Posted on 06/24/2019 7:46:41 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
[Affluence—not willpower—seems to be what’s behind some kids’ capacity to delay gratification.]
The 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 she’s 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 has cast the whole concept into doubt. The researchers—NYU’s Tyler Watts and UC Irvine’s Greg Duncan and Hoanan Quan—restaged 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 children—all enrolled in a preschool on Stanford’s 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 larger—more than 900 children—and also more representative of the general population in terms of race, ethnicity, and parents’ education. The researchers also, when analyzing their test’s results, controlled for certain factors—such as the income of a child’s household—that might explain children’s 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 child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success.
The marshmallow test isn’t the only experimental study that has recently failed to hold up under closer scrutiny. Some scholars and journalists have gone so far to suggest that psychology is in the midst of a “replication crisis.” In the case of this new study, specifically, the failure to confirm old assumptions pointed to an important truth: that circumstances matter more in shaping children’s lives than Mischel and his colleagues seemed to appreciate.
This new paper found that among kids whose mothers had a college degree, those who waited for a second marshmallow did no better in the long run—in terms of standardized test scores and mothers’ reports of their children’s behavior—than those who dug right in. Similarly, among kids whose mothers did not have college degrees, those who waited did no better than those who gave in to temptation, once other factors like household income and the child’s home environment at age 3 (evaluated according to a standard research measure that notes, for instance, the number of books that researchers observed in the home and how responsive mothers were to their children in the researchers’ presence) were taken into account. For those kids, self-control alone couldn’t overcome economic and social disadvantages.
The failed replication of the marshmallow test does more than just debunk the earlier notion; it suggests other possible explanations for why poorer kids would be less motivated to wait for that second marshmallow. For them, daily life holds fewer guarantees: There might be food in the pantry today, but there might not be tomorrow, so there is a risk that comes with waiting. And even if their parents promise to buy more of a certain food, sometimes that promise gets broken out of financial necessity.
Meanwhile, for kids who come from households headed by parents who are better educated and earn more money, it’s typically easier to delay gratification: Experience tends to tell them that adults have the resources and financial stability to keep the pantry well stocked. And even if these children don’t delay gratification, they can trust that things will all work out in the end—that even if they don’t get the second marshmallow, they can probably count on their parents to take them out for ice cream instead.
There’s plenty of other research that sheds further light on the class dimension of the marshmallow test. The Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and the Princeton behavioral scientist Eldar Shafir wrote a book in 2013, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, that detailed how poverty can lead people to opt for short-term rather than long-term rewards; the state of not having enough can change the way people think about what’s available now. In other words, a second marshmallow seems irrelevant when a child has reason to believe that the first one might vanish.
Some more-qualitative sociological research also can provide insight here. For example, Ranita Ray, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, recently wrote a book describing how many teenagers growing up in poverty work long hours in poorly paid jobs to support themselves and their families. Yet, despite sometimes not being able to afford food, the teens still splurge on payday, buying things like McDonald’s or new clothes or hair dye. Similarly, in my own research with Brea Perry, a sociologist (and colleague of mine) at Indiana University, we found that low-income parents are more likely than more-affluent parents to give in to their kids’ requests for sweet treats.
These findings point to the idea that poorer parents try to indulge their kids when they can, while more-affluent parents tend to make their kids wait for bigger rewards. Hair dye and sweet treats might seem frivolous, but purchases like these are often the only indulgences poor families can afford. And for poor children, indulging in a small bit of joy today can make life feel more bearable, especially when there’s no guarantee of more joy tomorrow.
Are we talking full size marshmallows here, or the miniature ones that I like in my hot chocolate?
I’d be thinking of how I could S’more that sucker up!
Exactly. They controlled for socio-economic inputs as if that was an independent variable. But the entire point of the original experiment was that delayed gratification led to better socio-economic outcomes.
"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 child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success."
We already know that socio-economic outcomes are tied to parents. Successful parents tend to produce successful children. It's not independent at all. So in "controlling" for that input they likely just controlled out the original finding, even if the original study was correct.
This seems to be a big logical flaw in this study design.
Several examples of The Marshmallow Test are on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=marshmallow+test
This article is complete balderdash.
The authors are completely full of Shiite.
Delay of gratification usually does result in better outcomes...
Further, a child being poor can learn to put off fun, excessive purchases, etc while focusing on their bigger ideal, which will be reduced if you spend your pay check every pay day, and run out money before you run out of month.
I don’t like marshmallows.
Exactly right.
Just seemed like more psycho-babbel to me.
The kids who could wait it out still did better, but there were a lot of "inequality" reasons why.
For other examples...immigrants,who came here from other nations, first wound up living in slum conditions, which were far worse than ANYTHING ever even imaginable in the second 1/2 of the 20th century, nor in this one. Also there were absolutely NO "safety net" government programs!
Were there crime in these areas? Yes, and gangs too.
OTOH,most poor families ( few of whom had much of an education )and poor kids strove to do better, saved what little money they could, and over time rose in status and did better. The money they made was used to SURVIVE and buying something frivolous was not just frowned on, but usually harshly punished.
Do you eat the first one so that you don't have to eat two of them? I'm also not a marshmallow fan unless they are scorched over a camp fire or melted into Rice Krispy treats.
One thing the second study didn't seem to mention is that those who are genetically or culturally inclined to delay gratification are the wealthier families, thus what the researchers are claiming is the cause is actually an effect.
Orwell said the same thing about the poor in The Road to Wigan Pier.
“Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn’t. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you.”
A big Charleston Chew bar was screaming at me to take it home from the grocery store tonight but I refused. I must have big things in my future.
Your father was poisoned?
Regards,
I can believe the original test was limited. The result seemed to make intuitive sense, but also provided a too-easy explanation. It seems simplistic.
Now we have a new study that found exactly what modern “researchers” always find, that socioeconomic class is destiny.
I don’t find this one any more credible than the original.
I would have taken the first marshmallow and eaten that without blinking. My reason: “Hell, you’re liberals! Why would I take your word that you even HAVE another marshmallow, let alone that you’d actually give it to the white-privileged kid who needs to pay reparations?”
If ya can’t be an outlier, why even try? ;)
You might be on to something... maybe the kids who take the marshmallow are kids who don’t trust the word of adults.
That was my experience as well of my parents that came of age during the Depression. Instant gratification because you were poor? Quite the opposite. My folks never bought me candy or gum or stuff. Once I started earning my own money my Dad would try to get me to not splurge so much on getting 25 cents worth of penny candy.
“You spend it on candy - and that’s gone in ten minutes and you have nothing to show for your hard work. Save it up for a bike or something that will last years.” (I still have that bike btw!)
I was one of the kids in that experiment. I was tested in 5th grade in nearby Mt. View (so was Steve Jobs, who was a year behind me). We figured out quickly what was going on: The bus they tested us in had a ‘mirror’ behind us that was, in fact, one-way glass . . .so we knew we were part of an experiment. Word got around quickly among us that we would get more stuff if we deferred the reward. The grad student testers must have been very impressed that we were all willing to wait a day to get a better gift (not a marshmallow, but a cool eraser, If I remember correctly). So much for child development research . . .
I actually see the redone study as having validity. I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. It is very true that you can temporarily go without anything much easier when there is general surplus security. It is very true that even when poor families get a little windfall like a tax refund, they tend to spend it on something superfluously fun for their kids like Disneyland and not toward bills or dentist because they so wish for their children to have some little joys in their childhood.
I think the study redo has merit and I think it has an important conclusion:
DO NOT HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX IF YOU ARE POOR. The children you will have will be less able in this world just by your lack of surplus. They will suffer. Wait until you can afford a family before making one.
Always a great read!
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