Instant gratification isn’t so smart
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Let’s see, $1,000 right now, cash in your pocket, no questions asked ... or $4,000 guaranteed 10 years from now? What do you do?
Psychologists call it ‘delay discounting,’ the very human inability to resist the temptation to snatch up a smaller reward right here and now in lieu of waiting for a larger reward later. We all do it to some extent, but blowing off future rewards too much is a form of impulsivity, a failure of self-control.
And it’s also a sign of lower intelligence. Psychologists knew of the link between higher intelligence and better self-control, but they didn’t understand why the two are connected. So researchers from Yale University used imaging technology to look at brain activity while people were grappling with the gratification now or later question. Their results appear in the September issue of the journal Psychological Science.
They presented 103 adults with a financial choice: a little money now, or more later. They then gave them a series of tests to assess their intelligence and their level of self-control. Then they slid the subjects into an fMRI, a functional magnetic resonance imager, to watch their brains in action. They found that the people with the greatest activation in a region of the brain called the anterior prefrontal cortex, involved in complex thinking and carrying out correct social behavior, were more likely to wait awhile to get more money.
‘It has been known for some time that intelligence and self-control are related, but we didn’t know why,’ psychologist Noah Shamosh said in a press release. ‘Our study implicates the function of a specific brain structure, the anterior prefrontal cortex, which is one of the last brain structures to fully mature.’
That area of the brain, the authors suggest, may be involved not only in intelligence, but also in dealing with simultaneous goals. Like, perhaps, ‘I want an upgraded cellphone and some shoes and new jeans, and I want them now,’ warring with, ‘I think I might want to go to graduate school in a few years.’ More importantly, understanding the underlying mental relationships between intelligence, self-control and delayed gratification might prove useful in treating people who abuse drugs or gamble or drink too much.
‘“Understanding the factors that support better self-control is relevant to a host of important behaviors, ranging from saving for retirement to maintaining physical and mental health,” the authors conclude.
-- Susan Brink
Illustration credit: Bob Newman / Tribune Media Services