Cognitive appraisals and transformation in delay behavior

Abstract

Investigated the effects of different cognitive representations of the rewards (outcomes) in a delay of gratification paradigm on children's ability to wait for these rewards. Ss were 60 3-5 yr olds in nursery school. It was found that consummatory (arousing) ideation directed at the relevant (contingent) rewards hindered effective delay. In contrast, cognitive transformations of the rewards which focused on their nonconsummatory qualities and associations significantly facilitated delay behavior more than did comparable ideation about similar rewards irrelevant to the delay contingency. Consummatory ideation focused on rewards irrelevant to the contingency also greatly helped to maintain delay. Theoretical implications for the role of fantasy and cognitive appraisal in self-control are examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Full text

Journal
oj
Personality
and
Social Psychology
197S,
Vol.
31,
No. 2,
254-261
Cognitive
Appraisals
and
Transformations
in
Delay
Behavior
Walter
Mischel
Stanford
University
Nancy
Baker
University
of
California,
San
Diego
The
effects
of
different
cognitive representations
of the
rewards (outcomes)
in
a
delay
of
gratification
paradigm
on
children's
ability
to
wait
for
these
rewards were investigated.
Consummatory
(arousing) ideation directed
at the
relevant (contingent) rewards hindered
effective
delay.
In
contrast, cognitive
transformations
of the
rewards which focused
on
their nonconsummatory
qualities
and
associations significantly facilitated delay behavior more than
did
comparable
ideation about similar rewards irrelevant
to the
delay contingency.
Finally, consummatory ideation
focused
on
rewards irrelevant
to the
contin-
gency also greatly helped
to
maintain delay. Theoretical imph'cations
for the
role
of
fantasy
and
cognitive appraisal
in
self-control were examined.
In
view
of the
central importance
of the
"reinforcement"
concept
in
contemporary
psychology,
it is
surprising that
so
little
is
known
about
how the
mental representation
of
rewards
affects
the
individual's pursuit
of
them. There
is an
enormous discrepancy
be-
tween
the
theoretical
significance
attributed
to
rewards
in the
regulation
of
goal-directed
behavior
and our
lack
of
understanding
of
how
their cognitive representation
by the
subject
influences
his
behavior.
The
present
study
is
part
of a
program
to
explore this
topic
by
focusing
specifically
on how a
per-
son's ideation about
the
contingent rewards
in
a
choice situation
affects
his
ability
to
maintain goal-directed activity until
he
achieves
his
preferred outcomes.
Several experiments have indicated
that
the
capacity
to
sustain
self-imposed
delay
of
gratification
depends
in
part
on the
extent
to
which
the
person avoids cues
that
remind
him
of
the
rewards (outcomes)
that
he
expects
and
wants
but is
prevented
(interrupted,
blocked,
or
delayed)
from
getting
(e.g.,
Mischel
&
Ebbesen, 1970; Mischel, Ebbesen,
&
Zeiss,
1972;
Schack
&
Massari, 1973).
To
increase subjective frustration,
one
would
have
to
focus
cognitively
on the
blocked
goal objects
(e.g.,
by
engaging covertly
in
This study
was
supported
in
part
by
Grant
M
6830
to
Walter Mischel
from
the
National Institutes
of
Mental Health,
U. S.
Public Health Service.
Requests
for
reprints should
be
sent
to
Walter
Mischel,
Department
of
Psychology,
Stanford
Uni-
versity, Stanford, California
94305.
anticipatory goal
responses);
to
decrease
frus-
tration,
one
would have
to
suppress
the
goal
objects
by
avoiding them cognitively.
"Frus-
tration tolerance"
in the
delay paradigm
would
depend
on the
subject's ability
to
sup-
press
his
attention
to the
rewards while
re-
maining
in the
frustrative situation until
he
has
attained
the
goal.
While
this interpretation seems reasonable,
it is
probably incomplete. Indeed, Mischel
and
Moore (1973)
found
that
exposure
to
symbolically presented rewards (slides) dur-
ing the
delay period significantly increased
delay
of
gratification.
This
facilitative
effect
of
exposure
to
slides
of the
rewards
was di-
rectly opposite
to the
earlier
finding
that
visual exposure
to the
rewards themselves
greatly decreased delay time (Mischel
&
Ebbesen, 1970; Mischel
et
al.,
1972).
The
earlier
findings had
been obtained
in
basically
the
same subject population (i.e., preschool
children
in the
same nursery school)
and
from
an
essentially similar delay paradigm.
Nevertheless,
the
Mischel
and
Moore
study
showed
that
exposure
to
slides
of the
relevant
rewards
enhanced delay behavior more than
did
exposure
to
comparable distractions
(slides
of
similar
but
reward-irrelevant
ob-
jects
and
blank slides).
The
critical
difference
between
the
reward-relevant attention manip-
ulations
in the
earlier experiments
and in the
Mischel
and
Moore study
was
that
previously
children
had
been exposed
to the
actual
re-
ward
objects,
but in the
Mischel
and
Moore
experiment
they were exposed
to
symbolically
254