Does the human behaviour known as delay of gratification depend on gender, age, and ability?

[deleted-330450]

The annual science fair is about to begin in my school and am confused. My SF question is: Does the human behavior known as delay of gratification depend on gender, age, and ability? Is this question good? Also how can I test the results for this questions. The SF will end in March however I wanted to get a head start. Please guide me in how I should present and form this project. I am studying in 7th grade right now.

Please tell me ASAP. You can also contact me through my email: [email protected]

Thanks!!

[SciB]

Hi,

All posts have to be done on the Scibuddies platform--no private emails. That's the rule.

Delayed gratification (DG) is an interesting subject for a science project. I think there are at least two ways to test peoples' DG score. You could make a questionnaire for them to fill out that would show their willingness to delay something for a certain reason. I don't know what questions you would ask to test this. You would have to do some reading about psychological testing.

The other way to test DG would be like what is done on the TV show Brain Games. Here again, I don't know the best way to do this. You could offer people two movie tickets and tell them they could have the tickets now or they could enter a lottery to win a gift card good for $20 which they would receive in a week along with the tickets. If their name is not drawn then they would lose the tickets. I don't know if this is exactly DG. Having to be in a lottery means there's a risk of getting nothing. If you think about examples of DG in real life, though, there usually is some risk that the delayed gratification will never materialize.

Let me know if this is helpful. We can try to help you design a test for DG if you decide how you want to test it. I think your idea to test different age groups or different genders is a good one.

Sybee