title: Uniquely human self-control begins at school age.
abstract: Human beings have remarkable skills of self-control, but the evolutionary origins of these skills are unknown. Here we compare children at 3 and 6 years of age with one of humans' two nearest relatives, chimpanzees, on a battery of reactivity and self-control tasks. Three-year-old children and chimpanzees were very similar in their abilities to resist an impulse for immediate gratification, repeat a previously successful action, attend to a distracting noise, and quit in the face of repeated failure. Six-year-old children were more skillful than either 3-year-olds or chimpanzees at controlling their impulses. These results suggest that humans' most fundamental skills of self-control - as part of the overall decision-making process - are a part of their general great ape heritage, and that their species-unique skills of self-control begin at around the age at which many children begin formal schooling.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Herrmann
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Misch
authors.affiliation: Department of Methodology for Behavioral Science, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hernandez-Lloreda
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomasello
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D002679:Pan troglodytes; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D000068356:Self-Control; D013045:Species Specificity; D014040:Token Economy