Is impatience actually a nasty defect? | EUROtoday

On May 2, 2025

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DIn the lengthy checklist of proof that we stay animals below our civilized garments, the visceral hatred of the queues is a fantastic. Returning from work, you might be within the queue on the bakery, a hole stomach. In entrance of you, a buyer hesitates, procrastinates, requests the composition of every pastry. Your nerves will crack. Is impatience a contemporary whim, the fruit of the press and specific supply firm?

On the opposite, it could appear that impatience is a trait deeply rooted in our biology, carved by evolution. Researchers name this “temporal preference” or “discount of the future” (Discounting temporal): The tendency to favor a direct, even modest reward, has a larger however delayed reward. This bias will not be particular to people: it crosses the animal kingdom, from pigeons to monkeys, passing by rats and even fish.

The wait, a dangerous guess

Just ask a bunch of individuals to decide on between receiving 100 euros now or 110 euros in a yr. A plethora of research present that a big majority will select 100 euros. In a examine printed in Plos One (“Evolutionary Origins of Temporal Discounting”, 2023), a workforce of researchers, led by Benjamin Hayden, modeled how time and uncertainty form our determination methods. Their query: why achieve this many species perceive, do they appear unable to attend for a greater reward? Their reply: as a result of, in nature, to attend is to danger shedding every little thing.

Read too Are canine our new youngsters? Imagine a chook that finds a bay. He can eat it instantly or await a much bigger bay matt. But, if he waits an excessive amount of, one other chook may steal it, or a predator may come up. In nature, the longer term is unsure, and persistence will be costly. The researchers clarify that, in unpredictable environments, essentially the most “rational” technique is to not wait, however to grab the chance as quickly because it presents itself. Impatience, removed from being a defect, would subsequently be an evolutionary adaptation to a harmful and unsure world.

Fascinating experiences present that impatience will not be the prerogative of people. Rats, for instance, favor to press a lever that provides them a small dose of sugar instantly fairly than ready for a bigger ration. Pigeons are well-known for his or her incapacity to attend: they virtually at all times select the speedy reward, even whether it is a lot much less.

Human, this in a rush

However, within the tail of the bakery, impatience itching us regardless that we all know that our flip will are available barely two minutes. “One attainable rationalization is that the superior approach of assessing the longer term continues, even in fashionable people. We act as if the world was unsure and dangerous, as would have been the case for hunter-gatherers, even whether it is not the case, “explains Daniel Read, professor of behavioral sciences at Warwick Business School, in a scientific article on the subject.

To uncover

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Answer

Despite our full fridges and our supply functions, we stay scheduled for immediacy. Our mind, the fruit of a gradual evolution over a number of thousand years, didn’t have time to adapt to abundance and security. The well-known Marshmallow take a look at, the place youngsters have to attend to acquire a second sugar manufacturing unit, completely illustrates this tightness between intuition and motive.

In this take a look at, led for the primary time by Walter Mischel within the Nineteen Seventies, solely 30 % of kids handle to attend for the fifteen minutes vital to acquire the second deal with. The others crack properly earlier than. This consequence, replied in lots of cultures, exhibits how troublesome persistence is, however that it isn’t a bug: it’s a performance.

https://www.lepoint.fr/eureka/l-impatience-est-elle-vraiment-un-vilain-defaut-02-05-2025-2588691_4706.php