title: Too proud to regulate: The differential effect of pride versus joy on children's ability to delay gratification.
abstract: We examined the effect of the distinct positive emotions pride and joy on children's self-regulation, focusing on their ability to delay gratification (i.e., resist a temptation in favor of a long-term goal). We hypothesized that because pride corresponds to the attainment of long-term goals and joy corresponds to the attainment of immediate desires, the experience of pride may signal sufficient progress toward a long-term goal, resulting in less delay of gratification than the experience of joy. To test this hypothesis, we induced an experience of pride or joy in 8-year-old children. At this age, the ability to self-regulate--and to experience pride and joy distinctively--is relatively mature. We then measured performance in a delay discounting task. We found that, compared with the joy condition and a control condition, children who experienced pride performed worse on the delay discounting task (p=.045), indicating poorer self-regulation. This result suggests that emotions may function as cues for sufficient goal pursuit, thereby influencing self-regulation from a very young age.
authors: Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 69978, Israel. Electronic address: einavshi@post.bgu.ac.il.
authors: Einav
authors: E
authors: Shimoni
authors: Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 69978, Israel.
authors: Marwa
authors: M
authors: Asbe
authors: Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 69978, Israel.
authors: Tal
authors: T
authors: Eyal
authors: Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 69978, Israel.
authors: Andrea
authors: A
authors: Berger
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003463:Cues; D065786:Delay Discounting / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Delay discounting; Delay of gratification; Joy; Positive emotion; Pride; Self-regulation