The Role Of Gratification In Attention And Success

I want to discuss strategies for guiding students to dedicate more of themselves towards academic success. Attention is one of the most powerful currencies and it is in particularly high demand these days. Corporate entities, like tech companies and advertisers, are constantly looking for new ways to capture yours and your student’s attention and hold it for as long as possible. Why? Because investment with attention brings growth. For this reason that we must learn to control our own attention so that we may choose to grow in ways that benefit ourselves.

Gratification

Why do we pay attention to something? It’s because doing so brings us a reward – gratification. Gratification comes in many forms but the essential experience is like placing the right jigsaw piece into place. A sense of successfully exercising our agency and getting what we want brings pleasure and release.

We can parse gratification into two categories – instant and delayed. This can be demonstrated by a famous psychology experiment called the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. Here children were presented with a reward (a marshmallow) and told that if they did not eat the reward right away, they would be given two rewards after a period of time. Researchers found that children who waited in order to receive two rewards ended up doing better in many conventional areas of success such as exam scores. This is an example of the benefit of delayed gratification.

Developing delayed gratification

How does this look through the model of student attention? Students may be reluctant to study because they are being offered instant gratification by things like social media sites, video games or chatting with friends. The first obstacle to developing delayed gratification are these immediately available and instantly gratifying stimuli. Students in their high school and college years often find it hard to discipline themselves to avoid these instantly gratifying stimuli when they are an option. Therefore I suggest as a teacher and/or parent that it is you who must limit their exposure to instant gratification. You could do this by allowing them access to instantly gratifying stimuli only at certain times of day, or only after completing certain tasks. Furthermore, you ought to do this in a way that is calm, clear and fair& not in such a way as your student or child sees you as a tyrant, trying to take away their freedom. This is an art, a test of your own skills as an authority figure, and beyond the scope of this post to describe in detail.

Once a student’s exposure to instant gratification has been limited, the next step is to create opportunities for them to experience the joys of delayed gratification. Here are some strategies for doing this:

Reward your student for success. This is the number one strategy for helping students to develop delayed gratification. Literally repeat the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment (or substitute the marshmallow for “free time”) and make it clear that “I’m giving you this because you have done good work and you have made me happy.” Condition them to strive for this reward.Create a dedicated space for your student to engage in practice. Make it easy for them to put pen to paper in a calm environment with all the things they need to do great work. A road less traveled will be more popular if the views are appealing!Encourage role models who embody success. Have them communicate the benefits of delayed gratification to your students. &You &might be this role model. If your student looks up to you, it will be helpful to regularly communicate the benefits of working hard for a future payoff. Other role models could be a family member, a tutor or mentor, an online influencer or even a fictional or historical character in media that embodies the value of success through hard work.The goal of the strategies is that your student will experience the value of delayed gratification for themselves. At this point, they will become self-motivated learners who understand the value of focusing attentional resources on things that provide future payoffs. You may have to remind them from time to time when they stray from the path, but as long as they do return to the path, they will continue to grow in this direction and find it much easier to achieve exam success as well as many other of life’s challenges.