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Abstract

The influence on Scottish preschool children's self-control of labels regarding patience given directly to the children themselves, and of the expectations regarding the children's patience provided to adult testers, was investigated. The children's self-control was assessed in a task in which each child's possession of accumulating candy rewards was made contingent upon the child's stopping of further accumulation. Preschool children directly labeled beforehand as "patient" demonstrated significantly longer delay maintenance than did preschoolers hearing a remark irrelevant to the task. A significant effect of tester expectancy was found, with children not directly labeled as "patient" beforehand being more sensitive to adult expectations than were labeled children.

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Direct Labeling,Tester Expectancy and Delay Maintenance Behavior in Scottish Preschool Children

Abstract

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