Can’t Resist Temptation? That May Not Be a Bad Thing

Summary: Researchers report what appears to be impulsiveness could be an adaptive strategy.

Source: University of Rochester.

Researchers from the University of Rochester suggest that children raised in poverty may have been mistakenly labeled as “maladapted” for what appears to be a lack of self-control. The new study finds that what looks like selfishness may actually be beneficial behavior that’s based on a child’s environmental context–that is to say, from being raised in a resource-poor environment.

The classic 1970s “marshmallow tests” assessed impulse control in preschoolers. Children were given a choice to take a single marshmallow immediately, or to wait several minutes and earn two of the puffy treats as a reward. Children who displayed an apparent lack of self-control–demonstrated by taking the single treat–were deemed “maladapted.” Follow-up studies identified children who are raised in poverty are far less likely to postpone such sweet temptations than their economically better-off counterparts.

“What looks like impulsiveness may actually be an adaptive strategy–kids who are brought up in homes with limited resources have learned it’s advantageous to seize the moment,” said Melissa Sturge-Apple, associate professor of psychology at the University of Rochester and clinical researcher at Mt. Hope Family Center (MHFC).

Image shows a graph.
Graph shows the moderating role of socioeconomics on associations between vagal tone and children’s delay of gratification. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credit: S. Kirchoff/U.Rochester.

For the new study, Sturge-Apple and her colleagues measured the vagal tone of preschoolers before they participated in reward-based experiments. The vagus nerve streams information from the heart, lungs, stomach, and other organs to the brain. It’s associated with the moderation of moods including fear and anxiety. High vagal tone is a physiological indicator of what we would call “grace under fire”–the body’s ability to slow down heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, which can allow for a thoughtful response.

Previous research in reward-based studies has shown that for children from high-resource households, high vagal tone is predictive of their ability to delay gratification. The higher their vagal tone, the longer these children can delay–they are able to keep calm, wait, and earn additional rewards.

In the Rochester study published in Psychological Science, however, children from low-resource households that have high vagal tone did not demonstrate the same behavior as middle class children. In fact, it was just the opposite. For children living in poverty, the higher their vagal tone, the quicker they decided to take the single treat–M&Ms candies in this case–and not wait despite the promise of more.

“From a normative model of psychology, this result makes no sense. But when we considered what would be the most optimal behavior in a high-risk environment, then this makes complete sense–it’s survival of the quickest,” Sturge-Apple explained. “Context means everything. When all is well and prosperous, kids who are highly attuned to what is going on around them can wait, but when things are scarce and unpredictable, then the question becomes “why wait?”

About this psychology research article

Funding: Jennifer Suor and Patrick Davies from Rochester, Dante Cicchetti of the University of Minnesota, Michael Skibo of Westchester Community College, and Fred Rogosch of Mt. Hope Family Center co-authored the study. The National Institute of Nursing Research and the National Institute of Mental Health supported the research.

Source: Monique Patenaude – University of Rochester
Image Source: This NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to S. Kirchoff/U.Rochester.
Original Research: Abstract for “Vagal Tone and Children’s Delay of Gratification: Differential Sensitivity in Resource-Poor and Resource-Rich Environments” by Melissa L. Sturge-Apple, Jennifer H. Suor, Patrick T. Davies, Dante Cicchetti, Michael A. Skibo, and Fred A. Rogosch in Psychological Science. Published online April 29 2016 doi:10.1177/0956797616640269

Cite This NeuroscienceNews.com Article

[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]University of Rochester. “Can’t Resist Temptation? That May Not Be a Bad Thing.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 24 May 2016.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/psychology-gratification-vagal-tone-4292/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]University of Rochester. (2016, May 24). Can’t Resist Temptation? That May Not Be a Bad Thing. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved May 24, 2016 from https://neurosciencenews.com/psychology-gratification-vagal-tone-4292/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]University of Rochester. “Can’t Resist Temptation? That May Not Be a Bad Thing.” https://neurosciencenews.com/psychology-gratification-vagal-tone-4292/ (accessed May 24, 2016).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]

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Abstract

Vagal Tone and Children’s Delay of Gratification: Differential Sensitivity in Resource-Poor and Resource-Rich Environments

Children from different socioeconomic backgrounds have differing abilities to delay gratification, and impoverished children have the greatest difficulties in doing so. In the present study, we examined the role of vagal tone in predicting the ability to delay gratification in both resource-rich and resource-poor environments. We derived hypotheses from evolutionary models of children’s conditional adaptation to proximal rearing contexts. In Study 1, we tested whether elevated vagal tone was associated with shorter delay of gratification in impoverished children. In Study 2, we compared the relative role of vagal tone across two groups of children, one that had experienced greater impoverishment and one that was relatively middle-class. Results indicated that in resource-rich environments, higher vagal tone was associated with longer delay of gratification. In contrast, high vagal tone in children living in resource-poor environments was associated with reduced delay of gratification. We interpret the results with an eye to evolutionary-developmental models of the function of children’s stress-response system and adaptive behavior across varying contexts of economic risk.

“Vagal Tone and Children’s Delay of Gratification: Differential Sensitivity in Resource-Poor and Resource-Rich Environments” by Melissa L. Sturge-Apple, Jennifer H. Suor, Patrick T. Davies, Dante Cicchetti, Michael A. Skibo, and Fred A. Rogosch in Psychological Science. Published online April 29 2016 doi:10.1177/0956797616640269

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