Stanford marshmallow experiment

In the late 60s and early 70s of the last century, Stanford University professor Walter Mischel conducted a series of experiments during which he proved that children with this character trait are more likely to achieve success in life. What this feature is and why the experience was called “marshmallow”, we will describe below.

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How the experiment went

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The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment involved 8 researchers and 32 children aged 3 to 5 years. Each of the little participants was faced with the same task - to demonstrate the ability to self-control.

The marshmallow experiment is quite simple. The adult takes the child into the room and sits him in a chair, and on the table in front of him lies a sweet marshmallow. When the baby notices the treat, the scientist says: “I need to go away for 15 minutes, and you wait for me. In my absence, you can eat this marshmallow, but if you wait for me and don’t eat it, you will receive another marshmallow as a reward for waiting. It's up to you."

Walter Mischel's marshmallow test allows you to determine whether your baby is able to predict that he will receive double the amount of sweets and control his desire to eat the treat right now.

New study 2021

A new study published at the end of May 2021 casts doubt on this whole concept. The researchers—Tyler Watts of New York University and Greg Duncan and Hoanan Quan of the University of California, Irvine—reversed the classic marshmallow experiment developed by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s.

Watts and his colleagues were skeptical of Michel's findings. The original results were based on a sample of fewer than 90 children enrolled in preschool on the Stanford campus. Watts and his colleagues made an important change to the experimental setting: they used a much larger sample of more than 900 children, which was also more representative of the population in terms of race, ethnicity, and parental education.

Also, when analyzing the results, the researchers took into account parameters such as family income. This could impact the child's ability to delay gratification and their long-term success.

Ultimately, the study found limited support for the idea that the ability to delay gratification leads to a successful future. His findings suggest that the ability to wait for that second marshmallow is largely determined by a child's social and economic environment—and it is this environment, rather than the ability to delay gratification, that the researchers believe is behind a child's long-term success.

Conclusion

I would not agree that in 2021 researchers managed to disprove an experiment from the 60s. The second study does not actually contradict the first, but simply complements the previous conclusions. Moreover, it is only 2021 now and it is impossible to track the future of these children, as was done by Michel in his longitudinal study.

And this is how the experiment went

The further fate of the participants

Children who passed the marshmallow test grew up. The experiment is finally over. All these years, the researchers observed the participants and identified the same relationship between self-control in childhood and success in later life.

Participants who showed maximum persistence successfully passed the final test at the end of school. Their IQ level was an order of magnitude higher compared to other schoolchildren. All this allowed them to enter universities and continue studying.

How the “marshmallow experiment” was carried out

To further explore this fact, Walter Mischel conducted an experiment that was later called the “marshmallow experiment.” He took 16 boys and 16 girls aged from 3.5 to 5.5 years as subjects. For each of the eight researchers there were 4 children - 2 boys and 2 girls.

The experimenter took the child into the room, sat him in a chair and placed one marshmallow on the table in front of him. After that, he offered a deal: “Listen, I’ll go out now for 15 minutes. While I'm gone, you can eat this marshmallow, or you can not eat it and get a second one as a reward. It's up to you."

Refutation

In Michel's experiment, it was believed that the development of volitional abilities has an innate basis. That is, some children are born more capable of delaying gratification, while others are born less capable. However, many researchers noticed that the experiment was biased.

His first refutation came in 2012. Experts from the University of Rochester repeated it, making it a little more complicated. To begin with, the children were divided into two groups and given small gifts. They were told that after some time they would receive additional gifts. The children from the first group were never given the promised gifts, but the participants from the second group received them. After this, the second part of the study began - the “marshmallow experiment” itself.

It turned out that children who did not receive the promised gifts ate the marshmallows immediately, without waiting for additional ones. And children in the second group, who received additional gifts, could wait patiently 15 minutes to receive a second marshmallow.

This experiment showed that the ability to delay gratification is influenced not only by innate indicators, but also by the life experience of the subject. Further research only confirmed this assumption. Subsequent experiments involved children from different families: “white” and “black,” educated and uneducated, poor and rich.

It turned out that children from poor families ate marshmallows right away, while children from rich families waited patiently for the second one. The explanation here is that children from rich families are accustomed to the fact that they always get what they are promised; and children from poor families are accustomed to the fact that if now they have delicious food, then at another time they may not have it, so they need to take advantage of the moment. In addition, for children from rich families, a small marshmallow is an insignificant trifle; anyway, many different sweets await them at home; and for poor children even such a small treat means a lot.

Thus, the choice of children was influenced by their life circumstances and environment. The experiment took into account even such little things as the presence of books in the house, the responsiveness of mothers to children, the education of parents, etc.

A refutation of the “marshmallow experiment” is another experiment – a political one. We are talking about building socialism in Yugoslavia. Josip Broz Tito introduced a kind of liberal order at state enterprises. 95 percent of the enterprise's profits went to the state budget, and the remaining 5 percent was spent by workers at their own discretion. They had two options: take this money for themselves as a small increase in salary or invest it in modernizing the enterprise so that in the future it would bring more profit and, therefore, higher salaries to employees. Tito expected that the workers would invest this money in the development of enterprises, thus modernizing the economy would be carried out by the workers themselves; There is also an economic incentive – a possible multiple increase in wages in the future. However, Tito miscalculated: most often the workers simply took this money for themselves, providing a small but immediate increase in wages. Ordinary residents of Yugoslavia experienced all the hardships of poverty in childhood, so now, under “developed socialism,” they continued to “take advantage of the moment” out of habit.

All these experiments clearly show the difference between the psychology of a poor person and a rich one. Children from wealthy families can easily delay gratification because they know that they will definitely receive more later. And in adulthood, it is much easier for such people to carry out activities associated with risk, for example, opening their own business. Such people organize production enterprises, the characteristic feature of which is the lack of immediate profit: a production organization is able to make a profit only a long time after opening, but this profit will be impressive.

Poor people, on the contrary, strive for stability, they are cautious and do not like to take risks. Poor people live one day at a time, so they strive to take advantage of even the smallest gift of fate right away. If a poor person has the opportunity to open his own business, then in most cases this “business” is trade: it does not require serious financial investments and can bring fairly quick profits, but this profit will never be large. In addition, poor people tend to often pamper themselves with small acquisitions so that life does not seem too hopeless.

However, these refutations are not such in the full sense of the word; rather, they only complement and clarify the main experiment. The early development of volitional abilities also has a certain significance. Here we can mention experiments on chimpanzees, which, as it turned out, are also capable of delaying gratification. The monkeys were offered a choice of two handfuls of grapes: the first had four berries, and the second had twelve. If the monkey chose the first handful, then all the berries from it were given to it at once; and if the second, then the berries from it were given to her one at a time with a certain delay. Forty sessions were conducted, taking into account how often the monkeys chose the second option and whether they had the patience to wait for all the grapes to be placed in the bowl. The intelligence level of all chimpanzees was previously measured. It turned out that monkeys with the highest mental scores have a pronounced ability to delay gratification.

How the Marshmallow Study Was Conducted

To study this phenomenon more deeply, Walter conducted a test among children, which a few years later became known as the “marshmallow experiment.” The study was conducted on 16 boys and 16 girls, whose ages ranged from 3.5-5.5 years. There were 8 researchers in total, each assigned 2 girls and 2 boys.

During the experiment, the child was brought into the room, sat down on a chair, and the researcher placed a marshmallow on the table in front of him. He further proposed a deal: “I now need to go out for 15 minutes. In my absence, you can eat this marshmallow, but if not, then you will receive another one as a reward. The choice is yours".

Marshmallow test

Film "Marshmallow Test"

How long can a child wait without eating a marshmallow if the researcher promises to bring another one in exchange for waiting?

A 15-minute test of self-control or how uneaten candy leads to success. Marshmallow test (or Marshmallow test).

Psychological experiment

In the 1960s, psychology professor Walter Mischel conducted an experiment with Stanford kindergarten children to find out how much they could control their desires.

Children aged 4-6 years were brought into an empty room with a table and chair. A treat (marshmallow) was placed on the table. The presenter explained to the child that if he restrained himself and did not eat the treat before the adult returned, he would receive another one. The presenter left, and the child was left alone with the treat.

When the presenter explained to the children the rules for receiving the second piece of candy, almost all the children decided to wait. The researcher then left the room for 20 minutes.

While a few four-year-olds were able to resist temptation for a full 15 minutes, most gave up after less than one minute. When adults offered to cover the treat (according to the “out of sight, out of mind” principle) to make it easier to hold on to, the children, as a rule, refused.

Over the course of about a year, the children experienced dramatic changes in self-control. At the age of five or six years, most preferred not to have rewards in front of them and persistently suppressed thoughts about them in accordance with the self-control strategy.

Continuation of the experiment

Psychologists continued to be interested in the further development and fate of the children who passed the marshmallow test.

Subsequent studies showed that children who could resist eating sweets at age 4 were ahead of their peers in many areas when they reached 18: passing the SAT (the standardized test for admission to higher education in the United States) and high IQ scores tests. When comparing the SAT scores of children with the shortest delay times (bottom third) with those of children with the longest delay times (top third), the difference was 210 points. See ->

In 2006, after completing research, W. Michel came to the conclusion that respondents who failed the test in childhood had levels of stress, addiction, emotional and interpersonal problems on average much higher than those who passed it successfully.

Young people aged 27–32 years who demonstrated the greatest endurance during marshmallow tests as preschoolers had an optimal body mass index, were more effective in achieving their goals and coped with stress more successfully. In middle age, those who were able to wait persistently in childhood (“long delay”) and those who could not do so (“short delay”) had completely different brain scans in the areas (prefrontal cortex) that are responsible for tendency to addictions and obesity.

Self-control plays a critical role in long-term prediction of a person's success and quality of life.

Mechanisms that ensure self-control help manage your emotions, fight bad habits, and cope with stress more easily.

It seems that those of us who had a hard time resisting candy as children may have a harder time resisting a cigarette as an adult.

The girl who was reaching for the candy has already grown up, now she feels a craving for her beloved and cannot do anything about it. Divorce and separation plunges her into the abyss of negative experiences, from which she cannot get out on her own, because she does not know how and is not used to restraining herself.

Self-control is needed by schoolchildren and students sitting over textbooks. A ballerina who masters complex dance steps and adheres to a strict diet. Those who want to quit smoking and lose extra pounds cannot do without self-control.

Successful study, career, happy family - all this requires many times to overcome your “I want” and realize your “need”.

If you want to do the Marshmallow test with your children

Experimental conditions:

The child's age is 4-7 years.

Setting: a room without entertainment or distractions, on the table - your child’s favorite treat.

Explain to your child that he can eat the treat, but if he is patient and does not eat it before you arrive, he will get a second one. It is important that the child understands this condition and believes that he will receive the promised second treat.

How to evaluate the result?

If your child managed to hold on and wait for the “delayed gratification,” then congratulate him on good self-control for his age and yourself for being able to instill this valuable quality.

What if you couldn’t? If the marshmallow is bitten?!

Stay calm and optimistic. You are faced with the creative task of slowly and consistently developing self-control in your child. Teach him not to give in to his “I want”, but to cheerfully and energetically do what he “needs” to do.

One of the best ways to teach another, especially a child, is to lead by example.

How did the experiment go?

Psychologist Walter Mischel has been interested in problems of self-control since his youth. And this is not surprising: he knew very well in his own skin what it means to “succumb to temptation.”

Walter Michel and his famous marshmallows

The psychologist smoked three packs of cigarettes per day, and when he entered a cafe, he could not resist ordering some unhealthy dessert. Therefore, he had long dreamed of finding out: how does a person still resist temptations?

This opportunity presented itself to him at Stanford University. The university had its own large kindergarten, which was attended by children from 4 to 6 years old. At this age, children are actively developing their abilities for self-control, which means that a psychologist could study willpower in its “primordial form.”

Results

The results obtained in the first experiment allowed Michel to observe the development of volitional skills in people at different stages of their development. It is known that the will is formed in a child in the very first years of life. But at first it is impulsive in nature - the child does what he feels attracted to; for example, reaching for a toy to take it. At an older age, the child begins to simultaneously experience different drives, often they are opposite. Because of this, it becomes necessary to use a willful effort to choose one of these drives and reject the rest, that is, to set priorities. In addition, children's desires become more conscious and are no longer aimed only at satisfying their own needs, but also at satisfying the needs of others. So, an older preschooler can draw a picture to please his parents for the holiday.

The child’s behavior becomes less and less spontaneous and situational. This is how he learns moral norms and social rules. At first, of course, firmly understood rules can be interrupted by vivid emotions. Thus, a child who has already learned to greet adults may forget to greet his grandmother, who brought him gifts.

Thus, the ability to delay gratification indicates that the child is “growing up” and that he is becoming more independent, and also acquiring the ability to make long-term plans. And these are the criteria for success in adult life. Delayed development of delay of gratification can cause problems in adulthood.

As already indicated, in Michel's experiment the oldest subjects were the most capable of delaying gratification.