated with increased activation in fronto-parietal and cingulo-opercular regions associated with cognitive control. Activity in the right lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) was also associated with individual variability in task performance and strategy. Fronto-parietal activity was clearly dissociable from that observed in ventromedial PFC, as this latter region exhibited a ramping-up pattern of activity during the waiting period prior to reward delivery. Ventromedial PFC ramping activity dynamics were further selective to DofG trials associated with increased future reward rate, consistent with the involvement of this region in subjective reward valuation that incorporates higher-order task structure. These results provide important initial validation of this experimental paradigm as a useful tool for investigating and isolating unique DofG neural mechanisms, which can now be utilized to study a wide-variety of populations and task factors.
Adolescent girls are a high-risk stratum for the emergence of depression. Previous research has established that depression is associated with blunted responses to rewards. Research using Drift Diffusion Model (DDM) has found that deficits in accumulating reward-based evidence characterize adult depression. However, little is known about how reduced reward sensitivity is reflected in the computational processes involved in reward-based decision-making in late childhood and early adolescent depression.One hundred and sixty-six 8- to 14-year-old girls completed a probabilistic reward-based decision-making task. Participants were instructed to identify which one of two similar visual stimuli were presented, and correct responses were rewarded with unequal probabilities. Analysis using hierarchical DDM quantified rate of evidence accumulation (i.e., drift rate) and starting point. Depression severity was measured using the Children's Depression Inventory.Across all participants, there was a higher drift rate, indicating faster evidence accumulation, for the more frequently rewarded than the less frequently rewarded decision. In addition, the starting point of the evidence accumulation was closer to the more frequently rewarded decision, indicating a starting point bias. Higher depression severity was associated with a slower drift rate for both types of decisions. Higher depression severity was associated with a smaller starting point bias towards the more frequently rewarded decision.The current study uses computational modeling to reveal that late childhood and early adolescent girls with greater depression demonstrate impairments in the reward-related evidence accumulation process.
Does outsourced employees' risk behavior depend more on rationality or emotion in temporary interorganizational project‐based teams? Combining trust‐related research and a time trajectory perspective, this study re‐examines the relationship between trust and outsourced employees' prohibitive voice in interorganizational project‐based teams. Two‐wave survey data were collected from 286 outsourced employees and their supervisors across 52 interorganizational teams in China. Empirical results show that outsourced employees' prohibitive voice depends more on cognition‐based trust than on affect‐based trust. With project execution time increases, the promoting effect of affect‐based trust on prohibitive voice shows an increase, while the impact of cognition‐based trust demonstrated little variation. Moreover, outsourced employees' perceptions of leader‐member exchange (LMX) differentiation mediates the moderating effect of project execution time on the relationship between affect‐based trust and prohibitive voice. However, the mediated moderation effect is not significant for cognition‐based trust. Theoretical and practical implications for project‐based team management are discussed.
A disproportionate amount of research on impulsivity has focused on trait-related aspects rather than state fluctuations. As a result, the relationship between state impulsivity and moment-to-moment behaviour is unclear. Impulsivity is assumed to negatively affect self-control, but an alternative explanation, yet to be tested, could be that changes in state impulsivity and its homeostatic drivers influence the intensity of urges. We tested whether state impulsivity and hunger affected behaviour through a dual-process model, affecting both the experience of various urges, and self-control, using a smartphone-based experience sampling approach. We found that state impulsivity is associated with stronger urges, but we found no evidence of an association with diminished self-control. Being hungry amplifies urges across different types of urges, and both hunger and late hours are negatively related to the likelihood of controlling urges. These findings imply that the influence of hunger is not limited to the food domain, and provide new insight into the role of state impulsivity in daily life.
Impulsivity is an individual difference in decision-making that is a risk factor for a number of health concerns including addiction and obesity. Although impulsivity has a large heritable component, the health concerns associated with impulsivity are not uniformly distributed across society. For example, people from poorer backgrounds are more likely to be overweight, and be dependent on tobacco or alcohol. This suggests that the environmental component of impulsivity might be related to economic circumstances and the availability of resources. This paper provides evidence that children aged 4 to 12 from the most deprived areas in England show greater impulsivity in the form of delay discounting than do children from the least deprived areas. The data are discussed with reference to scarcity-based models of decision-making and to public health inequalities.
The study of motivational psychology has been hampered in the field of education because of the concentration upon learning. Furthermore, much of the research assumes a mechanistic concept of man that is not conducive to progress in this area. A number of research problems are recommended that overcome the motivation‐learning limitation and also assume a more cognitive view of man. The problem areas include the study of intermediate difficulty, intentions, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, stages in achievement behavior, the building of effort structures and learned helplessness, causal attributions for success and failure, long‐term motivational consequences, and achievement strivings among females.
Examined the effects of induced mood on personal standards for performance and judgments of one's performance capabilities, or self-efficacy judgments. Three experiments involving 208 undergraduates were conducted. In Exp 1, standards and self-efficacy judgments were assessed on common social and academic tasks. In Exp 2, these variables were assessed on 2 novel tasks. In both experiments, negative mood induced higher standards for performance. Induced mood had no effect on perceived self-efficacy. Negative mood Ss thus held minimal standards for performance that significantly exceeded the levels of performance they judged they actually could attain. Exp 3 provided support for the hypothesis that negative mood raises standards by lowering evaluations of prospective outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The major metaphorical themes in motivation are reviewed and associated with psychological theories and characteristic research. The history of motivation is construed as reflecting 2 major metaphors: The person is a machine, and the person is Godlike. In addition, a new submetaphor is proposed as directing current thinking in the field: The person is a judge. This comparison supplements the submetaphor guiding attribution theory, namely, the person is a scientist. Both comparisons, the judge and the scientist, are comprised within the more inclusive metaphor of the person as Godlike. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In 4 experiments with 272 preschoolers and 48 1st–3rd graders, Ss controlled the frequency and duration of self-exposure to sets of stimuli during a delay of gratification. The stimuli included the real rewards for which they were waiting, symbolic (picture) versions of those rewards, or irrelevant objects. Previous research had shown that exposure to the real rewards hinders self-imposed delay, but viewing irrelevant stimuli or pictures of the rewards facilitated delay. In the present study, how long Ss viewed each stimulus during the delay was recorded and their verbal viewing preferences were assessed. Preschool Ss spontaneously preferred to view the real rather than the symbolic stimuli, regardless of their relevance to the rewards in the delay contingency, both when the delay was self-imposed and when it was imposed externally. This generalized preference for attending to the "real rewards" rather than to more symbolic representations helps to explain why it is so difficult for young children to tolerate voluntary delay of gratification. By attending to the real rewards, they may make such delay especially frustrative and arousing, thereby defeating their own ability to wait for what they want. In contrast, Ss in Grades 1, 2, and 3 systematically selected effective attentional strategies during delay. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this paper we review recent findings on the disinhibition of dietary restraint Disinhibition induced by preloading depends more upon the perception that the diet has been broken than on actual calorie content of the preload. Disinhibition can also result from emotional distress, with ego-threats more likely than physical fear to disinhibit eating. Low self-esteem dieters are more likely to become disinhibited than are high self-esteem dieters in response to both preloading and distress manipulations. Recent theoretical perspectives on disinhibition are examined and the possible role of self-awareness is highlighted.
The major patterns of self-regulatory failure are reviewed. Underregulation occurs because of deficient standards, inadequate monitoring, or inadequate strength. Misregulation occurs because of false assumptions or misdirected efforts, especially an unwarranted emphasis on emotion. The evidence supports a strength (limited resource) model of self-regulation and suggests that people often acquiesce in losing control. Loss of control of attention, failure of transcendence, and various lapse-activated causes all contribute to regulatory failure.
The study of “metacognition” has become vigorous in recent years, with extensive research exploring the development of children’s knowledge of effective strategies in attention, comprehension, and memory (e.g., Brown, 1980; Flavell & Wellman, 1977). In contrast, the child’s developing understanding of essential strategies for self-regulation — a core aspect of human functioning, basic to virtually all conceptions of personality — has been neglected. Perhaps this neglect reflects the fact that until recently there were few objective criteria against which one could assess the relative efficacy of various strategies for self-control. Studies of the conditions that enhance or impede successful delay of gratification in children (e.g., Miller & Karniol, 1976a, 1976b; Mischel, 1974, 1981b; Toner, 1981; Toner & Smith, 1977; Yates, Lippett, & Yates, 1981) now provide a basis for assessing the child’s developing understanding against objective criteria of efficacy.
