I just watched an old episode of Sesame Street where Cookie Monster was trying to gain membership to the Cookie Connoisseur’s Club. To do so he had to follow good cookie tasting etiquette, first examining the cookie closely, then smelling it, and finally delicately nibbling it to identify and savor all the flavors. Naturally this was very hard for Cookie Monster and he devises different strategies to try and get through the process without immediately inhaling the cookie. He imagines for example that the cookie is a yo-yo when examining it to minimize the temptation to eat it. He then inhales the scent of an old boot prior to sniffing the cookie to mask its true aroma to again stop him from scarfing down the cookie, but this strategy also fails.
Finally after three failed attempts Cookie Monster is given one last chance to join the Club. His advisor Chris explains to Cookie that if he can just overcome the temptation of devouring the cookie before him, he can become a member of the club and have access to all the cookies he wants for the rest of his life. If he can just resist this one cookie. Cookie Monster thinks about this proposition carefully, imagining a future full of delicious, gourmet cookies, and finally manages the self-control required to gain membership to the Cookie Connoisseur’s Club.
Finally after three failed attempts Cookie Monster is given one last chance to join the Club. His advisor Chris explains to Cookie that if he can just overcome the temptation of devouring the cookie before him, he can become a member of the club and have access to all the cookies he wants for the rest of his life. If he can just resist this one cookie. Cookie Monster thinks about this proposition carefully, imagining a future full of delicious, gourmet cookies, and finally manages the self-control required to gain membership to the Cookie Connoisseur’s Club.
Many Americans are familiar with a famous commercial on TV where children are given the option of eating a marshmallow immediately or waiting and getting additional marshmallows later. The psychologist Walter Mischel showed that the kids who waited for more marshmallows performed better at school 10 years later.
The behavioral characteristic of delaying gratification is what Economists refer to as ‘time preference’, the weight that an individual places on current consumption over future consumption. Decisions involving an ‘inter-temporal choice’, a trade-off between benefits and costs across time, are pervasive in our everyday life. The incapacity to wait or delay gratification has been linked to all kinds of phenomena we observe today:
Obesity and chronic illness which are related to decisions about exercise and diet control;
Addiction to drugs, sugars, alcohol and tobacco;
Conservation and eco-friendly behavior (the immediate cost of separating the food from the plastic versus the future benefit of a cleaner planet);
Savings rates and credit card debt (the mother of all inter-temporal decisions);
Safe sex;
Not surprisingly, Economists and other Social scientists view this characteristic as one of the most important determinants of individual success. Trying to measure time preference is a booming research enterprise in behavioral economics these days--see the related post about my own attempts to do so.
And now thanks to Sesame Street, Cookie Monster and potentially millions of pre-school children are learning about the importance of delayed gratification. Lets start early!
Read about this Sesame Street episode:
http://www.sesamestreet.org/parents/theshow/episodes/get-lost-mr-chips
Watch how Cookie Monster learns to delay gratification:
http://wn.com/sesame_street_get_lost,_mr_chips
The behavioral characteristic of delaying gratification is what Economists refer to as ‘time preference’, the weight that an individual places on current consumption over future consumption. Decisions involving an ‘inter-temporal choice’, a trade-off between benefits and costs across time, are pervasive in our everyday life. The incapacity to wait or delay gratification has been linked to all kinds of phenomena we observe today:
Obesity and chronic illness which are related to decisions about exercise and diet control;
Addiction to drugs, sugars, alcohol and tobacco;
Conservation and eco-friendly behavior (the immediate cost of separating the food from the plastic versus the future benefit of a cleaner planet);
Savings rates and credit card debt (the mother of all inter-temporal decisions);
Safe sex;
Not surprisingly, Economists and other Social scientists view this characteristic as one of the most important determinants of individual success. Trying to measure time preference is a booming research enterprise in behavioral economics these days--see the related post about my own attempts to do so.
And now thanks to Sesame Street, Cookie Monster and potentially millions of pre-school children are learning about the importance of delayed gratification. Lets start early!
Read about this Sesame Street episode:
http://www.sesamestreet.org/parents/theshow/episodes/get-lost-mr-chips
Watch how Cookie Monster learns to delay gratification:
http://wn.com/sesame_street_get_lost,_mr_chips