Effects of mood on delay of gratification in primary school children

- Several contextual factors affect children’s delay of gratification (DG), including the visibility of rewards (Mischel & Ebbeson, 1970), and trust in the experimenter (Michaelson & Munakata, 2016). However, relatively little is known about how mood states affect DG. - Some classic studies found that children aged 3 to 11 years delayed gratification less when in a negative mood, and more when in a positive mood, compared to either the opposite valence or a control (Moore et al., 1976; Yates et al., 1981). - However, a recent direct replication failed to find any effect of positive mood on DG (Turnbull & Carroll, 2016). - We aimed to conceptually replicate the effect of positive and negative mood states on DG in a contemporary sample.