Delay discounting in children exposed to disaster.

Yusuke Matsuyama,Ichiro Kawachi,Junko Yagi,Yasuyuki Sawada,Hirobumi Mashiko,Takeo Fujiwara,Gerard Hutchinson

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243994

Abstract

Delay discounting is an important predictor of future health and academic success in children but can change in environmental uncertainty situations. Here we show that the experience of loss of housing in the Great East Japan Earthquake 2011—but not other psychological trauma such as loss of loved ones—was correlated delay discounting of children. In 2014, we assessed delay discounting in children (N = 167; mean age = 8.3 years-old), who were preschool age at the time of the earthquake (mean age at the time of disaster = 4.8 years-old) in a time-investment exercise where children allocated five tokens between rewards "now" (one candy per token on the same day) versus "one month later" (two candies per token one month later). The number of tokens allocated for "now" was higher by 0.535 (95% confidence interval: −0.012, 1.081) in children who had their housing destroyed or flooded than those with no housing damage. Other types of traumatic experiences were not associated with delay discounting.

Highlights

Delay discounting–i.e., the degree to which individuals choose between smaller, immediate rewards versus larger, later rewards—is related to goal-oriented behavior, predicting outcomes in life, such as academic performance [1], and health maintenance behaviors [1,2]
We examined the impact of disasters on delay discounting in a field experiment among children who were exposed to the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011
We used the data from the Great East Japan Earthquake Follow-up for Children (GEJE-FC) study

Summary

Introduction

Delay discounting–i.e., the degree to which individuals choose between smaller, immediate rewards versus larger, later rewards—is related to goal-oriented behavior, predicting outcomes in life, such as academic performance [1], and health maintenance behaviors [1,2]. In Mischel’s marshmallow study, delayed gratification—i.e., putting off the consumption of a smaller, immediate reward in favor of a larger, delayed reward—was measured by the duration of time that preschool children could resist an immediate, smaller reward (one marshmallow) versus a delayed large reward (two marshmallows) [3,4]. Over long-term follow-up, children with longer wait times were shown to achieve higher SAT scores [5], higher social competences in adolescence [6], and even lower body-mass index (BMI) in adulthood [7]. The ability to delay gratification develops during childhood, which can be negatively influenced by childhood

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Discussion

Conclusion