“Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion”

Although I felt like I was organized I now see that there is room for improvement. Writing a literature review has not necessarily affected the research I did but definitely affected how I would organize the information so that it would be easily retrieved. The process was similar to the annotated bibliography. If time was spent researching and writing a good bibliography it could be used to dig up the information needed for the review. I feel like I did well in writing the review, but I have been fooled by feelings from time to time. I will just have to wait and see how the work is judged. In the end there are many avenues to consider when looking at the development of “delay of gratification” and the effects it has on individuals from relationships, educational goals, sports, financial planning, and more. I predict that the development of impulse control and the ability to, as Mahammad Ali put it “Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion” is a personal decision put into place by forces not yet understood.

What he said

Every time I sit down to work on an assignment I wonder if I’m doing it right. Through this class we have been building on the previous assignment which makes it seem almost simple (too good to be true) which is why I feel like there is something I’m missing. 

To complete this assignment I searched for additional journal sources and stumbled on a journal studying the effects social trust has on delaying gratification. The way they approached this study was very interesting to me. They used characters with various physical appearances. The study found that those characters with more desirable features were able to incite trust and therefore people were more likely to delay the reward with the attractive characters rather than the other options.

This is interesting in and of itself, but eventually (given enough time) relationships are formed and who’s to say that a lesser attractive character would not win someone’s trust over an attractive one. I believe that relationship would win in the long run, although I understand how initially it would not.

This article also caused me to think about the nature and appearance of the environment and the effects it may have on encouraging delaying gratification. How can we alter a school environment to encourage a more productive school setting? When I went to school there were no such thing as portable classrooms. My place of learning was a beautiful white building with steps leading to the pillars in front of the entrance. It looked like some to be proud of. And by its appearance alone set the expectation of education and behavior. Portable classrooms on the other hand carry no visual beauty, no prestige, and by its appearance has no high standard of education or behavior.

I forgot to add the annotated bib.

THANKS PHIL FOR POINTING THIS OUT

            Delayed Gratification and its effects on the learning enviornment

Annotated Bibliography

Dupper, D. (2010). A new model of school discipline engaging students and preventing behavior

problems. New York: Oxford University Press.

In this book Duper goes over current Discipline practices that are commonly found through our nation. Practices that include zero-tolerance policies, suspensions, detentions, as well as other security policies that fail to improve school safety and student behaviors.  It is suggested that the common practices are inefficient towards their intended goal and provides evidence that they may be contributing to students risk of dropping out. The new model suggested in the text engages students and focuses on strengthening students’ connection to school through building positive relationships that encourage and grow social skills.

The book seems well written and covers aspects of discipline I agree with. The author (David R. Dupper, PhD) is a professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville College of Social Work. He has written two books, numerous book chapters and many papers on topics that include school violence, bullying, at-risk students, and school discipline. His work is current and continuing as he is currently studying the effectiveness of an empathy training program for undergraduate students that incorporates mindfulness practices. This book and his work presents current ideas and practices for further research.

Hutton, P., & Holmes, J. (2005). Savings education: Learning the value of self-control.

Education Policy Analysis Archives Epaa, 28-28.

This article proposes a program model that would fund allowances and savings to be given to students from disadvantaged circumstances, mainly economically disadvantaged students with poor educational outcomes. The purpose of the savings and allowance is to help the students move away from instant gratification patters and shift to goal setting and delayed gratification practices. The hope is that with earning potential the students would develop skills and habits of quality. The skills acquisition would help the student avoid the pitfalls that are common with economically disadvantaged students with poor educational support and outcomes. The lack of the ability to delay gratification is associated with low educational outcomes as a result of low educational investments. The inability to delay gratification is associated with teen pregnancy, criminality, and poverty. As the students matures their time value and their ability to consider the future payoffs of their current efforts will be a great determiner of success.

            This article was well written and had a solid reward system to motivate the targeted students. Many of the students the program would target would have not developed a positive extrinsic motivation system of belief. Often time’s extrinsic motivation can be the catalyst for intrinsic motivation. This source is directly related to my research question as its topic is motivational factors that are contingent on delayed gratification.

Nocera, E., Whitbread, K., & Nocera, G. (2014). Impact of School-wide Positive Behavior

Supports on Student Behavior in the Middle Grades. RMLE Online, 1-14.

This journal explores the alternative to traditional reactive and punitive approaches to problem behavior in schools. Research supports the effectiveness of a school-wide positive behavior support program. In such a program a school would establish preventative measures and intervention specific to the needs of the schools culture and environment. The article directly describes how a low-preforming middle school established preventative and intervention strategies to reduce student suspension and discipline referrals. In addition, scores on the state mastery tests in reading and math were improved by 25% schoolwide. The study suggests that implementation of a positive behavior and support program may result in more desirable academic and behavioral performances for all students enrolled in the school.

            Many schools have a grant driven school wide program  that supports positive behavior and early intervention. This article was interesting because of the increase of test scores as a result of the program. During the intervention aspect of programs like this the student has the opportunity to reflect on the behavior and think of and explain a more productive reaction to incidents that resulted in poor behavior. This reflection is greatly important. It gives the student the opportunity to sit with their actions and ponder the effects they had on themselves, other students, teachers, and the school. To understand the products of your actions is something many students don’t think about. After studying cause and effects the student may choose a more favorable cause for a more favorable outcome.

Razza, R., & Raymond, K. (2012). Associations among Maternal Behavior, Delay of

Gratification, and School Readiness across the Early Childhood Years. Social Development, 180-196.

This journal explores the role of delay of gratification and the effects it has from maternal behavior to school readiness. The behavior of a sample of 1007 children were studied to explore the possibilities that motherly behavior for the first three years could be a way to predict a child’s ability to delay gratification in kindergarten. The study’s findings support the correlation of delay of gratification and academic skills. The findings in the study suggests that maternal sensitivity and delay of gratification as possible enforcers in enhancing school readiness among young children

            It all starts at home. The ability to delay gratification is a great determiner of future academic success. This article suggests that a child’s ability to do so can be predicted by looking at the early mother child relationship. This article directly related to my topic and gave examples of determining school readiness through the child’s ability to delay gratification.

William N. Bender (2007). Relational Discipline: Strategies for In-your-face Kids. Available from https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.libproxy.chapman.edu

The information from this publication was published in 2007 well after the onset of the zero tolerance policies and the violence that occurred on American school. The information in this publication is important because it addresses the importance of relationship to affect behavior through discipline. The author has observed and studied school discipline practices, he is also widely recognized in the field of school discipline. The purpose of the book is to help schools and teachers understand the pitfalls of zero tolerance policies and the benefits of building relationships to support the discipline process. While it is hard to quantify relationship the statistical data concerning disciplinary issues is more easily measurable.

            Through positive relationships the student can be influenced in a positive way. Without positive relationship the student will have no reason to internalize any advice presented to better the student’s behavior. Delayed gratification could be considered as impulse control and or moral judgement. The ability to decipher through possible options of actions and choose the action that would avoid disciplinary action is skill students could learn if they had positive relationships supporting and advising consistently.

Michaelson, L., Vega, A., Chatham, C., & Munakata, Y. (n.d.). Delaying gratification depends

on social trust. Frontiers in Psychology Front. Psychol.

Many theories about the topic of delayed gratification focus on the sensitivity an individual has on the immediate reward, and the cost of time spent waiting for the reward. This journal added something to the equation, trust. The individual practicing delay of gratification requires trust that the reward will actually be there and that the people responsible for following through with the reward will actually follow through and provide the reward. This article suggests something essential to the process of delayed gratification, relationship. This journal tests the role of social trust presenting participants with various settings and faces that varied in perceived trustworthiness. Through the tests participants were less likely to wait for delayed rewards when promised rewards from characters appearing less trustworthy. Characters appearing trustworthy incited participants to delay gratification. 

            Although this journal studied the trustworthiness of the appearance of characters and the affect it has on the ability to wait for a reward I believe that relationship and track record will trump appearance. This article was very interesting and directly related to my topic. It made me want to explore the importance of the aesthetics of the learning environment and the role individual appearance has on supporting the development of the ability to delay gratification. 

BOOM

When in doubt cite it.

I’m totally paranoid! After last week’s class and the example of the student getting the boot from the program she was taking because of a citation mistake (plagiarism) was a little chilling. I’m of the understanding that I have learned everything I know from someone. Should I cite them?  At what point does common knowledge trump having to cite the said knowledge. This issue kind of falls parallel with the issue of politically correctness. It is common in today’s world to offend someone for doing or not doing something in the same day to two different people. Do I say Marry Christmas or happy holidays? In any case I’m much more in favor of letting knowledge and ideas flow freely. Although I do understand what citation brings to a paper, it brings weight, expertise, credentials, legitimacy, and authority. I haven’t really presented a reason for someone to cite me, maybe if I did I would feel different about getting my credit where credit is due.