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THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTIVE CHOICE IN A SELF‐CONTROL PARADIGM
Author(s) -
SonugaBarke Edmund J. S.,
Lea Stephen E. G.,
Webley Paul
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1989.51-77
Subject(s) - preference , reinforcement , psychology , self control , control (management) , developmental psychology , adaptive behavior , security token , interval (graph theory) , cognitive psychology , social psychology , computer science , statistics , artificial intelligence , mathematics , computer security , combinatorics
Sixteen girls (ages 4, 6, 9, and 12) performed on concurrent‐chain schedules of reinforcement. The initial links were variable‐interval 10‐s schedules, and the terminal links offered a long delay (20, 30, 40, or 50 s) followed by two tokens or a short delay (10 s) followed by one token. Tokens were used to buy toys and sweets. The effect of increasing the delay to the large reward differed significantly across age groups. Whereas 6‐ and 9‐year‐olds maintained a strong preference for the larger, more delayed reward under all delay conditions, half of the 4‐year‐olds and all the 12‐year‐olds showed increasing preference for the small reward as the delay to the large reward increased. The results suggest a two‐stage account of the development of self‐control. In the first stage, behavior is increasingly controlled by reward size, as children learn how to wait for delayed rewards, and in the second phase behavior is increasingly controlled by reward rate, as children learn when it is in fact profitable to wait.