Patience is the ability to endure difficult circumstances such as perseverance in the face of delay, tolerance of provocation without responding in annoyance or forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can have before negativity. In psychology, patience is studied as a decision-making problem, involving the choice of either a small reward in the short-term, versus a more valuable reward in the long-term.