An Experiment Study In Self-imposed Delay Of Gratification Of Children Aged From 3 To 5

Delay of gratification is a manifestation of self-control, that means an individual gives up instant gratification (small reward) in order to get delayed reward (large reward), and it is self-control ability that needs patience and efforts. After Walter Mischel, a social cognitive scientist who did a series of "delay of gratification" experiments, the research of delay of gratification has become a hot issue in the field of psychology. Form different dimensions of the phenomenon, many psychologists and sociologists take different research methods to study deeply on delay of gratification. Now, the research of domestic self-imposed delay of gratification is mainly on the individual inherent cognitive factors, compare with the former, study of self-imposed delay of gratification on social factors of the phenomenon is less.Studing from the external situational factors and following the experimental paradigm of Mischel and Bandura, this paper adopts the experimental research of 3-year-old to 5-year-old of 300 pre-school children, with half of whom are men, others are women.We analysis the influnces of children's self-imposed delay of gratification of waiting under the contexts of specific environmental contexts which is modle situation and peer situation, and discusses the influnce to the capacity of the self-imposed delay under different external contexts. We hope it can provide a useful reference to the improvement of domestic early childhood education. The results suggest that the mean delay time of young children's self-imposed delay of gratification was the longest when children exposured to child models,and there are significant difference between three groups. In addition, the results also suggest that the mean delay time of young children's self-imposed delay of gratification was the shortest when children refused by parterns, and the development of self-imposed delay of gratification has significant difference among 3 to 5 years old children.The research advices that the educators and parents of childhood can upgrade children's self-control ability and cultivate their good habits by culturing the children's self-delay ability, to the purpose of lay a good foundation of their life, study and work in the future.