Effort Training Increases Generalized Self-Control

The self-control required to choose the larger of two available rewards usually commits a person to expend more effort than does the choice of the smaller reward. We investigated children's receipt of reward for low effort versus high effort as a possible cause of individual differences in the general tendency toward self-control. Baseline self-control in preadolescent children was measured by means of repeated choices between copying nonsense words for high pay versus waiting the equivalent duration for low pay. Next, the children were paid for high effort in tasks involving object counting, picture memory, and shape matching, were paid the same amount of money for low effort in these tasks, or did not undergo effort training. The children who were rewarded for high effort subsequently showed greater self-control in the copying task than did the low-effort group or the no-training control group. Individual differences in generalized self-control may depend on the previous degree and range of effort training.