Instant Gratification Vs Delayed Gratification
If you've ever achieved a goal, you'll be familiar with the feeling of gratification. But did you know that these two types of gratification—instant and delayed—have different effects on people's psychology?
Instant gratification is what we get when we get something for nothing. It makes us feel good about ourselves and it puts us in a good mood. However, too much instant gratification might make someone dependent on the feeling and then they will never be satisfied with anything else.
There has been research done on delayed gratification; this type of pleasure has been shown to have better outcomes than instant gratifications, such as higher self-esteem and more success in life.
According to psychologist Ellen Langer, there are three conditions that create both instant and delayed gratification. These conditions are:
"Having an important goal"
"Being in a highly cooperative group"
"Having a realistic assessment of the goal's difficulty"
If you have an important goal, you will work hard to achieve whatever it is you want. People who have achieved their goals also knew that they did something impressive and wonderful for themselves. In other words, its not about the reward of the reward itself; for example: if I am driving on a hot highway and I get a steak, I will not be satisfied because I got it at a "cheap price". I would rather have the reward if I had driven the highway and got a steak.
When you are in a highly cooperative group, your group members will help you to achieve your goals. This is because they know that their everyday lives will be better when you achieve your goals. In other words, when you help someone else succeed, they will help you to succeed later on.
When you have a realistic assessment of the goal's difficulty, it means that if its easy to make something happen, then it will happen when its supposed to; if it is hard to make something happen, then it will take longer for it to happen or not at all. For example: lets say your goal is to do a 10-mile hike in the park. You know that its easy to get a steak from the steakhouse but you also know that it will be far harder to finish the 10-mile hike in one day.
When you achieve an important goal, it gives you "strong self-esteem". Strong self-esteem makes people more likely to succeed because they are more willing to try new things since they were able to achieve their goals. It also improves how we feel about ourselves and how we interact with other people. When you have strong self-esteem, you will have better relationships with other people because they can trust that you will fulfil promises and commitments that you make.
When you achieve an important goal, it will help you to succeed in life. It helps a person to be more open-minded and flexible as well because they understand that achieving important goals will help them to achieve other important goals.
This is a very easy and simple experiment to do with your friends or family. Gather around some people, preferably someone who has achieved a great life change such as becoming homeowners or having children if you would like your results to be relevant for the general population, in order for the experiment to be valid. To begin with have all participants write down their goals on bubble sheets. Then, have the participants trade papers and find out what their partner's goals are. After that, have them write down one goal they could help their partner achieve. Then, ask them why they made the goal in the first place and how can you help your partner to achieve it.
In an experiment done by Dr.Sebastian Leitner, one group of kids was put in a room with a marshmallow for about fifteen minutes. After the time was up, one group of kids was offered a golden marshmallow and the other group of kids was not. The children who were offered a golden marshmallow ate it while the children who were not offered a golden marshmallow did not.
One reason why this experiment is so effective is because kids tend to crave immediate gratification more than self-control. When kids are offered an immediate reward, they prefer that reward over the larger reward later on when they have more self-control.
A different study conducted by Dr.Edward Deci showed thatwhen people are rewarded for their performance after working for something for some period of time, then their performance tends to increase in motivation or sense of purpose.
There is a reason why delayed gratification works better than instant gratification; it is because people who are able to wait longer for rewards tend to have higher self-esteem, better relationships, and more success in the future.
What defines a person's success? It's not the amount of money they made or the number of awards they got; its whether or not they were satisfied with what they achieved. If you can't be satisfied with what you achieve then there will never be anything you can be proud of.
Deci's study showed that people who get rewarded for their performance, means that they will have a better sense of purpose and they will be more likely to be satisfied with what they achieve.
In an experiment done by Dr.Philip Cavanagh and Dr.Joseph Price, an experiment was done in groups of two people. One person would thread a needle, one person would unthread the needle, and both people would watch TV while they were doing the tasks. When it came time to unthread the needle, one group got 5 cents for every minute the needle was threaded while the other group got 1 cent per minute. The group who gets 5 cents per minute spent less time watching TV and more time unthreading the needle, since they wanted to get 5 cents every minute.
In another experiment done by Dr.Philip Cavanagh, a similar experiment was done but with puzzles instead of threading needles. One group of people were paid 1 cent for every puzzle solved while the other group was paid 25 cents per puzzle solved. The group that was paid 25 cents a piece solved more puzzles than the group who got 1 cent every time they solved a puzzle because they wanted to get 25 cents instead of 1 cent for each puzzle they solve.
In the experiments it was shown that people are less likely to impulsively spend money if they are paid for the way they spend their money.
The point of all these experiments is to show that people will choose something more rewarding over an immediate reward just because it is more rewarding.
To summarize, giving out rewards for good behavior will help people make decisions that benefit them in the future. This can be shown with children and adults alike as well as in business. To show this I will use two examples from my life; one from me and one from my best friend who has a very similar way of thinking to me.
When I was a child I was very lazy but after getting older I found myself becoming much more industrious.
Conclusion: Deci's study showed that people will choose something more rewarding over an immediate reward just because it is more rewarding.
In a different experiment done by Dr.Joseph Price, two groups of children were put into a room with a marshmallow. One group of children was offered a chance to watch TV while the other group was not. After the time was up, both groups of children were given one marshmallow to eat. The children who watched TV ate the marshmallow while the ones who did not watch TV did not eat the marshmallow because they had more delayed gratification.
Deci's study showed that people are less likely to impulsively spend money if they are paid for the way they spend their money.