Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Priming pride promotes delay of gratification

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Motivation and Emotion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Distinct positive emotions signal adherence to specific goals: pride signals the successful pursuit of long-term goals, while joy signals the successful pursuit of immediate desires. We propose that when children are primed with a positive emotion, without actually feeling it, they are likely to pursue the goal that evokes it. Because delaying gratification involves resisting an immediate desire for the sake of a long-term goal, we predicted that, when primed with pride, children would delay gratification more often than when primed with joy. We tested 8-year-olds’ ability to delay gratification, using a delay-discounting task. We primed pride/joy by having children either imagine a future emotional event (Experiment 1) or listen to another child’s emotional experience (Experiment 2). As predicted, pride-primed children showed lower delay discounting than children who were primed with joy and the control condition, demonstrating enhanced self-regulation. These results suggest that, from a young age, simply thinking about an emotion without actually experiencing it may cue pursuit of associated goals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. We did not find gender effects in any of the pretests and experiments.

  2. We found no differences in the time participants took to describe future pride and joy events, F < 1, indicating that the emotion conditions were matched in length of interaction with the experimenter and task difficulty. However, participants took longer to describe an emotional event than to count to 30 in the control condition [in Pretest 1: F(2, 75) = 5.26, p = .007, η 2 p = .123; in Experiment 1: F(1, 83) = 40.03, p < .001, η 2 p = .334], possibly because, in the emotional conditions, the experimenter asked participants to elaborate on their stories.

  3. We conducted this experiment several years ago, before power analysis was commonly used to determine the required sample size. G*Power's Sensitivity power analysis for F tests showed that at α = .05, the current sample of 95 participants provided 80% power to detect a minimum effect size of f = .32 (η 2 p = .095).

  4. G*Power's Sensitivity power analysis for F tests showed that at α = .05, the current sample of 99 participants provided 80% power to detect a minimum effect size of f = .32 (η 2 p = .091).

References

  • Aarts, H., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Hassin, R. R. (2004). Goal contagion: Perceiving is for pursuing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(1), 23–27.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ainslie, G. (1992). Picoeconomics: The strategic interaction of successive motivational states within the person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Asbe, M. (2011). The development of temporal discounting among children in relation to sense of time and strategy use (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ayduk, O., Mendoza-Denton, R., Mischel, W., Downey, G., Peake, P. K., & Rodriguez, M. (2000). Regulating the interpersonal self: Strategic self-regulation for coping with rejection sensitivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 776–792.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M., Lee-Chai, A., Barndollar, K., & Trötschel, R. (2001). The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(6), 1014–1027.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., DeWall, C. N., & Zhang, L. (2007). How emotion shapes behavior: Feedback, anticipation, and reflection, rather than direct causation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 167–203.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, A. (2011). Self-regulation: Brain, cognition, and development. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Best, J. R., & Miller, P. H. (2010). A developmental perspective on executive function. Child Development, 81(6), 1641–1660.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Campos, B., Shiota, M. N., Keltner, D., Gonzaga, G. C., & Goetz, J. L. (2013). What is shared, what is different? Core relational themes and expressive displays of eight positive emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 27(1), 37–52.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, S. M. (2005). Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28(2), 595–616.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1990). Origins and functions of positive and negative affect: A control-process view. Psychological Review, 97(1), 19–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carver, C. S., Sinclair, S., & Johnson, S. L. (2010). Authentic and hubristic pride: Differential relations to aspects of goal regulation, affect, and self-control. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(6), 698–703.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Cemore, J. J., & Herwig, J. E. (2005). Delay of gratification and make-believe play of preschoolers. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 19(3), 251–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Critchfield, T. S., & Kollins, S. H. (2001). Temporal discounting: Basic research and the analysis of socially important behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 34(1), 101–122.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Diamond, A., & Taylor, C. (1996). Development of an aspect of executive control: Development of the abilities to remember what I said and to “Do as I say, not as I do”. Developmental Psychobiology, 29(4), 315–334.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dijksterhuis, A., Chartrand, T. L., & Aarts, H. (2007). Effects of priming and perception on social behavior and goal pursuit. In J. A. Bargh (Ed.), Social psychology and the Uuconscious: The automaticity of higher mental processes (pp. 51–132). New York: Psychology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorfman, A., Eyal, T., & Bereby-Meyer, Y. (2014). Proud to cooperate: The consideration of pride promotes cooperation in a social dilemma. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 105–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eyal, T., & Fishbach, A. (2010). Do global and local systems feel different? Psychological Inquiry, 21(3), 213–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frith, U., & Frith, C. D. (2003). Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 358(1431), 459–473.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Fry, P. S. (1975). Affect and resistance to temptation. Developmental Psychology, 11(4), 466–472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gable, P. A., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2008). Approach-motivated positive affect reduces breadth of attention. Psychological Science, 19(5), 476–482.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Giner-Sorolla, R. (2001). Guilty pleasures and grim necessities: Affective attitudes in dilemmas of self-control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(2), 206–221.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Goh, J. X., Hall, J. A., & Rosenthal, R. (2016). Mini meta-analysis of your own studies: Some arguments on why and a primer on how. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10(10), 535–549.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Göllner, L. M., Ballhausen, N., Kliegel, M., & Forstmeier, S. (2018). Delay of gratification, delay discounting and their associations with age, episodic future thinking, and future time perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 2304.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Griskevicius, V., Shiota, M. N., & Nowlis, S. M. (2010). The many shades of rose-colored glasses: An evolutionary approach to the influence of different positive emotions. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 238–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallett, P. E. (1978). Primary and secondary saccades to goals defined by instructions. Vision Research, 18(10), 1279–1296.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, A. F., & Preacher, K. J. (2014). Statistical mediation analysis with a multicategorical independent variable. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 67(3), 451–470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hernández, M. M., Eisenberg, N., Valiente, C., Spinrad, T. L., VanSchyndel, S. K., Diaz, A., et al. (2015). Observed emotion frequency versus intensity as predictors of socioemotional maladjustment. Emotion, 15(6), 699–704.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319–340.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ho, S. Y., Tong, E. M., & Jia, L. (2016). Authentic and hubristic pride: Differential effects on delay of gratification. Emotion, 16(8), 1147–1156.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Imuta, K., Hayne, H., & Scarf, D. (2014). I want it all and I want it now: Delay of gratification in preschool children. Developmental Psychobiology, 56(7), 1541–1552.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • JASP Team. (2019). JASP(Version 0.9.2) [Computer software].

  • Jarosz, A. F., & Wiley, J. (2014). What are the odds? A practical guide to computing and reporting Bayes factors. The Journal of Problem Solving, 7(1), 2–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karniol, R., Galili, L., Shtilerman, D., Naim, R., Stern, K., Manjoch, H., & Silverman, R. (2011). Why superman can wait: Cognitive self-transformation in the delay of gratification paradigm. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 40(2), 307–317.‏

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karsh, N., & Eyal, T. (2015). How the consideration of positive emotions influences persuasion: The differential effect of pride versus joy. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 28(1), 27–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katzir, M., Eyal, T., Meiran, N., & Kessler, Y. (2010). Imagined positive emotions and inhibitory control: The differentiated effect of pride versus happiness. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(5), 1314–1320.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Katzir, M., Ori, B., Eyal, T., & Meiran, N. (2015). Go with the flow: How the consideration of joy versus pride influences automaticity. Acta Psychologica, 155, 57–66.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kleiman, T., & Hassin, R. R. (2011). Non-conscious goal conflicts. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(3), 521–532.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kornilaki, E. N., & Chlouverakis, G. (2004). The situational antecedents of pride and happiness: Developmental and domain differences. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22(4), 605–619.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and Adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levine, L. J. (1995). Young children’s understanding of the causes of anger and sadness. Child Development, 66(3), 697–709.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, E. D., & Palmquist, C. M. (2013). The impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), 1–34.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Macrae, C. N., & Johnston, L. (1998). Help, I need somebody: Automatic action and inaction. Social Cognition, 16(4), 400–417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marco, R., Miranda, A., Schlotz, W., Melia, A., Mulligan, A., Müller, U., et al. (2009). Delay and reward choice in ADHD: An experimental test of the role of delay aversion. Neuropsychology, 23(3), 367–380.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W., & Baker, N. (1975). Cognitive appraisals and transformations in delay behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(2), 254–261.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W., & Metzner, R. (1962). Preference for delayed reward as a function of age, intelligence, and length of delay interval. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 64(6), 425–431.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. I. (1989). Delay of gratification in children. Science, 244(4907), 933–938.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41(1), 49–100.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, B. S., Clyburn, A., & Underwood, B. (1976). The role of affect in delay of gratification. Child Development, 47(1), 273–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moretti, M. M., & Higgins, E. T. (1999). Own versus other standpoints in self-regulation: Developmental antecedents and functional consequences. Review of General Psychology, 3(3), 188–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oveis, C., Horberg, E. J., & Keltner, D. (2010). Compassion, pride, and social intuitions of self-other similarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(4), 618–630.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Quintana, D. S., & Williams, D. R. (2018). Bayesian alternatives for common null-hypothesis significance tests in psychiatry: A non-technical guide using JASP. BMC Psychiatry, 18(1), 178.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Rachlin, H. (1989). Judgment, decision, and choice: A cognitive/behavioral synthesis. New York: Freeman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rachlin, H. (2000). The science of self-control. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raffaelli, M., Crockett, L. J., & Shen, Y. L. (2005). Developmental stability and change in self-regulation from childhood to adolescence. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 166(1), 54–76.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, B., & Schiffbauer, R. (2004). Measuring state changes in human delay discounting: An experiential discounting task. Behavioural Processes, 67(3), 343–356.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, B., & Schiffbauer, R. (2005). Delay of gratification and delay discounting: A unifying feedback model of delay-related impulsive behavior. The Psychological Record, 55(3), 439–460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheres, A., Tontsch, C., Thoeny, A. L., & Sumiya, M. (2014). Temporal reward discounting in children, adolescents, and emerging adults during an experiential task. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 711.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Schlam, T. R., Wilson, N. L., Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Ayduk, O. (2013). Preschoolers’ delay of gratification predicts their body mass 30 years later. The Journal of Pediatrics, 162(1), 90–93.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shaver, P., Schwartz, J., Kirson, D., & O’Connor, C. (1987). Emotion knowledge: Further explorations of a prototype. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(6), 1061–1086.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shimoni, E., Asbe, M., Eyal, T., & Berger, A. (2016). Too proud to regulate: The differential effect of pride versus joy on children’s ability to delay gratification. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 141, 275–282.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shiota, M. N., Campos, B., Oveis, C., Hertenstein, M. J., Simon-Thomas, E., & Keltner, D. (2017). Beyond happiness: Building a science of discrete positive emotions. American Psychologist, 72(7), 617–643.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology, 26(6), 978–986.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suddendorf, T., & Redshaw, J. (2013). The development of mental scenario building and episodic foresight. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1296(1), 135–153.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, K., Zaitchik, D., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (1994). Preschoolers can attribute second-order beliefs. Developmental Psychology, 30(3), 395–402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. J. (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345–372.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Tracy, J. L., Robins, R. W., & Lagattuta, K. H. (2005). Can children recognize pride? Emotion, 5(3), 251–257.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • White, R. E., Prager, E. O., Schaefer, C., Kross, E., Duckworth, A. L., & Carlson, S. M. (2017). The “Batman Effect”: Improving perseverance in young children. Child Development, 88(5), 1563–1571.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wilcox, K., Kramer, T., & Sen, S. (2011). Indulgence or self-control: A dual process model of the effect of incidental pride on indulgent choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(1), 151–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, L. A., & DeSteno, D. (2008). Pride and perseverance: The motivational role of pride. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(6), 1007–1017.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Zemack-Rugar, Y., Bettman, J. R., & Fitzsimons, G. J. (2007). The effects of nonconsciously priming emotion concepts on behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(6), 927–939.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This study was supported by Israel Science Foundation Grant #696-15 awarded to T. Eyal.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

    Einav Shimoni, Andrea Berger & Tal Eyal

Authors
  1. Einav Shimoni
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andrea Berger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tal Eyal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Einav Shimoni.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix

Appendix

Pride story: High-grade

Last week, I got 95 on a test, a grade that last year I could not even have dreamed of. I felt good for getting such a high grade. When the teacher handed me the test with the score, she told me she was proud of me, and I was also really proud of myself for having succeeded in this test. Later, when I told my mother about it, she told me, “Well done,” kissed me, and gave me all kinds of surprises. So, it was really good to study well and get a high score on the test.

Pride story: Helping

One day I helped a kid who was new in our class and still did not know any other children. I saw that he was sitting alone because he had nothing to do during the break, so I invited him to my game and we played “catch” together. I thought that helping someone was a kind act. I felt good that I had helped him. At home, my mother told me, “You are a very responsible kid,” and she was proud of me, so I was also proud of myself. I thought that if I helped other people, she would tell me good things, and also that when you help someone, he feels good and so you do.

Joy story: Gift

Last Saturday, my mother bought me a new bike that I had wanted for a long time. When my mother told me that she bought me a present and that the present was the bike, I was really excited and thought about how much fun I would have. Then, she gave me the gift and I opened it and felt happy. It was really fun to get the present from my mother, and I was happy to ride on the street on my bike. It is very joyful to get gifts and especially fun to receive something that I really wanted.

Joy story: Amusement park

Some time ago, when we had a break from school, I went with my family for a fun day and it was really joyful. We did all sorts of fun things that day, such as going to the amusement park. At the amusement park, we played and got on a rollercoaster that was really cool. There was also a really long slide, so we slid down on it, and I really enjoyed it because it was really slippery. I enjoyed getting on all the rides, spending time with my family, and making fun of my parents and my brothers. I was really happy.

Control story

Every morning, my mother comes to my room and wakes me up. After I wake up, I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. Then, I get dressed: I wear pants and a school shirt, which is a shirt with my school logo on it. Then, I go to the kitchen and eat a bowl of cereal with milk for breakfast. When I finish, I take the sandwich that was prepared for me and my bottle of water and put them in the bag, and then I put on my shoes, say “bye,” and go to school.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Shimoni, E., Berger, A. & Eyal, T. Priming pride promotes delay of gratification. Motiv Emot 43, 786–802 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-019-09778-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-019-09778-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation