Casey

Question 1

What area ?

Answer 1

Biological

Question 2

Background

Answer 2

Earlier research showed performance on delay gratification task in childhood (Eigsti 2006)

Question 3

Aim of the study

Answer 3

The aim of the study was to build on earlier research to assess whether delay gratification in childhood predicts impulse control abilities when participants are in their 40s (adults)

Question 4

Describe research method

Answer 4

Quasi/natural

IV- whether the participant was a high delayed or low delay we was naturally occurring

DV- performance on the impulse control task

Longitudinal- over 40 years

Question 5

Participants

Answer 5

Exp1 - 59

Exp2 - 26

Question 6

Experiment 1

Answer 6

Cool version- male and female stimuli presented , one sex as go and the other as no go. When it was no go the participant were instructed to withhold their button press

Appeared for 500ms and 1s interval

Hot version- identical to cool, fearful and happy expressions served as stimuli

Tasks were presented using programmed laptop computers sent to participants homes

Question 7

Experiment 2

Answer 7

fMRI was used to examine neural correlates of delay gratification.
Only hot version of the go/no go trials.

Each face presented for 500ms and a jittered interval

Question 8

Key findings

Answer 8

Exp1- 32 high delayers and 27 low delayers
Exp2- 15 high delayers 11 low delayers

The right inferior frontal gyrus was involved in accurately withholding a response

The ventral striatum showed significant difference in recruitment between high and low delayers. This is the reward related region.

Question 9

Conclusions

Answer 9

Resistance to temptation as measured originally by a delay of gratification task is relatively stable individual difference.

Question 10

Research method

Answer 10

+ no ethical issues as IV is naturally occurring and not manipulated.

+ longitudinal. Allows us to see if there are any changes across a life span

• quasi means there’s no cause and effect, result could be due to chance. Not completely scientific
• longitudinal caused lots of £ and time. High rates of attrition (participants may drop out)

Question 11

Validity

Answer 11

+ high internal validity. Controlled procedure

+ criterion validity. Study predicts future outcomes

• population validity. Only a small sample
• lack ecological validity. Artificial task and not how delay gratification is experienced in the real world

Question 12

Reliability

Answer 12

+ standardised procedure. Go/ no go tasks have been shown to be a consistent measure of impulse control

• procedures may have altered as the task for exp1 was sent to participants homes