Psychology

Many say that patience is a virtue. The difficulty of the battle against impulsivity varies from person to person. There are many points to consider when self-control is concerned. How long will it take Is it worth it For children, the answers to those questions are shaped mainly by three factors  the situation, personal factors and modeling.

There have been numerous studies conducted regarding situational factors that affect self-control. For the experiments done by Grosch and Neuringer, it was apparent that as reinforcements are visible, it would be more difficult to have self control. Mischel, Ebbesen and Zeiss on the other hand showed that as long as a child is kept occupied by something else, it would be easier for the child to wait for the preferred or latter reinforcer (as cited in Mazur, 2006, p. 344).

However, despite the trend in situational factors, there are still those children who are able to wait while others could not. This is where Mischels work pointing to personal factors comes to play. According to Mischel, the inclination to wait is related to age, IQ and presence of father at home with mother along with other factors (as cited in Mazur, 2006, p.344). Positive marks with these aspects mean better self-control.

As for modeling, Mischel also showed how observational learning impacts self-control. His experiments composed of an adult as an example to a child either preferring the quicker or delayed reinforcement. Mischel discovered that the adult models behavior greatly influenced the childrens behavior (as cited in Mazur, 2006, p.344).

There are many factors shaping self-control for children. These factors all fall under situational factors, personal factors or modeling. Though the aforementioned concentrated on findings on children, how they were shaped holds true to our ability for self-control.