The Marshmallow Test

[Grummgug]

What is most certainly the most famous sociological test ever given is known simply as the Marshmallow test.

To put it very simply, in the early 1970s, a group of children of the average age of 4 years old were tested. The test was simple. The researcher would meet with a child in a room and present the child with a marshmallow. The researcher then said he would leave the room for 15 minutes, and that if the child could not eat the marshmallow until he returned, the child would get a second marshmallow.

About 1/3 of the children had the self-discipline to not eat the marshmallow. 2/3 failed the test.

These children have been tracked throughout their lives. They are in their 40s now.

100% of the children who earned a second marshmallow went on to have good grades and successful careers in life. 100%

Almost NONE of the children who ate the marshmallow went on to have good grades nor successful careers in life.

Self-discipline is the key to success. Not intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanfor...low_experiment

There was a second follow up study recently that went deeper into the psychology of the test. This test repeated the marshmallow test but examined it from the standpoint of trust.

In this new test, the children were FIRST promised toys, goodies, treats, etc. if they performed certain tasks. Some of the children would perform the task and get the promised reward. Others would perform the task and not get the promised reward. This was repeated several times. THEN these children would be given the marshmallow test.

Almost ALL of the children who interacted with the "unreliable" adult failed to win the second marshmallow. Over HALF of the children who interacted with the "reliable" adult waited the 15 minutes and won the second marshmallow.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor...hey_trust.html

So the deeper insight gleaned is that self-discipline stems from trust in the system. A young child who has good parents, parents that are reliable, will build trust in their child. This child will then trust the system to reward them, and have the self-discipline to get good grades and be successful in life.

Conversely, a child with unreliable parents, parents that aren't there for them, will grow up to not trust their parents, and later on not trust the system. They learn to go for instant gratification because they don't think there is any reward coming. These kids end up taking more risks in life, getting into trouble, getting poor grades, and have poor life outcomes.

The single biggest factor they found to determining whether a child will earn the second marshmallow is the presence of a father in the household. It seems that without the father, trust is much more likely to be broken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWURnHkYuxM

[Unoriginal]

mind is blown

[Kraenen]

I thought it was a psychological test, not a sociological one?

[lupii]

I thought it was a psychological test, not a sociological one?

I think it went from the psychological part of self-restraint and choice of reward onto greater inferences of their quality of life and their successes. I think this comes down to the personality, as the OP seems to be siding in the Nature vs. Nurture debate on the nurture side, claiming that it comes down to the parents. From a student/academic point of view, I would think it would be more the personality of the child that would begin the idea of self-restraint and self-discipline.

[chazus]

At first I thought this was interesting, and then I thought.. "Well, duh?"

A child raised in a caring, balanced environment grows up to be a balanced person? You don't say. It is rather interesting, but it makes sense even without any advanced education in the subject.

[Rucati]

It requires a combination of both intelligence and self restraint to succeed, as far as I'm concerned. If you aren't very smart but have the self restraint required to sit and study material for an hour a night you'll get good grades, however if you're just naturally intelligent you don't need to do that to get good grades. At the same time, it doesn't matter how intelligent you are if you aren't able to control yourself and get your job done, you aren't going to succeed.

It's simple enough to just say that perhaps those children that didn't eat the marshmallow were smarter, not that they had self control, but they were just smart enough to realize that 2 marshmallows > 1. And that's why they went on to get good grades and succeed.

Regardless, I fail to see how getting good grades in school correlates to succeeding in the real world, so the fact that nearly all the kids who ate the single marshmallow got bad grades and didn't have a successful life doesn't exactly add up. I know plenty of idiots that did poorly in school and are doing great now.

[breadisfunny]

there is one problem with that test.......as a child I HATED MARSHMELLOWS. i still do. so unless you replaced it with a food i liked it wouldnt work with me. since i wouldnt eat them anyways.

[LilSaihah]

there is one problem with that test.......as a child I HATED MARSHMELLOWS. i still do. so unless you replaced it with a food i liked it wouldnt work with me. since i wouldnt eat them anyways.

buuuuuuuuurn the heretic

[LocNess]

there is one problem with that test.......as a child I HATED MARSHMELLOWS. i still do. so unless you replaced it with a food i liked it wouldnt work with me. since i wouldnt eat them anyways.

What about S'mores?

[Powerogue]

Forget algebra, we need a self-discipline class in schools! I'll need a classroom and several hundred bags of marshmallows.

[PhillieB]

It is a very interesting experiment but I think draw the conclusion that self-discipline = success is pushing it. The population size (53) is far far too small to draw those conclusions, how do you judge what is a successful career or not - that is arbitrary, what was the background of the "successful" kids - were a large portion of them likely to be successful anyhow due to other enviromental factors....etc. etc.

[Deleted]

Yaaay I'll be successful!
It all depends on what you mean with success I guess.
There are many factors that you could consider as succes, a lot of money to spare, wife(s) and kids, a job that is well respected by people or is it simply just enjoying what you do in life?
Myself I can't think of anything else I'd like to do than my current job. Still I have some things I need to take care of in my life.

[Afrospinach]

buuuuuuuuurn the heretic

Is it also heresy to not like pink marshmallows? because I love white ones but the pink ones almost always taste weird >.<

Does not surprise me at all this study, doing things you may not enjoy so much while there are other things you are able and rather would be is how you will spend much of your life.

[LocNess]

Is it also heresy to not like pink marshmallows? because I love white ones but the pink ones almost always taste weird >.<

Does not surprise me at all this study, doing things you may not enjoy so much while there are other things you are able and rather would be is how you will spend much of your life.

I have never really liked those rainbow mini ones. Just let me have my white marshmallows please, the others taste weird.

[Mayhem]

Yaaay I'll be successful!
It all depends on what you mean with success I guess.
There are many factors that you could consider as succes, a lot of money to spare, wife(s) and kids, a job that is well respected by people or is it simply just enjoying what you do in life?
Myself I can't think of anything else I'd like to do than my current job. Still I have some things I need to take care of in my life.

well it still depends on the choices you make, but if you had a happy childhood the chances are on the side of success more than on the side of failure, still you can´t just say "bam good parents = successfull child" because you never know what the future brings and what happens in your field of work (crash, bubble, whatever...)

[Laize]

What is most certainly the most famous sociological test ever given is known simply as the Marshmallow test.

To put it very simply, in the early 1970s, a group of children of the average age of 4 years old were tested. The test was simple. The researcher would meet with a child in a room and present the child with a marshmallow. The researcher then said he would leave the room for 15 minutes, and that if the child could not eat the marshmallow until he returned, the child would get a second marshmallow.

About 1/3 of the children had the self-discipline to not eat the marshmallow. 2/3 failed the test.

These children have been tracked throughout their lives. They are in their 40s now.

100% of the children who earned a second marshmallow went on to have good grades and successful careers in life. 100%

Almost NONE of the children who ate the marshmallow went on to have good grades nor successful careers in life.

Self-discipline is the key to success. Not intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanfor...low_experiment

There was a second follow up study recently that went deeper into the psychology of the test. This test repeated the marshmallow test but examined it from the standpoint of trust.

In this new test, the children were FIRST promised toys, goodies, treats, etc. if they performed certain tasks. Some of the children would perform the task and get the promised reward. Others would perform the task and not get the promised reward. This was repeated several times. THEN these children would be given the marshmallow test.

Almost ALL of the children who interacted with the "unreliable" adult failed to win the second marshmallow. Over HALF of the children who interacted with the "reliable" adult waited the 15 minutes and won the second marshmallow.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor...hey_trust.html

So the deeper insight gleaned is that self-discipline stems from trust in the system. A young child who has good parents, parents that are reliable, will build trust in their child. This child will then trust the system to reward them, and have the self-discipline to get good grades and be successful in life.

Conversely, a child with unreliable parents, parents that aren't there for them, will grow up to not trust their parents, and later on not trust the system. They learn to go for instant gratification because they don't think there is any reward coming. These kids end up taking more risks in life, getting into trouble, getting poor grades, and have poor life outcomes.

The single biggest factor they found to determining whether a child will earn the second marshmallow is the presence of a father in the household. It seems that without the father, trust is much more likely to be broken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWURnHkYuxM

So what happens when these kids get told that studying hard and going to college will get them a good career and a good life... and then they grow up in 2010?

[Spectral]

Well, yeah. This is a nice microcosm of a very clear, obvious phenomenon, but it's not exactly new information. Bad parenting results in idiotic adults that can't think any farther than the nearest shiny object. Then you wind up with this.

[Simulacrum]

What is most certainly the most famous sociological test ever given is known simply as the Marshmallow test.

I'm sure more people have heard of the milgram experiments, zimbardo's prison study, etc, than this one.

100% of the children who earned a second marshmallow went on to have good grades and successful careers in life. 100%

Almost NONE of the children who ate the marshmallow went on to have good grades nor successful careers in life.

Self-discipline is the key to success. Not intelligence.

Source? All I've ever heard about this is that it correlates with greater success, not that it guarantees success for every single individual without exception, as you've excplicitly stated right there. Almost 2/3rd of the participants went on to have bad grades and fail at life? k

It's also correlational, not causal. It doesn't say anything about what the reason for why we see these things are, only that they correlate with each other. For all you know, a higher intelligence could lead to a greater ability to come up with better ways of distractnig yourself from the reward. Keep in mind that the successful children weren't successful because they had better 'willpower', or anything as quaint as that, but because they distracted themselves by thinking about other things, singing songs, hiding the reward behind something or turning away from it so that they couldn't see it, etc.

Even if it did say something about dicipline, it'd only say anything about your ability to be disciplined in relation to the reward of the test. Children who did not like the reward would have a lower ability to delay gratification, because they wouldn't see the benefit of delayed gratification as worth the cost of delaying it, which they very well could have if the reward were soemthing they were more interested in. Another reason why your "100%" assertion sounds like bullshit to me.

There was a second follow up study recently that went deeper into the psychology of the test. This test repeated the marshmallow test but examined it from the standpoint of trust.

The recent study was a waste of time more than it was an interesting piece of research.

They prime the kids to trust or distrust the researchers, then discover that the kids who distrust the researchers don't believe them when they say that if they delay reward they'll be given a greater one. Which makes sense, because that's perfectly rational. It has nothing to do with the marshmallow experiment itself, they just tagged it onto that one to give it some air of legitimacy.

It didn't actually demonstrate anything other than that the kids were rational in exactly the way that anyone without their head up their ass would predict would happen.

Well, I guess researchers have ot spend their time and money on something...

[Deleted]

My teacher actually did this test on us when I was about 10, it was with a small piece of chocolate rather than a marshmallow though. I didn't eat it myself but most people scoffed it without a second thought.