Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder.
Psychol Sci. 2018 May;29(5):738-748. doi: 10.1177/0956797617747367. Epub 2018 Apr 6.
Self-control emerges in a rich sociocultural context. Do group norms around self-control influence the degree to which children use it? We tested this possibility by assigning 3- to 5-year-old children to a group and manipulating their beliefs about in-group and out-group behavior on the classic marshmallow task. Across two experiments, children waited longer for two marshmallows when they believed that their in-group waited and their out-group did not, compared with children who believed that their in-group did not wait and their out-group did. Group behavior influenced children to wait more, not less, as indicated by comparisons with children in a control condition who were assigned to a group but received no information about either groups' delay behavior (Experiment 1). Children also subsequently valued delaying gratification more if their in-group waited and their out-group did not (Experiment 2). Childhood self-control behavior and related developmental outcomes may be shaped by group norms around self-control, which may be an optimal target for interventions.
自我控制是在丰富的社会文化环境中产生的。群体规范是否会影响儿童自我控制的使用程度？我们通过在经典的棉花糖任务中分配 3 至 5 岁的儿童到一个群体，并操纵他们对群体内和群体外行为的信念来检验这种可能性。在两项实验中，与那些认为自己的群体没有等待而自己的群体没有等待的孩子相比，当孩子们相信自己的群体等待而自己的群体没有等待时，他们会等待更长时间才能得到两个棉花糖。群体行为促使孩子们等待的时间更长，而不是更短，这与在对照组中被分配到一个群体但没有收到关于任何群体延迟行为的信息的孩子进行比较（实验 1）。如果他们的群体等待而他们的群体没有等待，孩子们也会更重视延迟满足（实验 2）。儿童自我控制行为和相关的发展结果可能会受到自我控制群体规范的影响，这可能是干预的最佳目标。
