Not now, later! These are three words we have come to value. The Marshmallow experiment from the 1960s popularized the idea of self-control and brought it into cultural consciousness; however, sometimes it has mislead us to think that kids who don’t wait for two marshmallows at the age of 4 might be destined to lead less fruitful lives. Instead of focusing on self-control through a narrow lens as an individual’s choice-making ability, there's another way to view this complex process using broader constructs such as social regulation in the face of conflicting tendencies, ideas, and desires.

On this episode, Dr. Sabine Doebel,  Assistant Professor at George Mason University, discusses how creative and novel experimental designs can help explore the social and conceptual processes behind self-control skills in children across many contexts. Those who care about helping children develop self-regulation should consider giving them opportunities to acquire a wide-range of experiences and knowledge to benefit from the cultural context.

About Sabine Doebel, PhD
Sabine leads the Developing Minds Lab in the Department of Psychology at George Mason University. The lab focuses on questions related to how we become capable of  exercising conscious control over our thoughts and actions in the pursuit of goals  (executive function), and how this capacity develops through experience, particularly social experience.

She completed her Ph.D. at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota (advisors: Melissa Koenig and Philip D. Zelazo), and her NIH-funded postdoc at the University of Colorado Boulder (advisor: Yuko Munakata). Sabine is interested in cognitive development, with much of her research to date focusing on the development of executive function -- the ability to control thoughts and actions in the service of goals, especially in the face of conflicting habits, desires, or tendencies. She's particularly interested in how social and conceptual processes may support the development of skills in using control across contexts. Sabine is also doing work to promote open science practices in developmental psychology, with the goal of making it easier to help researchers build on one another's work.

About Host, Sucheta Kamath
Sucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, a celebrated community leader, and the founder and CEO of ExQ®. As an EdTech entrepreneur, Sucheta has designed ExQ's personalized digital learning curriculum/tool that empowers middle and high school students to develop self-awareness and strategic thinking skills through the mastery of Executive Function and social-emotional competence.

Support the show