If I offered you you could get € 100
now and go home,
or go empty,
but you will arrive for example for two weeks and you will get 500.
What would you choose?
Or imagine that you are single
and you could have an average partner now,
or five years of an absolutely ideal partner,
the way you’ve always wanted.
With that, but that for the next 5 years you would be alone.
For people, of course, the more rewarding,
whether it’s 500 EUR or an ideal partner.
But the fact is that much less of us are willing
to wait for these things.
And when and how people gain skills
wait for something they want,
for the first time, decided to examine psychologist Walter Mischel,
who did experiments with young children aged 4-5 years.
He studied what the ability to delay satisfaction is said to be.
This means giving up something that we can now have,
so we can get something bigger or better in the future.
Mischelov’s experiment looked like he gave the kid a candy and told them,
that they may eat it now or wait for it,
until they return to the room and the children get two candies.
Maybe it does not seem like it can be difficult
wait for some sweetness, but remember,
that the two candies are an important result for the two children
and wait for those two candies for 15 minutes, that’s all eternity for a 5 year old baby.
As I said.
Higher rewards are, of course, more appealing.
And even the children, their initial choice is,
that of course they want the two candies.
It is important, however, to delay satisfaction,
that this is not just the initial selection,
but especially about waiting.
And this is often very frustrating.
And just because of that
many people, actually,
while waiting, will change his mind.
He would rather take a lesser reward,
than they should wait.
That’s how one of these experiments looks like.
(Laughter)
Those kids, for example, while waiting
very often, yes,
for example, the candy,
or you make fun of it.
Or, it has often happened that I returned to the room
and the candy was allotted and put back in place.
(Laughter)
So, some kids, of course, have the ability
delay satisfaction
and they could wait for the two candies.
Some children do not.
An interesting result,
or a very important result,
that Mischel and later many more research
on this subject,
that children who can delay satisfaction,
are socially and verbally more competent,
are more attentive, more rational,
have a better ability to plan when they are older,
are less likely to suffer from overweight,
have better school results
and better interpersonal relationships.
On the other hand, children who are unable to delay satisfaction,
they then have worse school results,
have problems with emotion control,
they have, so there are many overweight problems,
and various addictions to harmful and narcotic substances.
It seems to be quite the same
maybe not such a significant ability,
but these consequences, which it has,
they are, I think, we can all recognize, quite big.
And just because of someone studying cognitive science
and developing psychology,
I was interested in this topic
and I was most interested in the question,
whether this ability is possible in children
somehow improve.
Let’s get them some way
could be provided
greater chances for quality living in the future.
This theme, or these questions,
I decided to explore in two locations.
The first was Slovakia
and the other was Vanuatu.
You may know Slovakia,
so let’s talk a little more about Vanuatu.
Vanuatu is a tiny archipelago compound
from some very small, small islands.
There are over 80 there.
There are more than 100 languages spoken on the islands.
It’s not there, on the rough majority of places,
installed electricity or water supply.
People live mostly,
what they get or catch.
There is much widespread fishing.
One of the consequences,
that there is no electricity there,
that people do not have to store surplus foods.
That is why trade exchange works there
or people have time to share it with what they have between them.
As far as school attendance is concerned,
this is mandatory for the first 7 years.
But many children do not go to school.
And it’s not because they did not want to.
It’s just because,
that sometimes the school is so distant,
that they simply do not go away.
And also during the rainy season
going somewhere is either impossible or very complicated.
Vanuatu is a country,
in which people are very much based on traditions
and respect.
They actually live in smaller ones
tribal groups,
which have their own authority.
On the other hand,
not that safely,
but maybe boring, places.
It was just that interesting,
compare these two countries.
Compare a culture like Vanuatu,
where people may not have so much,
they live a little slower life.
It was therefore interesting to look at it,
that whether or not this is their way of life,
this culture,
in some way affects the ability to delay satisfaction.
And back on our other side
called. modern Western culture,
which promotes speed, momentum
and have everything, and best have that much.
Whether you can do this in some way
to influence our ability to delay satisfaction.
And when, like.
Because the ability to delay satisfaction
involves processes such as planning or decision making
or some mental planning of what will be in the future,
so one of our hypotheses was,
that it is related to higher order cognitive functions,
and specifically with executive functions.
Executing features are, for example,
it is also a working memory,
what is a kind of short-term memory,
which currently processes inputs,
whether perceptual or linguistic.
So what you are doing right now,
and what you need to do it,
You have it stored in your working memory.
For example, when playing a game,
so in your working memory are the rules of that game,
are there some of your plans, what are you going to do next,
or what, for example, did your opponent in the meantime.
Furthermore, it is inhibitory.
Inhibitory control is our ability to control impulses or behavior,
which at that time may not be appropriate or beneficial.
So if you, for example, have a terrible desire to tell something to someone now,
whoever sits next to you,
you know how to prevent yourself,
because you know it could interfere
someone around or speakers.
It’s similar to school, but now that you’re older,
it should be easier for you.
Executing features,
it is important to say that they do not work alone.
They complement and support each other.
So when you do something,
it’s not that only one is involved.
A good example of how it works,
is a test designed by Jean Piaget.
In the experiment, the child will show two vessels.
One is low and wide and the other is high and narrow.
The child should then show the container,
in which there is more fluid.
Children aged 4-5 years
you will consistently claim to have more fluids
is in that tall and narrow container,
precisely because the level is higher.
And the reason why you are going to say it is,
that these children have not yet developed exequatur functions.
And so I can not keep up in active memory
keep information that is essential.
Only later when they have executive functions
they will develop sufficiently,
children can pay attention to information,
which is relevant,
I can keep it in my memory
and can prevent it,
so that information that is visually prominent,
that is, the higher the water level, but the wrong one,
have prevented you from giving you the wrong answer.
Exercise functions are related to prefrontal cortex.
That’s the purple.
It is important to say,
that this area of the brain is developing the slowest.
And, therefore, the functions it manages,
for example, executive functions,
develop in humans more slowly.
Although the biggest development leap is around the age of 4-5 years,
Executing features are not developed until early adulthood.
So in some 21 years.
What can be explained by many teenage behaviors,
who simply can not wait for things,
their attention is everywhere possible.
When we collected the data and looked at our results,
so we found that really those executive functions
affect the ability to delay satisfaction.
Another thing we wanted to see,
as I said,
are intercultural differences.
There was one important result,
namely, that there are no differences
we were not found among children in Slovakia and among children in Vanuatu.
So different differences in cognitive architecture,
which sometimes people are trying to present,
are really just a tool,
which often only serves some policies.
The only difference, perhaps, between Slovakia and Vanuatu was,
that Vanuatu was not the easiest one
some experiments to take place.
When I returned to my first respondent,
who did that marshmallow experiment,
and I returned to the room after 15 minutes,
so I found a child sitting there with a melted candy,
around which the ants had begun.
(Laughter)
Because of this I’ve been flying there I do not know how many miles.
This may be part of the work of an antropologue,
that you need to involve some of your knowledge and knowledge from physics and engineering,
to somehow over-design the room,
so that there is a draft and that those sweets do not beat.
But as far as cognitive differences are concerned, there really were none.
So now that we have seen that there are no differences between the two cultures,
and we knew,
that executive functions affect the ability to delay satisfaction,
so we needed to find some way,
how to improve executive functions.
Because executive functions
are a relatively well-researched area in psychology,
so some activities to improve them
were designed.
But activity is not activity.
These activities need to improve performance functions
not demanding fine motoring,
because the child would not have succeeded in these tasks, not because,
that he does not have sufficiently developed executive functions,
but because it has not yet developed a fine motorcycle.
The second condition is that,
that these activities should be feasible
in common environments.
For example, something you can do at home,
something that children can do at school or at school.
So if you already need some special tools,
or special software for example, so it’s something,
which is not readily transferable to a hoc environment.
Another condition is that these activities
they should also improve executive functions that are not directly trained,
and it’s just that,
in fact, what the child learns during this training,
so that it can also be transferred to other environments
and other situations.
The last condition is,
that the most effective are those activities,
which in addition to executive functions
they also train the development of social and character characteristics.
What is an interesting result.
And it is because not only in social interactions,
but by the very expectation of social interaction,
our cognitive processing will change completely
and we pay much more attention to what’s happening.
Our self-control will change completely.
We are much more scrutinized
and watch out for what is happening.
Activities to improve executive functions,
which are executed through different computers
and computer games and software,
are just an example of an activity that is not entirely appropriate.
It’s because the games are nice, colorful and appealing to kids.
But first, you need to do a computer and have to do the software,
which every family or school does not have to afford.
Everything is done individually.
And as I said,
is the difference between individual interaction and social interaction.
And what the children learn during these interventions,
is difficult to convey beyond the context of the game.
On the other side,
was a game developed, such a clumsy game,
when the researcher knocks on a table with a fist
and the child should also lock the fist.
When he snaps his finger, the child should also lock his finger.
And then the rules will change slightly,
that the researcher has a fist, and that the child should lock his finger.
So it’s also anti-intuitive.
And again, when the researcher caps his fingers, the child should lock his fist.
It’s not that easy for adults either.
After all, you can try it out.
So when we get all these results
from previous research,
so we designed activities to improve executive functions,
where we’ve used games that have been used before
to improve executive functions, but we’ve improved them,
just to have all of these features necessary for it,
make that intervention, or take these activities
were really effective.
These games included various songs, rikans, rhymes, colors, etc.
Children received a set of rules in them,
which, the longer the game was played, the more the rules changed and supplemented.
Next, we divided the children into two groups.
One was so-called. ritual,
the second one was so-called. instrumental.
We introduced the games in this ritual group of children
like something that’s playing, because it’s a tradition,
because it’s so right.
So we have emphasized such a ritual, or even a conventional, aspect.
So we emphasized the social side of that interaction.
On the other hand, in this instrumental group,
we highlighted the practical aspect of gaming,
we have emphasized the utilitarian side of that social interaction,
and we told them that we would play so we could learn about different colors,
or to improve our physical motions.
We found out that children who were enrolled
into a ritual experimental group,
have improved to a greater extent.
And that was precisely because,
that these games changed their cognitive processing
and demanded higher,
or more intensive use of executive functions.
As a result, they have improved even more executive functions.
And so these children had the end
even a better ability to delay satisfaction.
So, in conclusion,
that an intervention that would improve children’s ability to delay satisfaction,
it may look like this.
Of course, our goal is to replicate this research
in other cultures
and look at how it works.
I would still like to say two things.
First of all, you may feel it all,
What did I say,
that satisfaction should be delayed at all times and in all circumstances.
It’s not like that.
I just did not say about relaxing satisfaction,
but the ability to relax satisfaction.
What it means is not important to be satisfied always,
but have the ability to decide,
when it is convenient or beneficial to us in some way.
And leave him alone.
There are often situations where in some way
we change our behavior and give up things,
not for quite right reasons.
It, for example, prefers a company for a certain type of character
leads people to different eating habits and lifestyle,
which not only do not suit people but sometimes are harmful to them.
Another example is to study something, for example,
that they are looking for someone else’s parents.
What is something then in the long run
can lead to not quite satisfactory life.
Secondly, our research shows that social interactions are important
not only from the point of view of emotional development in children,
but also from the cognitive development of children.
I do not know if you have chosen your choice.
Whether you chose to get something right now, or wait for it.
But maybe if you are a parent,
so the idea of each parent would be,
that his baby can wait for the two candies.
Our vision would be that such activities,
which we have proposed, have become somehow
part of the curriculum.
So something that kids can do every day
at school or at school.
What is something that has already been introduced in some schools abroad?
While this may be the case with us,
so we can make a bit of a contribution,
to introduce our children’s lives
some activities that can be made in the longer term
they are more beneficial to them.
Today, do not delay,
so enjoy the rest of today.
Thank you very much for your attention.
(Applause)
”
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