Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

Anyone that has ever taken a tired, hungry two-year old on a ‘quick trip’ to the store, knows that there is absolutely nothing simple about delayed gratification. In all fairness to that child, it is hard to wait for things. Most of us adults are willing to wait a little bit in order to get a better pay off, but we aren’t all that good at it.

Sure, our prisons are populated with people that exhibit poor impulse control, or that just can’t seem to wait to get what they want, but those of us not in trouble with the law can’t exactly point fingers. How many of us eat that cookie now, even though the reward we want is to lose weight?

For the first time, scientists have actually proven which areas of the brain control delayed gratification decisions. It should come as no surprise that one of these, the nucleus accumbens, is responsible for the feeling of pleasure. The other, interestingly enough, is the hippocampus, which is associated with the formation of memories.

So let’s go back to that two year old. He’s hungry and tired, both of which are legitimate biological needs. There is food all around him, so he reaches for it only to be told he’ll “have to wait until it is paid for”. Behavioral studies indicate that even in adults, there is a limit to how long the adult is willing to wait for their reward (duh), and that depends partly on the size of the reward they think they will receive (another duh, I know). What should be obvious, but maybe we forget, is that the entire reason you are willing to wait is that you are sure you will receive the promised reward.

How can you be sure? You remember similar situations playing out in the past. Therefore, the more often the situation plays out to your benefit for waiting, the more readily you are willing to wait, and the longer you will wait. That two year old has an extremely limited amount of experience on which to draw. How often has he been in a similar situation? Hopefully not that often, as most parents strive to avoid leaving their children tired and hungry, the upshot of this is that while you’ve told him he’ll get what he needs, he has no memory of it working out well.

All he knows is he’s hungry, there’s food, and you aren’t giving it to him. Before you think this is a ‘shame on you’ article, let me point out that once his needs are met, this will become a positive memory for him. At the moment he’s throwing his tearful tantrum, not so much, but the key is that his needs were met, even though it took some time to do so.

So what about those that didn’t receive what they needed? The ones for whom the needs never got met, or only rarely? They struggle even into adulthood with the inability to defer gratification. While this is expressed in many ways, addiction, theft, and difficulty staying employed are often results.

Researchers have demonstrated with rats that effectively severing the connection between the hippocampus and the nucleus accumbens causes rats to lose their ability to choose to delay gratification. It is possible, then, through deliberate conditioning, one might strengthen the memories that people struggling to master their impulse control issues have, effectively rewiring the brain on a small scale to give them the positive childhood experience they missed out on.

Still mostly theory, but an interesting idea for the prevention of addiction in some future world.

Cheers,

Michelle