Delayed Gratification: Definition, Examples, & Quotes

By Eser Yilmaz, M.S., Ph.D.
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.

What is delayed gratification? Learn about this concept through key studies and examples, and discover its significance for your well-being.

*This page may include affiliate links; that means we earn from qualifying purchases of products.

We all experience the dilemma of whether we should yield to or resist temptation from time to time. For some, it might be the urge to buy a newly released electronic device instead of waiting for a few months, when its price tag will probably be lower. For others, it might be resisting the gooey sweetness of a thick slice of an apple pie at the family holiday dinner while trying to lose a few pounds. Contemplating whether we should or shouldn’t do something may become frustrating, especially if we give in to our desires and consequently feel remorse. 

Why is it so hard for many people to wait for something they want? In this article, we’ll discover what delayed gratification is, discuss critical studies and examples, and find out how we can improve our ability to wait for more rewarding experiences in the future.
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What Is Delayed Gratification? (A Definition)

Delayed gratification is a person’s ability to resist an immediate ‌reward so that they can get a more valuable future reward. In this case, a reward can be defined as anything that brings comfort or pleasure. 

Many people equate delayed gratification with self-control or willpower, as it involves resisting temptations. Delayed gratification indeed requires self-control, yet it also involves a future goal or expectation with a more valuable reward than what we’d get if we gave in to the temptation. Therefore, delayed gratification necessitates imagining oneself in the future. Hence, the more distant or vague the future is, the harder it becomes to resist an immediately available reward for something better that may or may not come true.

So, given the uncertainty of the future, why should we practice delayed gratification? The answer is simple: this ability can help us achieve our long-term goals and increase our well-being. Indeed, people with this ability tend to not only be more cognitively and socially competent but also more successful in the long run (Mischel, Shoda & Rodriguez, 1989).

Instant Gratification vs. Delayed Gratification

We may need to consider our basic impulses, such as pain and pleasure, that motivate our actions to understand delayed gratification. In short, pain and pleasure are opposing sensations that guide our behaviors in many situations. Generally, we try to avoid circumstances that give us pain or discomfort and seek enjoyable‌ behaviors. Therefore, it is only natural that we are drawn to gratification. 

Immediate pleasure and comfort that require little to no effort is referred to as instant gratification. Yet, not all gratification is equal, as some gratification is easily within our reach, and other gratification requires effort and patience. Hence, instant gratification is the temptation against a long-term reward or a goal. 

For instance, when you get home from work, school, or running errands, you might just want to sit on the couch and watch a TV show. Such an action would be comforting in the short term, whereas folding laundry, organizing your closet, doing homework, or exercising might seem unpleasurable, boring, and even painful. However, if you delay the comfort and pleasure of sitting in front of your TV until you are done with these tedious actions, you might be less stressed out when getting dressed in the morning, do better in class, and better maintain your physical health. Moreover, once you finish your chores, chances are you’ll enjoy your well-deserved rest even more. Nevertheless, delaying gratification is easier said than done, so let’s find out what psychology research tells us about this concept.

Delayed Gratification in Psychology ​

The pleasure principle and reality principle
​For psychologists, delayed gratification is nothing new. Freud and other psychoanalysts have explained the ability to give in to or delay pleasure with the pleasure principle and reality principle. More specifically, the pleasure principle is an individual’s drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain to fulfill their physiological and psychological needs (Tester, 2009). On the other hand, the reality principle is the individual’s ability to assess the reality of their external environment to guide their behavior (Tester, 2009). Moreover, Freud also proposed that the pleasure principle is most active in early life and replaced by the reality principle over time (Tester, 2009).

The critical difference between the pleasure and reality principles is that the former governs immediate pleasures, whereas the latter includes future-oriented thinking. In other words, the pleasure principle describes instant gratification, and the reality principle reflects the characteristics of delayed gratification (Tester, 2009). For instance, an individual who acts in accordance with the pleasure principle would be likely to indulge in pleasurable behaviors without thinking about their long-term effects. However, another person who uses the reality principle may consider their future goals before acting.

The hot-and-cool framework
Another framework for instant vs. delayed gratification has emerged toward the end of the 20th century. Known as the hot-and-cool framework, this newer approach describes the interplay of two systems to facilitate or undermine a person’s self-control. In this framework, the “hot” or “go” system represents the emotional, impulsive, and reflexive drives, whereas the “cool” or “know” system represents the strategic, cognitive, and emotionally-neutral drives (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999). In other words, the hot system is associated with satisfying immediate needs and wants, whereas the cool system allows self-regulation of behavior through cognitive processes. We will discuss some key studies on these concepts and their implications next.

Delayed Gratification Studies

Delayed gratification has been studied in various contexts. However, the best-known study on this topic is the Stanford Marshmallow Test conducted by Walter Mischel and his colleagues, laying the groundwork for later experiments about delayed gratification. Let’s find out more about this study.

Delayed Gratification: The Marshmallow Test
About 50 years ago, Walter Mischel decided to explore self-control strategies in young children. So, he or another researcher presented preschoolers with a treat, such as a marshmallow. Hence, this experiment later became known as the marshmallow test. Next, the researcher gave the child a simple choice before leaving the room: Either take the treat now or wait for the researcher to return to receive an additional treat (Mischel & Ebbesen, 1970). 

Some children took the marshmallow before the experimenter came back. Others distracted themselves using various strategies and were able to resist the treat in front of them. When Mischel and his colleagues followed up with their subjects later, they found that the children who were able to practice self-control grew up to be more academically successful than the children who gave in to their temptation (Mischel, Shoda & Rodriguez, 1989). These results indicated that a preschooler’s ability to delay gratification could predict their future success. 

Marshmallow Test Follow-up Studies
But are there any factors influencing whether an individual chooses to reach for the treat or wait for the researcher’s return? A set of follow-up studies tested such factors. 

In one experiment, researchers tested whether the experiment reliability influenced the child’s decision. Therefore, the researchers tested the preschoolers twice in a row. In the first test, half of the children that decided to wait received the additional treat, but the other half did not. Hence, the children who were denied the additional marshmallow were less likely to wait for the researcher in the second round of the experiment (Kidd, Palmeri & Aslin, 2013). In other words, when the children stopped trusting the researcher, they chose instant gratification. 

In another experiment, researchers wanted to know whether knowing the duration of the experimenter’s absence was a factor. Therefore, they told half of their adult subjects when the experimenter would return, whereas the other half were just simply told to wait. Not surprisingly, the subjects in the second group were less likely to wait for the experimenter’s return (McGuire & Kable, 2012).  

Have you ever gone to the grocery store with an empty stomach and bought much more food than intended? Another study tested whether a person’s visceral state (i.e., their level of hunger, sleepiness, sexual arousal, etc.) influenced their responses to temptations. The results of this study showed that when subjects were in a “hot” visceral state, such as when they were hungry, they were more likely to give in to temptations than subjects in a “cool” visceral state (Nordgren & Chou, 2011). Therefore, an individual's decision can depend on whether their basic needs have been satisfied beforehand.  

If you want to find out more about the marshmallow test, the other studies influenced by it, and the current view on its findings, you may enjoy the following video.

Video: Delayed Gratification & The Marshmallow Test ​

Examples of Delayed Gratification

There are numerous everyday examples of delayed gratification. Here are some that you might have witnessed or even done yourself.

• Pooja declines her friends’ offer to go to a party. Instead, she spends her evening studying for her finals. As a result, she does very well in her exams, and her grade point average earns her a spot on the Dean’s List.
  
• Jake transfers about 20 percent of his paycheck into his savings account every month. After a few years, he has enough money to quit his job and start his own business. 
  
• Susan resists scrolling through her social media feed in the evenings and chooses to read instead. After a few months, she notices she behaves less anxious and uses a broader range of vocabulary. 
  
• Jin feels tired and wants to play the new video game he bought last week. Nonetheless,  he goes for a half-hour run before grabbing the game controller. Because Jin runs regularly, he maintains his physical health.
  
• Recently, Martina’s doctor told her that she’s prediabetic. Martina stays away from the dessert table at the office potluck and selects the healthiest food options to stop her condition from progressing to type 2 diabetes.
  

Delayed Gratification Benefits

We have already discussed that a person’s delayed gratification ability may mean they are less likely to give in to temporary temptations that stand in the way to their future life goals. Here are some of the benefits of this ability.

• Maintaining physical health: People who can delay gratification are more likely to resist unhealthy temptations and take better care of their bodies. 
• Financial security: Resisting unnecessary expenses may help you save money or invest wisely.
• Academic or career success: Delaying fun until completion of academic and career goals can help you prioritize what matters in your life and improve your academic and career trajectory. 
• Better habits: Consistent ability to resist temptations may help you build better habits. 
• Self-confidence boost: When delayed gratification leads to accomplishing goals, you may feel more confident in your skills in the long run, further increasing your success and life satisfaction.

How to Practice Delayed Gratification

Delayed gratification isn’t always easy to do. We believe the suggestions below can help you increase your ability to resist temptations and practice self-control. 

Take care of your needs before deciding​
Let’s revisit the grocery store example. If you go to the grocery store when you are hungry, chances are that most foods will look irresistible, and you’ll leave the store with more items than you intended to buy in the first place. So, to avoid this situation, you might want to satisfy your hunger before going to the store. When you’re not hungry, you’ll be less likely to buy unnecessary food items.

Make budgets and lists
Making budgets is not only for your bank account. Sure, knowing how much money you can use for which purpose may help you consider whether a purchase makes sense. But you can also create food budgets or physical activity budgets. For instance, you can include a certain amount of treats per week in your food budget. 

Making lists can also help if you are trying to practice self-control. For instance, if you go to the grocery store with a list in your hand, you might be able to visit only the isles where the items on your list are located and leave the store faster. If restricting your shopping experience to your list is too hard, you might use the budget strategy, such as allowing yourself to buy one additional item that wasn’t on the list. That way, you may be able to pick only the most tempting item among many that want to leave the store with you.

Understand waiting times
Waiting can be challenging. It can be even harder if you don’t know how long you need to wait. If the delayed gratification is contingent on another person or institution, you may ask them to give you definitive time frames. If the delivery of the delayed reward depends on your progress with a task, or you determine when you’ll receive the delayed reward, you might consider setting realistic timelines and preparing yourself accordingly.

Think about the future
Imagine how your decision may impact your future when you are tempted to do something. This doesn’t always have to be thinking about your goals. Instead, you can think about whether you’ll be worse off if you don’t resist the temptation. 

Occasionally, I gravitate toward pieces of clothing (or other items) that I don’t need in stores. The prettier and more affordable these items are, the more tempted I feel about purchasing them. In these situations, I ask myself if I would still be thinking about this piece of garment in a week if I didn’t buy it. Then I promise myself that I will come back to that store in a week to buy it if I still desire that item. I’ve yet to return to a store to purchase something this way, as I seem to forget about the presence of these temptations as soon as I step out of the store. 

Make it harder to get
Some temptations are too easy to reach. Assume you have a hard time resisting a delicious bag of potato chips or a tub of ice cream while watching your favorite show. The best way to stay away from these temptations is to make them unavailable most of the time. After all, if you don’t buy the bag of chips, you won’t be able to eat it. 

Here is an informative and entertaining video about practicing self-control.

Video: Self-Control ​

Delayed Gratification Exercises

Are you looking for additional ways to practice self-control? Here are a couple of exercises that can help you. 
​
“Price to pay” exercise​
If you are struggling in your efforts to resist reoccurring temptations, try adding price tags to them. Simply take a piece of paper and write these temptations on the left. Then, come up with a price for giving in to each temptation, preferably to be paid before doing the behavior, and write them on the right. This price doesn’t have to be monetary and can be a chore, a silly behavior, or something else you rather not do. For instance, if you are trying to stay away from donuts, the price of a donut can be singing a nursery rhyme out loud in front of others before eating it. 

Reward swap exercise
This exercise may help you replace unhealthy or undesirable behaviors with better options. Again, you might want to take a piece of paper and write the temptation you’d like to avoid, such as binge-watching TV shows and the adverse effects associated with it. Then, come up with better alternatives that might still entertain you but don’t have the same negative consequences. In this case, these options may be listening to an audiobook, visiting a friend, or working on a puzzle, among others. If you have more than one alternative, it might help you pick the one that suits your mood at the moment of decision.

Delayed Gratification Quotes

• “Years of happiness can be lost in the foolish gratification of a momentary desire for pleasure.” - Ezra Taft Benson
  
• “Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.” - M. Scott Peck
  
• “Great investing requires a lot of delayed gratification.”  - Charlie Munger
  
• “All things come to those who wait.” - Violet Fane
  
• “Our attention spans have been reduced by the immediate gratification provided by smartphones and social media.” - Katherine Ryan
  
• “Entrepreneurship is all about deferred gratification.” - N. R. Narayana Murthy
  
• “My gratification in working comes from the preparation and the building of the character.” - Cicely Tyson
  

Articles Related to Delayed Gratification

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

• Self-Determination: Definition, Theory, & Examples
• Self-Motivation: Definition, Examples, and Tips
• Self Actualization: Definition, Needs, Examples, and Tips​
• Goal Setting: How to Set and Achieve Your Goals

Books Related to Delayed Gratification

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

• The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control Is the Engine of Success
• The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It​
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Final Thoughts on Delayed Gratification

The ability to delay gratification can help us attain our long-term goals and maintain our health. However, with so many temptations around us, it isn’t easy to practice self-control in every case. Luckily, there are several strategies that can help us to boost our ability to resist temptations to increase our future success and well-being.

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References

• Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., & Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126(1), 109-114.
• McGuire, J. T., & Kable, J. W. (2012). Decision makers calibrate behavioral persistence on the basis of time-interval experience. Cognition, 124(2), 216-226.
• Metcalfe, J., & Mischel, W. (1999). A hot/cool-system analysis of delay of gratification: dynamics of willpower. Psychological review, 106(1), 3.
• Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. B. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16(2), 329.
• Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. L. (1989). Delay of gratification in children. Science, 244(4907), 933-938.
• Nordgren, L. F., & Chou, E. Y. (2011). The push and pull of temptation: The bidirectional influence of temptation on self-control. Psychological Science, 22(11), 1386-1390.
• Tester, K. (2009). Pleasure, reality, the novel and pathology. Journal of Anthropological Psychology, 21, 23-6.

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