Waiting for the Second Treat: Developing Culture-Specific Modes of Self-Regulation

Lamm, B., Keller, H., Teiser, J., Gudi, H., Yovsi, R. D., Freitag, C., Poloczek, S., Fassbender, I., Suhrke, J., Teubert, M., Vöhringer, I., Knopf, M., Schwarzer, G. and Lohaus, A. (2017), Waiting for the Second Treat: Developing Culture-Specific Modes of Self-Regulation. Child Development, doi:10.1111/cdev.12847

Abstract: The development of self-regulation has been studied primarily in Western middle-class contexts and has, therefore, neglected what is known about culturally varying self-concepts and socialization strategies. The research reported here compared the self-regulatory competencies of German middle-class (N = 125) and rural Cameroonian Nso preschoolers (N = 76) using the Marshmallow test (Mischel, 2014). Study 1 revealed that 4-year-old Nso children showed better delay-of-gratification performance than their German peers. Study 2 revealed that culture-specific maternal socialization goals and interaction behaviors were related to delay-of-gratification performance. Nso mothers’ focus on hierarchical relational socialization goals and responsive control seems to support children's delay-of-gratification performance more than German middle-class mothers’ emphasis on psychological autonomous socialization goals and sensitive, child-centered parenting.

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A higher percentage of Cameroonian Nso children (69.7%) than German middle-class children (28%) succeeded in waiting for the research assistant to return with the second treat. Furthermore, compared to only 28.9% of the Cameroonian Nso children, 49.6% of the German middle-class children ate or at least tasted the sweet before the research assistant returned. Only one Nso child left the room to terminate the delay period ahead of time, but 22.4% of the German middle-class children acted in this way. Finally, although eight Nso children (10.5%) fell asleep during the delay, no German child exhibited this behavior.

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Subsequent univariate analyses revealed that German middle-class children exhibited more time in distraction behaviors in terms of turning away from the sweet and talking or singing. Furthermore, they spend more time in negative emotions than rural Nso children [desperate face, whining, crying, etc.].

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waiting falls neatly into the hierarchically interrelated cultural model of the Nso farmer families, which has adapted to the community’s demands. In this context, the development of self-regulation constitutes an early and unconditional achievement that stems from children’s sense of belongingness and perceived responsibility (Keller, 2015). Accordingly, the children raised in these two cultural models also differed substantially in their delay strategies. Nso children displayed the lack of motion and emotion-neutral attitude expected of them as good behavior (Keller & Otto, 2009). They sat in front of the table with the sweet without engaging in much motor activity, and some downregulated themselves so effectively that they even fell asleep during the delay. Their emotional inexpressiveness is in line with the cultural ideal of an “easy child” who does not jeopardize social functioning with social or emotional demands. [...] German children, on the other hand, acted out their attitudes of self-selected behavioral choices with different kinds of motor strategies, such as moving their bodies, turning around, changing position, walking around in the room, and even leaving the room.

These different delay strategies further suggest that self-regulation is based on different underlying processes based on cultural environment.