In a 20-year follow-up of the marshmallow experiment, individuals with vulnerability to high rejection sensitivity who had shown strong delay of gratification abilities as preschoolers had higher self-esteem and self-worth and more adaptive coping skills, in comparison to the individuals who had high rejection sensitivity but low delay of gratification as four-year-olds.
12.
Such impulse control has been seen as a key component in emotional intelligence .'The ability to delay gratification contributes powerfully to intellectual potential quite apart from IQ itself', while what has been called'" goal-directed self-imposed delay of gratification " is perhaps the essence of emotional self-regulation : the ability to deny impulse in the service of a goal '.
13.
These tendencies are thought to be relatively stable in each individual, such that someone who tends toward undercontrol will " grab whatever rewards are immediately available even at the cost of long-term gain " and someone who tends toward overcontrol will " delay or even forgo pleasures even when they can be had without cost . " By this view, delay of gratification may be adaptive in certain settings, but inappropriate or even costly in other settings.
