Today, we want everything now, yet you've just written a book about self-control. Why?
It's a widespread perception that the world is more and more one in which people are orientated to immediate gratification and don't know how to delay it. But when you look closely, I think that's probably not the case. If anything, there has been improvement in overall self-control. In fact, we're attempting to test that question in a study now.
What is really going on then?
There are a lot of reasons to think that many children growing up in the information technology revolution are developing the skills to delay gratification very well. That ability – psychologists call it executive control – shows whether they can keep a goal in mind, suppress impulses that interfere with reaching that goal, and use attention control abilities in the brain's prefrontal cortex to keep marching on until they reach that goal. ...
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