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Research Article

Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later

B. J. Casey, Leah H. Somerville, Ian H. Gotlib, Ozlem Ayduk, Nicholas T. Franklin, Mary K. Askren, John Jonides, Marc G. Berman, Nicole L. Wilson, Theresa Teslovich, Gary Glover, Vivian Zayas, Walter Mischel, and Yuichi Shoda
  1. aSackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10065;
  2. bDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
  3. cDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  4. dDepartment of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109;
  5. eDepartment of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195;
  6. fLucas Imaging Center, Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305;
  7. gDepartment of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853; and
  8. hDepartment of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027

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PNAS first published August 29, 2011; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1108561108
B. J. Casey
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  • For correspondence: bjc2002@med.cornell.edu wm@psych.columbia.edu yshoda@u.washington.edu
Leah H. Somerville
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Ian H. Gotlib
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Ozlem Ayduk
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Nicholas T. Franklin
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Mary K. Askren
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John Jonides
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Marc G. Berman
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Nicole L. Wilson
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Theresa Teslovich
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Gary Glover
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Vivian Zayas
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Walter Mischel
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  • For correspondence: bjc2002@med.cornell.edu wm@psych.columbia.edu yshoda@u.washington.edu
Yuichi Shoda
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  • For correspondence: bjc2002@med.cornell.edu wm@psych.columbia.edu yshoda@u.washington.edu
  1. Edited* by Michael Posner, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, and approved July 26, 2011 (received for review May 27, 2011)

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Abstract

We examined the neural basis of self-regulation in individuals from a cohort of preschoolers who performed the delay-of-gratification task 4 decades ago. Nearly 60 individuals, now in their mid-forties, were tested on “hot” and “cool” versions of a go/nogo task to assess whether delay of gratification in childhood predicts impulse control abilities and sensitivity to alluring cues (happy faces). Individuals who were less able to delay gratification in preschool and consistently showed low self-control abilities in their twenties and thirties performed more poorly than did high delayers when having to suppress a response to a happy face but not to a neutral or fearful face. This finding suggests that sensitivity to environmental hot cues plays a significant role in individuals’ ability to suppress actions toward such stimuli. A subset of these participants (n = 26) underwent functional imaging for the first time to test for biased recruitment of frontostriatal circuitry when required to suppress responses to alluring cues. Whereas the prefrontal cortex differentiated between nogo and go trials to a greater extent in high delayers, the ventral striatum showed exaggerated recruitment in low delayers. Thus, resistance to temptation as measured originally by the delay-of-gratification task is a relatively stable individual difference that predicts reliable biases in frontostriatal circuitries that integrate motivational and control processes.

  • reward
  • behavioral suppression
  • functional MRI
  • inferior frontal gyrus
  • longitudinal

Footnotes

  • 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: bjc2002{at}med.cornell.edu, wm{at}psych.columbia.edu, or yshoda{at}u.washington.edu.
  • Author contributions: B.J.C., O.A., J.J., M.G.B., N.L.W., G.G., V.Z., W.M., and Y.S. designed research; I.H.G., O.A., M.K.A., J.J., M.G.B., N.L.W., W.M., and Y.S. performed research; B.J.C., N.L.W., T.T., G.G., V.Z., W.M., and Y.S. contributed new reagents/experimental tools; B.J.C., L.H.S., N.T.F., N.L.W., T.T., W.M., and Y.S. analyzed data; and B.J.C., L.H.S., I.H.G., O.A., J.J., M.G.B., N.L.W., V.Z., W.M., and Y.S. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • ↵*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

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Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later
B. J. Casey, Leah H. Somerville, Ian H. Gotlib, Ozlem Ayduk, Nicholas T. Franklin, Mary K. Askren, John Jonides, Marc G. Berman, Nicole L. Wilson, Theresa Teslovich, Gary Glover, Vivian Zayas, Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2011, 201108561; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1108561108

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Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later
B. J. Casey, Leah H. Somerville, Ian H. Gotlib, Ozlem Ayduk, Nicholas T. Franklin, Mary K. Askren, John Jonides, Marc G. Berman, Nicole L. Wilson, Theresa Teslovich, Gary Glover, Vivian Zayas, Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2011, 201108561; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1108561108
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