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.
It means that people who fail to make themselves valuable to others and society and therefor are poor are just as unable to manage money as they are to earn it.
It’s common sense that delaying gratification is crucial to curbing impulse buying or overspending as well as saving for the future. In other words delaying gratification is important to wealth building.
Reminds me of something that happened recently. Hubby and I see the same doctor. He came home and was all glowing because when the doc game him a question on math during some test for dementia or something he had the answer to the math question before doc finished it and the doc told him....you broke my test. I said....see that’s the difference between you and me. I wouldn’t have taken the stupid test to begin with. lol
Lindt is our everyday brand of choice. :)
Your family experience is the same as mine. Dad was a little kid, but Grandpa had a wife and an ill FIL to support during the Depression. He worked multiple jobs; he’d do pretty much ANYTHING legal, LOL!
“Sense of nuclear family, religion, and perseverance led this and other families to success in the long run, to achieve a piece of the American dream, and to see the offspring do better than the parents.”
Sadly, missing from SO many kids’ lives these days. Thanks, Feminists! Thanks Hippies! Thanks, Socialists!
*SPIT*
I am POWERLESS over Sour Cherry Balls, LOL! I’ll probably have a pretty awful life from here on out. ;)
That’s interesting! :)
It’s the same test actually: Are you disciplined and capable enough to hold marshmallow exactly far way from the fire for a longer time, rotating it it slowly and steady enough to get the golden brown color? Or you try to get too close to try to cook it quickly ? And so burn it with lots of neat flames and smoke?
What about those of us that have worked hard and delayed our gratification in so many aspects of our lives so we could retire early and then enjoy life to the fullest?
And what do I do NOW that I’ve spent a lifetime not WANTING stuff, and now I can have whatever I want, but still don’t WANT anything out of the ordinary?
Who speaks for US? *SMIRK*
P.S. And I don’t like marshmallows, either! Blech!
“Although they don’t come out and say it, white privilege mostly”
My first thoughts, too.
The original article was from The Atlantic, so I don’t know.
That's exactly what I was going to say. So the results of the first test were not wrong. People with poor impulse control go on to breed more of the same.
think the study redo has merit and I think it has an important conclusion: DO NOT HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX IF YOU ARE POOR.
IOW, one can tell the rich kids by their deferment of gratification. Ta-dah, same as the study from decades ago.
They’re measuring a child’s ability to delay gratification for a bigger payoff later measured against their success later in life. Then they normalize against every method and opportunity a child would have to learn this valuable lesson and, viola, the curve is flat.
Imagine if I were trying to show that eating healthy extended your life. But then I “corrected” for income (which makes it easier to eat healthy), parents who lived longer (some of which will simply be because of good genes but many will be because of healthy lifestyle habits they’ve passed down to their children), living locale (some locations simply promote a healthier lifestyle), etc. By the time I’ve corrected for all the factors that promote eating healthier, I’ve removed the very thing I was trying to measure!
This is terrible science.
Yeah. I’ve been very successful using common sense instead of relying on these studies that almost always seem to get reversed later on...
The ultimate delayed gratification? Live like Jesus now, and get untold rewards later...
This study drives Libs crazy.
What they can’t fathom is that distinctions in socio-economics leads to different mental-emotional responses. Doh.
If there is any truth to the economic basis for Marshmallow results, think about how it works with your dog: a dog will do anything if it knows the end result.
Rich kids can be confident of positive outcomes, whereas poor kids are trained to expect uncertainty.
Libs would have us remove marshmallows altogether, whereas the better solution would be to train poor kids to appreciate that the outcomes they seek will come.
But that means training their parents — and that’s the catch.
What if I don’t trust them not to steal the marshmallow.
What if they are a man dressed like a woman?
What if I hate marshmallows?
What if I wanted peanut butter on burn’t toast instead.
In all scenarios this is just one stupid damn test.
I call BS on this test. Delayed gratification is important to success. Finding no relations to it have to be BS social engineering. We have to control our impulses for greater success. To say self control and success are separated doesn’t pass a simple logic test.
Anyone have to study all weekend while your friends drank beer. How did it turn out.
Agreed. This is a BS study parameters and conclusion.
Agreed. This isn’t rocket surgery or brain science. Oops - in a way it is but the “researchers” screwed this completely up. So they must be neither.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong. It seems so much like simple common sense.
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