Reflection Paper
Reflection Paper
The Marshmallow test that was first administered by Mischel in the 1960s and it focused on testing delayed gratification among children (Ebbesen 1972). The children were taken to a room without any form of distractions except a table with marshmallows. The researcher presented the children with a choice of eating the marshmallows whenever they felt the urge to eat or wait (delay gratification) until the adult instructing them returns to the room to reward them with two marshmallows. The researcher was keen on creating an intense psychological conflict in the children. The children spent fifteen minutes in the room grappling with the choice of delayed marshmallow reward and that of an instant marshmallow gratification. The experiment was widely centered on the children’s ability to control their impulses (Ebbesen 1972).
My perspective about delaying gratification has been influenced by Michel’s observation that children who succeeded in controlling their impulses used creative ways of distracting themselves from the temptation of instant gratification. The creative strategies of delaying their gratification included turning around in the chair, turning their backs on the marshmallows, or singing. The displayed strategies of delaying gratification would have a significant effect on the children for decades. The process of delaying gratification has two important parts. The first one begins with the choosing to delay gratification because of preferred delayed outcomes or rewards (Ebbesen 1972). The second one focuses on the distractions that help in the realization of the delayed gratification.
Ideally, the lessons about delayed gratification will be useful in future parenting duties. I now understand that children are capable of delaying their gratification if they preferred larger or better outcomes related to the delay. Creative distractions that are useful in achieving delayed gratification involve finding ways of shifting one’s attention elsewhere with the help of cognitive distractions.
Effortful Control
Effortful control is a concept that is concerned with a person’s ability to suppress a dominant response with the primary aim of performing a subdominant response. Furthermore, it encompasses one’s ability to inhibit a dominant response while activating a subdominant one as well as the ability to plan and prevent errors (Harlan, 2000). It also includes an individual’s ability to manage attention in a voluntary manner and activate or inhibit a behavior that one requires to change. For example, it encompasses a child’s abilities to be quiet in class or to pay attention, even when they are in an environment with distractions. It also includes the ability to compel oneself to perform a necessary yet unpleasant task.
My opinion about effortful control has changed in the sense that I now know that environmental influences and biological factors play a significant and crucial role in shaping the differences in individuals’ effortful control. Once a child is born, environmental factors influence their effortful control. Research indicates that the executive attention abilities play an important role in effortful control. It encompasses the voluntary control of one’s feelings, thoughts and the resolution of conflict regarding correcting errors, discrepant information, and the planning of new actions (Harlan, 2000).
In future, I will use the lessons that I have learned about effortful control to handle my children, especially in their early childhood. The pre-school and toddler years are dependent on a child’s temperament; however, effortful control starts emerging and supports the emergence of self-regulation (Harlan, 2000). Ideally, self-regulation influences the quality a child’s social interactions as well as their ability to learn. As they grow and mature, I will expect my children to self-regulate. I am fully aware that supportive and warm parenting, instead of a directive and cold parenting are likely to yield higher effortful control levels.
Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation encompasses behavioral and emotional processes that enable individuals to influence other people’s feelings and theirs as well (Gross, 2015). Some of the feelings that are largely regulated include moods such as gloomy, calm and emotions such as fear, anger, and disgust. Emotions are brief than the moods, and they are often aimed at a specific thing. People can use multiple strategies in regulating their emotions or influencing other people’s feelings and theirs as well. They can use the strategies to make others or themselves feel worse or better than their current feelings.
My thinking about the topic of emotional regulation has improved because of taking the lessons. I now understand that emotional regulation consists of intrinsic and extrinsic processes that monitor, evaluate, and modify emotional reactions that are necessary for the accomplishment of a person’s goals. It can involve the maintenance or enhancement of emotional arousal as well as subduing or inhibiting it (Gross, 2015).
In future, I will employ the strategies of emotion self-control in the way I deal with my emotions or how I influence other people’s emotions. Moreover, I will appreciate the way external factors that occur through other people’s interventions influence emotional control. For example, the family context affects children’s emotional control. Through the skills that children observe in their parents’ and older siblings and emotional interactions and displays, they acquire and develop their emotional regulation skills (Gross, 2015). In this case, the family serves as the primary learning environment that a child uses in the development of their emotion regulation.
References
Ebbesen, B., Mischel, W. and Zeiss, A. (1972). Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gross, J. (2015). Handbook of Emotion Regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harlan, E., Kochanska, G., and Murray, T (2000). Effortful Control in Early Childhood: Continuity and Change, Antecedents, and Implications for Social Development. Retrieved from doi.apa.org/journals/dev/36/2/220.pdf
