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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/?utm_source=atlfbThe marshmallow test is one of the most famous pieces of social-science research: Put a marshmallow in front of a child, tell her that she can have a second one if she can go 15 minutes without eating the first one, and then leave the room. Whether shes patient enough to double her payout is supposedly indicative of a willpower that will pay dividends down the line, at school and eventually at work. Passing the test is, to many, a promising signal of future success.
But a new study, published last week, has cast the whole concept into doubt. The researchersNYUs Tyler Watts and UC Irvines Greg Duncan and Hoanan Quanrestaged the classic marshmallow test, which was developed by the Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s. Mischel and his colleagues administered the test and then tracked how children went on to fare later in life. They described the results in a 1990 study, which suggested that delayed gratification had huge benefits, including on such measures as standardized test scores.
Watts and his colleagues were skeptical of that finding. The original results were based on studies that included fewer than 90 childrenall enrolled in a preschool on Stanfords campus. In restaging the experiment, Watts and his colleagues thus adjusted the experimental design in important ways: The researchers used a sample that was much largermore than 900 childrenand also more representative of the general population in terms of race, ethnicity, and parents education. The researchers also, when analyzing their tests results, controlled for certain factorssuch as the income of a childs householdthat might explain childrens ability to delay gratification and their long-term success.
Ultimately, the new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to better outcomes. Instead, it suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in large part by a childs social and economic backgroundand, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is whats behind kids long-term success.
uponit7771
(90,364 posts)... keep the pantry well stocked"
pnwmom
(108,994 posts)Even as a child, I would have to expend zero effort to resist the non-urge to eat a marshmallow.
yonder
(9,674 posts)I can probably count on both hands the times I've eaten marshmallows, campfire or not. They're disgusting IMO, kind of like those Easter things, Peeps. I get the willies just thinking about it.
pansypoo53219
(20,995 posts)but plain?
Igel
(35,356 posts)So shouldn't matter.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)ThoughtCriminal
(14,049 posts)I suspect the size of the family may also be significant. When you have siblings AND are poor, you learn to grab fast.
Sentath
(2,243 posts)It isn't about self control at all. It is about having faith that the resource will be available in the future.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)people from that very social pool of "exceptionalism..." to accept this tripe as wisdom, because that's what confirmation bias does for you, and because , conveniently, it also continues to justify the social order. Sometimes I'm astonished by the broad interpretations that have been passed off as scientific.
Igel
(35,356 posts)was a research finding, the original study this was all based on was from the '60s. '68 I think, without rummaging. Not sure about the age of the kids involved.
It claimed "delayed self-gratification = academic achievement later in life".
It was within a year or two that a counter-claim was advanced, so by '70 or perhaps before--that rule-stability and predictability was what was at play. If you suspect that the person saying the second cookie was going to make the second cookie available, you'd wait. Cookie now vs 2 cookies in 15 minutes.
If you had been told that there are no reliable rules but things can shift under your feet at any time, then the future value of holding off on that first cookie is pretty small. The options are then one cookie now versus a very good chance of no cookies later.
I don't know of anybody that's advanced the claim that the *sole* factor is delayed self-gratification. If that's really in the article, it's either a straw man out of ignorance or to inflate the importance of the work.
Now, that there is *no* effect would be a contribution.
Sophia4
(3,515 posts)It does take a lot of self-control to do well in school and life. I say that at 75.
If children see that their parents have a lot of self-control, don't eat or drink too much, go to work on time, etc., aren't the children more likely to copy the behavior of their parents?
And aren't parents who play by the rules, carefully because they have a lot of self-control, on the average, with exceptions, but on the average when you include enough children in the study, likely to succeed more in life and, provided they enjoy good health, be better off.
pnwmom
(108,994 posts)Then they should have left them alone with their favorite, and promised another.
Assuming all kids would like marshmallows seems wrong to me.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)If it's "not very much", then it could be a rational decision to think after a few minutes "I'll have the marshmallow now, because I'll get out of this room at the end and have other things to do, rather than eat 2 marshmallows".
I ask because I saw film of them setting up this experiment a few days ago, and the room the child was left in looked pretty boring. There is, after all, that experiment in which adults are able to give themselves mild electrical shocks, and many do, just to pass the time or see what's it's like.
Denzil_DC
(7,257 posts)If you're in such an artificial setting, who's to say that second marshmallow will ever be forthcoming?
If life and the people around you have been "fair" to you so far, maybe you're more likely to go along with it.