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Resistance to temptation as a function of the duration of self‐verbalization
Author(s) -
Fry P. S.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1978.tb00251.x
Subject(s) - temptation , covert , psychology , developmental psychology , resistance (ecology) , test (biology) , duration (music) , latency (audio) , audiology , social psychology , medicine , computer science , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , paleontology , art , literature , biology , telecommunications
The study compared the effects of three self‐verbalization procedures on children's responses in a resistance to temptation test. Seventy‐eight children were assigned to self‐verbalization treatments involving overt speech, covert speech and a combination of both. Subsequently they were encouraged to engage in self‐verbalization procedures as modelled by the experimenter. Subjects were categorized as being high or low self‐verbalizers based upon the duration of their self‐verbalization. They were then placed in a resistance to temptation test involving play with a forbidden toy and measures of latency were recorded. As hypothesized, high self‐verbalizers showed higher latency scores than did low self‐verbalizers. The efficacy of using a combination of overt and covert speech in self‐verbalizations was demonstrated. The findings clearly implicate the self‐regulatory and therapeutic role of (a) self‐verbalization; and (b) duration of self‐verbalization. Applications for child development are discussed.