Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later

Delayed gratification refers to the ability to wait over a period of time to receive a desired outcome. Given a choice between $10 today and $11 tomorrow, many people would opt for the immediately available reward.1 In an experiment with preschool children four decades ago, Mischel and colleagues2 offered one piece of the preferred confectionary (e.g. a cookie) whenever the child wanted to eat it. However, the participants in that study were informed that if they could wait until the experimenter would return back (which could be up to 15 minutes), then they could have two pieces of the confectionary. Inter- individual differences were measured by the time for which the child could actually wait before giving in for the immediate, alluring reward.