Delay of Gratification for Procrastination

(DAISY Trial)

Overseen By Rachel Foster, B.S.

Age: < 18

Sex: Any

Trial Phase: Academic

Sponsor: University of California, Davis

Disqualifiers: Developmental disorders

No Placebo Group All trial participants will receive the active study treatment (no placebo)

Compensation: Varies

Number of Visits: 3

200 Participants Needed

What You Need to Know Before You Apply

What is the purpose of this trial?

This trial explores how early experiences with waiting affect children's ability to delay gratification and how this might influence outcomes later in life. Children will engage in activities such as waiting for a sweet treat or a gift, playing games that test self-control, and answering questions about social and academic readiness. The trial seeks typically developing children without developmental disorders. Participants will return after one year to repeat some activities. As an unphased study, this trial offers a unique opportunity for children to contribute to research that may enhance understanding of child development and self-control.

Will I have to stop taking my current medications?

The trial information does not specify whether participants need to stop taking their current medications.

What prior data suggests that this protocol is safe for children?

Research shows that the delay of gratification treatment, which involves waiting for a reward such as a sweet treat or a gift, has no known harmful effects. Although detailed safety data for this treatment in humans is lacking, studies have not reported negative side effects. These tasks are generally easy to handle, involving simple activities like waiting games or receiving rewards. Participants in similar studies typically experience no harm or discomfort, suggesting that these tasks are safe to participate in. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

Why are researchers excited about this trial?

Researchers are excited about the Delay of Gratification techniques as they offer a novel approach to tackling procrastination. Unlike typical strategies that might involve time management apps or cognitive-behavioral therapy, these techniques use tangible rewards, like sweet treats or wrapped gifts, to motivate individuals. This method taps into our natural responses to incentives, potentially making it more engaging and immediately rewarding. By leveraging the human tendency to value instant rewards, these techniques could provide a fresh and fun way to improve focus and productivity.

What evidence suggests that this trial's treatments could be effective for procrastination?

This trial will compare two approaches to delay of gratification: one using a sweet treat as a reward and another using a wrapped gift. Research has shown that the ability to wait for rewards links to better school performance and social skills. Those who struggle to wait often experience more stress and anxiety. Studies have also found that these individuals tend to perform worse in school. The research suggests that improving the ability to wait for rewards might reduce procrastination, potentially leading to better academic results and less stress overall. ^{2 6 7 8 9}

Are You a Good Fit for This Trial?

This trial is for young children to explore how early experiences with waiting affect their ability to delay gratification and the impact on later life outcomes. It involves tasks like delaying treats, playing 'Simon says'-like games, and answering questions about academic readiness and social norms.

Inclusion Criteria

My child is developing typically without any diagnosed delays.

Exclusion Criteria

Participants will be pre-screened for developmental disorders.

Timeline for a Trial Participant

Screening

Participants are screened for eligibility to participate in the trial

2-4 weeks

Initial Assessment

Participants complete delaying tasks, inhibition games, and questionnaires. Parents complete behavioral and demographic questionnaires.

1-2 weeks

2 visits (in-person)

Follow-up

Participants and parents repeat a subset of initial measures to assess changes over 1 year.

1 year

1 visit (in-person)

What Are the Treatments Tested in This Trial?

Interventions

• Delay of Gratification

Trial Overview The study tests if early waiting experiences predict delaying behavior in specific situations and how this relates to life outcomes. Children will perform various tasks involving self-control and parents will provide information on home behaviors.

How Is the Trial Designed?

Group I: Delay of Gratification - Treat Experimental Treatment 1 Intervention

Reward presented is a sweet treat.

Group II: Delay of Gratification - Gift Experimental Treatment 1 Intervention

Reward presented is a wrapped gift.

Who Is Running the Clinical Trial?

University of California, Davis

Lead Sponsor

Trials

958

Recruited

4,816,000+

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

Collaborator

Trials

2,103

Recruited

2,760,000+

Published Research Related to This Trial

In preschoolers, working in the presence of rewards increased their delay times for gratification, but this was due to distraction from the work rather than motivation from the rewards themselves.

When the work was not engaging, focusing on rewards could actually help motivate children to work and delay gratification, as long as their attention did not become overly fixated on the rewards.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Strategic attention deployment for delay of gratification in working and waiting situations. Peake, PK., Mischel, W., Hebl, M.[2019]

High school students who opted for an immediate monetary reward displayed more self-regulatory issues, including higher involvement with substances like cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana, as well as poorer academic performance.

A similar pattern was observed in middle-school students, suggesting that the tendency to choose immediate rewards over delayed ones is linked to negative behaviors and self-concept across different age groups.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Delay of gratification: impulsive choices and problem behaviors in early and late adolescence. Wulfert, E., Block, JA., Santa Ana, E., et al.[2022]

A study involving 95 children assessed their ability to delay gratification in preschool and found that this ability was linked to positive parental personality ratings a decade later, indicating long-term benefits of self-control.

Children who could wait longer in preschool were rated by their parents as more competent in academics and social situations during adolescence, showing that early delay of gratification is associated with better cognitive and emotional skills later in life.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The nature of adolescent competencies predicted by preschool delay of gratification. Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., Peake, PK.[2022]

A study involving 386 Chinese elementary school children found that the ability to delay gratification in academic settings is positively linked to higher motivation and better metacognitive skills.

The use of effective self-regulated learning strategies, such as cognitive strategies and resource management, plays a crucial role in mediating the relationship between academic delay of gratification and improved grades.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Causal relationships among academic delay of gratification, motivation, and self-regulated learning in elementary school children. Zhang, L., Maruno, S.[2019]

The study introduces a temporal decision model that explains procrastination as a result of people perceiving tasks as less aversive when scheduled for the future, while expecting greater utility from the outcomes of those tasks later on.

Results show that individuals are likely to procrastinate when the perceived aversiveness of a task outweighs the expected utility of its outcome, and they are more inclined to complete the task when the aversiveness and utility become comparable.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Modeling procrastination: Asymmetric decisions to act between the present and the future. Zhang, S., Feng, T.[2020]

Active stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) significantly increased participants' willingness to execute tasks, suggesting a direct role of this brain region in reducing procrastination.

The study found that this stimulation decreased the perceived aversiveness of tasks and increased their outcome value, indicating that enhancing the DLPFC's activity can help individuals overcome procrastination by making tasks seem more rewarding.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Stimulation of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex enhances willingness for task completion by amplifying task outcome value. Xu, T., Zhang, S., Zhou, F., et al.[2023]

In a study of Canadian arbitration cases, trait procrastination was found to significantly predict delays in decision-making, with highly procrastinating arbitrators taking an average of 83 days to write decisions compared to 26 days for those with lower procrastination traits.

A follow-up study with American arbitrators confirmed that procrastination is influenced by factors like expectancy and value, suggesting that procrastination is a common issue in the workplace that can lead to serious negative consequences.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Self-Regulation of Slippery Deadlines: The Role of Procrastination in Work Performance. Steel, P., Taras, D., Ponak, A., et al.[2023]

High procrastinators (HP) show lower flexibility in learning tasks, particularly when faced with punishment, which may hinder their ability to correct procrastination behaviors.

Impaired learning from errors and punishments in HP individuals suggests a potential underlying mechanism that could also relate to other self-regulation disorders, highlighting the importance of addressing these learning deficits.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Self-regulation and learning from failures: Probabilistic reversal learning task reveals lower flexibility persisting after punishment in procrastinators. Przetacka, J., Droździel, D., Michałowski, JM., et al.[2022]

Delay of gratification consists of two distinct components: Controlling-Impulse and Planning-and-Waiting, as identified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in studies involving adult participants.

Controlling-Impulse is a significant predictor of both long-term and creative performance, while Planning-and-Waiting is linked to various personality traits and self-efficacy, highlighting the different roles these components play in achievement.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Generalizability of delay of gratification: dimensionality and function. Liu, X., Wang, L., Jiang, J.[2015]

The study examined delayed gratification in a sample of children of color from low-income families, finding that those who preferred immediate gratification showed better executive function and were rated more positively by teachers.

Choosing immediate gratification was linked to higher achievement in the short term, but this relationship diminished when accounting for executive function, suggesting that understanding these choices requires more nuanced research in underrepresented groups.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Choosing immediate over delayed gratification correlates with better school-related outcomes in a sample of children of color from low-income families. Duran, CAK., Grissmer, DW.[2020]

Citations

1. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6500923/

Effectiveness of an internet-based intervention for ... A German study using a representative community sample found that procrastination is linked to higher stress, more depression, anxiety, fatigue ...

2. sciencedirect.com sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844021007842

Growth mindset, delayed gratification, and learning outcome Several studies have shown that procrastination and the inability to delay gratification are correlated with worse academic achievements (De Paola and Scoppa, ...

3. withpower.com withpower.com/trial/phase-delaying-7-2024-82d27

Delay of Gratification for Procrastination (DAISY Trial) Research shows that the ability to delay gratification is linked to better academic and social skills, as well as improved stress management. Additionally, ...

4. journals.lww.com journals.lww.com/bbrj/fulltext/2023/07030/prevalence_of_academic_procrastination_and_its.7.aspx

Prevalence of Academic Procrastination and Its Negative... Engaging in procrastination in an academic setting brings negative outcomes such as stress, guilt, poor academic performance, and low self-esteem.

5. researchgate.net researchgate.net/publication/264716175_The_relationship_between_procrastination_delay_of_gratification_and_job_satisfaction_among_high_school_teachers

(PDF) The relationship between procrastination, delay of ... The present study aimed at determining whether a significant relationship exists between procrastination, delay of gratification, and job satisfaction.

6. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6878228/

The relation between procrastination and symptoms of ... We investigated the relation between procrastination and ADHD‐related symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity in 54 students.

7. sciencedirect.com sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X25000467

Exploratory tendencies explain task delay in procrastination In this study (N = 237), we explore a novel explanation of the mechanisms underlying task delay during procrastination.

8. frontiersin.org frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1432763/full

Procrastination and risky health behaviors: a possible way ... Associations between procrastination and subsequent health outcomes among university students in Sweden. JAMA Netw Open. (2023) 6:e2249346 ...

9. bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-025-02352-5

Teachers' academic motivation and student procrastination ... Students are more likely to delay academic tasks without proper emotion regulation, leading to detrimental academic outcomes. Pallini with ...