Casey

Question 1

Define gratification.

Answer 1

A source of pleasure, especially when gained from the satisfaction of a desire.

Question 2

Define low delayer in relation to delaying of gratification.

Answer 2

Struggles to resist temptation and may, instead, act on impulse.

Question 3

Define high delayer in relation to delaying of gratification.

Answer 3

Demonstrate string self control by resisting temptation.

Question 4

What was the background to Casey’s study?

Answer 4

• Mischel’s Marshmallow Test: A large sample of American 4 year olds were told they could have one marshmallow now or, if they could resist eating the first marshmallow for about 15 minutes, they could have two. Those children who were unable to wait and just ate the marshmallow were labelled ‘low delayers’ and those who were able to wait for two marshmallows were labelled ‘high delayers’.

Question 5

What was the aim of Study 1 in Casey’s study?

Answer 5

To find out whether people who had difficulties delaying gratification at the age of four would still have difficulties delaying gratification forty years later.

Question 6

What was the aim of Study 2 in Casey’s study?

Answer 6

To see it there is a brain-based explanation for the ability to delay gratification.

Question 7

What was the independent variable in Casey’s study?

Answer 7

Whether the participants were classified as a ‘low delayer’ or a ‘high delayer’.

Question 8

What were the dependent variables in Casey’s study?

Answer 8

• Scores on the go / no-go tasks.
• Imaging results from the FMRI scanners.

Question 9

What was the sample in Study 1 of Casey’s study?

Answer 9

• 59 people aged 44 years old who had originally taken part in Mischel’s Marshmallow Test.
• Consistently been high or low delayers in their self-report tests in their 20s and 30s.
• 27 low delayers and 32 high delayers.

Question 10

What was the sample in Study 2 of Casey’s study?

Answer 10

• 27 participants from Study 1.
• 11 low delayers and 15 high delayers (data for one participant was removed due to poor task performance).

Question 11

What was the procedure in Study 1 of Casey’s study?

Answer 11

• Participants were tested individually and completed the test on a laptop sent to their home.
• They were told on their screen that there would be a series of faces.
• They were instructed to push a button every time a certain face appeared.
• They were told to complete the task as quickly and as accurately as possible.
• Each face appeared on the screen for 500ms.
• Each participant did four sets of 160 trials of which 2 were ‘cool tasks’ (male and female faces) and 2 were ‘hot tasks’ (happy and fearful faces).

Question 12

What was the procedure in Study 2 of Casey’s study?

Answer 12

• Participants completed the ‘hot tasks’ in an fMRI scanner.
• There were two sets of tasks with 48 trials each.

Question 13

What were the findings from Study 1 of Casey’s study?

Answer 13

The ‘high delayers’ were found to be mush better at resisting pressing the go button when they saw happy faces than the ‘low delayers’.

Question 14

What were the findings from Study 2 of Casey’s study?

Answer 14

When low delayers saw the happy faces they had less activity than the high delayers in their inferior frontal gyrus (which is more active when resisting temptation) and had more activity than the high delayers in their ventral striatum (which is associate with rewards).

Question 15

What were the conclusions made from Casey’s study?

Answer 15

• Resisting temptation is a relatively stable characteristic.
• The ability to delay gratification is made more difficult by alluring cues and is not a general problem with cognitive control.
• They fMRI results provide evidence for the hot and cool processing systems in the brain (the inferior frontal gyrus and the ventral striatum).