Delay Discounting - Marshmallow task

The Delay of Gratification task aims to measure self-regulation by presenting the child with the choice between a small reward in the short-term and a larger reward in the long-term. The classic implementation of the Delay of Gratification task is the Marshmallow experiment, in which a child is presented with one marshmallow right now and is instructed that if they manage to wait for the researcher to return before eating it, they will receive multiple marshmallows later on. Multiple implementations of the Delay of Gratification task exist, with different reward types and suitable for different populations.

In L-CID, children were presented with two options: they could either eat one marshmallow immediately or wait for the research assistant to come back and receive an extra marshmallow so that they would have two sweets. The waiting period of 8 minutes started the moment the research assistant left the room.

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Keywords
Constructs
Waves
  • Early Childhood Cohort

  • ECC - T2
  •   C
    4.0 - 6.0 years   From 2015-08-27 to 2016-10-21

  • ECC - T3
  •   C
    5.0 - 7.0 years   From 2016-08-09 to 2017-11-07

    Mode of collection Observation
    Analysis unit Individual
    Instrument name Delay Discounting - Marshmallow task
    Measure name Delay Discounting - Marshmallow task
    References
    You can also access this dataset using the API (see API Docs).