Delay of gratification and work-ethics: Evidence from Spanish adolescents

Abstract

This paper uses a sample of 4,000 adolescents to show the relation between delay of gratification and work ethics using experimental tasks. Work ethics is measured by two metrics that account for the performance of the Alternative Uses Task (AUT), a task that requires participants to list all the unusual uses for a common object, in this case, a brick. Delay of gratification is measured by six hypothetical monetary decisions between receiving a reward tomorrow or in a week. Results show that individuals who delay gratification not only performed better on the task, providing more uses but also outperformed better by proposing more unique uses and avoiding repetition in their responses.

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