Armchair Critic: Gratification - the deferment thereof

In the 1960s, Stanford professor Walter Mischel carried out psychological tests with young children and concluded that those who were prepared to defer their gratification - opting to have two cakes in 20 minutes' time rather than one cake now - were more likely to succeed in health, work and life. Earlier, Emille Durkheim had talked in terms of deferred gratification being the bedrock of culture in society. For the financial services sector, this is a huge issue - relating as it does to under-provision for both savings and protection. It also relates to over-borrowing and, of course, to...