Abstract

This study was conducted to empirically investigate the effects of other-centered social expectation as an altenative source to self-centered social expectation in enhancing self-control in the presence of salient obstacles (e.g., working hard painful task). Two experiments were carried out to examine the relative effects of these two types social expectation on self-control. Fifth grade right-handed children copied mirror-image letters with their left hand without a pause. This task was very laborious and tedious to children. We compared the effect of children's expectation of approval from experimenter (self-centered social expectation) with that of children's expectation of their mother's joy (other-centered social expectation) on self-control in Experiment 1. And in experiment 2, the effect of children's expectation of approval from their mother (self-centered social expectation) was compared with that of children's expectation of their mother's joy. The result of experiment 1 showed that children who were induced to expect their mother's joy performed the task longer than those who were labelled 'being patient and good child' by an experimenter, results of experiment 2 were as follows: 1) children who were induced to expect their mother's approval performed the task as long as those who induced to expect their mother's joy. 2) Unexpectedly, children who were induecd to expect both mother's joy and mother's approval performed the task less longer than those who were induced to expect their mother's joy only. We discussed the nature of expectation of mother's joy and that the effect of social reward on self-control can be different from depending on those who give social rewards.