Abstract
Self‐control is critical for both humans and nonhuman animals because it underlies complex cognitive abilities, such as decision‐making and future planning, enabling goal‐directed behavior. For instance, it is positively associated with social competence and life success measures in humans. We present the first review of delay of gratification as a measure of self‐control in nonhuman primates, corvids (crow family) and psittacines (parrot order): disparate groups that show comparable advanced cognitive abilities and similar socio‐ecological factors. We compare delay of gratification performance and identify key issues and outstanding areas for future research, including finding the best measures and drivers of delayed gratification. Our review therefore contributes to our understanding of both delayed gratification as a measure of self‐control and of complex cognition in animals.This article is categorized under:Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of CognitionPsychology > Comparative Psychology
Highlights
IntroductionWe provide a comprehensive overview of self-control (see Box 1 for a Glossary of terms, which are highlighted in the text in italics) in animals, focussing on delay of gratification ability as a measure of self-control
We provide a comprehensive overview of self-control in animals, focussing on delay of gratification ability as a measure of self-control
As far as the existing literature allows, we present an overview of delayed gratification tested in corvids, psittacines and nonhuman primates (Table 1), focussing primarily on the exchange, accumulation and intertemporal choice tasks
Summary
We provide a comprehensive overview of self-control (see Box 1 for a Glossary of terms, which are highlighted in the text in italics) in animals, focussing on delay of gratification ability as a measure of self-control. Similar delayed gratification abilities in these groups would indicate that this cognitive ability has evolved repeatedly under similar socio-ecological pressures despite considerable evolutionary divergence in their ancestry (Seed, Emery, & Clayton, 2009; van Horik & Emery, 2011). These comparisons will contribute to the understanding of human cognition and delayed gratification ability in humans through providing a better appreciation of the underlying factors influencing individual differences in cognitive abilities (Völter, Tinklenberg, Call, & Seed, 2018).
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