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Table of Contents | Cover Page | Editors | Contributors | Introduction | Web Version |
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| DEFERRED GRATIFICATION | ||||
| Delay of want satisfaction is a common feature of
choices; that is, individuals make choices in which both costs and
benefits are spread over time. It used to be received knowledge that the
lower socioeconomic strata were less concerned with the future and had low
achievement orientation, whereas the higher classes knew of deferred or
delayed gratification and were highly achievement oriented. Max Weber
(1930) argued that the monastic way of life in the Occident had become
"a systematic method of rational conduct with the purpose of
overcoming the status naturae " by not yielding to emotional
impulses. With the Reformation, this form of active asceticism was no
longer restricted to religious virtuosi, and the devout had to be
"monks" all their lives. The ethics of particular Protestant
groups (e.g., puritanism) were one long exercise in imposing selfcontrol
and delay of gratification. Weber also pointed out the significance of
this inner-worldly asceticism or the extreme delay in consumption of the
Protestants for the rise of capitalism.
See also Protestant Ethic, Max Weber —Durk H. Hak ReferencesG. Loewenstein and J. Elster (eds.), Choice over Time (New York: Russell Sage, 1992); M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner, 1930). J. D. Thompson and A. Tuden, "Strategies, Structures, and Processes of Organizational Decision," in Comparative Studies in Administration , ed. J. D. Thompson et al. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1959): 195-216. |
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