Can the attention training technique turn one marshmallow into two? Improving children's ability to delay gratification
Section snippets
Aims of the present study
Research indicates that children begin to develop inhibitory control between 5 and 6 years of age (Carlson and Moses, 2001, Nelson and Narens, 1994), and therefore the primary aim of this study was to explore whether it is possible to use ATT in young children aged 5–6 years, and whether this impacts on their subsequent ability to delay gratification. It was hypothesised that those children receiving ATT would be better able to delay gratification than those in a no-intervention control
Design
Within this mixed-model design, classrooms of children were randomly allocated as blocks to either the experimental condition (where children received the ATT intervention, described below) or the no-intervention condition (where children received school activities as normal). The same seven-day study protocol was used in each school. Day one (always a Monday) involved the researcher attending school to collect baseline data. Day two to five (always Tuesday to Friday) involved the teacher
Pre-study differences
In the experimental condition there were 31 males and 28 females. In the no-intervention condition there were 27 males and 14 females. Table 1 shows the mean age, months in school and scores for each condition. At T1, children in the ATT condition had been in school longer (M = 5.08) on average, than children in the no-intervention condition (M = 3.71). Children in the ATT condition were on average, slightly younger (M = 5.38 years) than children in the no-intervention condition (M = 5.92
Discussion
This study aimed to test whether Wells' Attention Training Technique (ATT) could improve children's ability to delay gratification. This could be important given that childhood ability to delay gratification has consistently been shown to be a predictor of success and emotional adjustment in adult life. If the ATT creates improvement in this self-regulatory ability, it may have potential to improve longer term personal outcomes.
The primary prediction was that children who had received the ATT
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2021, Cognitive DevelopmentCuriosity as the impulse to know: common behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying curiosity and impulsivity
2020, Current Opinion in Behavioral SciencesCitation Excerpt :Albert Einstein famously said, ‘It’s a wonder that curiosity survives formal education’ [68]. Indeed, many interventions have been developed to train self-regulation and delay of gratification in students [69,70], and a recent study found that children born in the 2000s were better able to delay gratification than were cohorts of children born in the 1980s or 1960s [71]. At the same time, educational policies and pediatric recommendations seek to promote curiosity [72,73], building on empirical evidence for its educational benefits [74,75].
Reducing Test Anxiety in School Settings: A Controlled Pilot Study Examining a Group Format Delivery of the Attention Training Technique Among Adolescent Students
2019, Behavior TherapyCitation Excerpt :The optimal delivery format of ATT remains unclear, with the bulk of existing studies using an individual format delivery of ATT (see Fergus & Bardeen, 2016; Knowles et al., 2016). Both the present results and prior findings (Murray et al., 2016, 2018) offer preliminary support for benefit following group delivery of ATT. Future research should have intervention groups drawn from same-timed class periods, intervention groups that are equally sized, and examine whether the effectiveness of ATT differs based upon individual versus group delivery format.
Integrating metacognition and executive function to enhance young children's perception of and agency in their learning
2020, Early Childhood Research QuarterlyCitation Excerpt :Empirical work is necessary to shed light on this. Beyond these four papers exploring theoretical links between EF and metacognition, only seven published papers empirically examined both EF and metacognition within the same study (Bryce et al., 2015; Chevalier & Blaye, 2016; Geurten, Catale, & Meulemans, 2016; Marulis, Palincsar, Berhenke, & Whitebread, 2016; Murray, Theakston, & Wells, 2016; Roebers et al., 2012; Whitebread, 1999). There is further work with adults, for example Follmer and Sperling (2016) examined the mediating role of metacognition between EF and self-regulated learning.