THE MARSHMALLOW EXPERIMENT

Throughout the 1960s, Walter Mischel led more than 600 children, one by one, into a room with nothing but a chair and table in it, and gave them a marshmallow. He then left the room for 15-20 minutes, but told the children beforehand if they don’t eat the marshmallow while he is gone, they will get another one upon his return.

No, Mischel was not a perverted sexual predator, but a brilliant psychology professor at the University of Stanford. ⁽¹⁾Cynics would say one doesn’t necessarily exclude the another, but as you all know, this blog is a cynicism-free zone! In the series of experiments which would later become known as Stanford Marshmallow Experiments, Mischel investigated the matters of self-control and willpower. He wondered whether the children are able to delay their gratification for the sake of future gains.

The experiments showed they are. Only one-third of the children ate the marshmallow immediately. Another third hesitated for a while, but then succumbed. And the last third managed to delay their gratification for the entire 15-20 minute period – which must have seemed almost like an eternity for a child who had something sweet in front of his eyes.

Now, Mischel wasn’t interested in the very nature of willpower. Back in the day, it was assumed willpower is a predetermined trait.  ⁽²⁾As we will see later in the article, that is not quite true What Mischel WAS interested in were the methods that helped the children to resist. As he himself said in a recent interview: ⁽³⁾Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/what-the-marshmallow-test-really-teaches-about-self-control/380673/

„[…] we were studying the kinds of things that kids did naturally to make self-control easier or harder for them. Four-year-olds can be brilliantly imaginative about distracting themselves, turning their toes into piano keyboards, singing little songs, exploring their nasal orifices.“

You see, Mischel assumed the very same cognitive processes used by children to delay their gratification are used by adults in face of adversity:

„The most interesting thing, I think, about the studies is not the correlations that the press picks up, but that the marshmallow studies became the basis for testing all kinds of adults and how adults deal with difficult emotions that are very hard to distance yourself from, like heartbreak or grief.“

Also, Mischel wanted to find out whether a child’s age has anything to do with the ability to delay the gratification. As the studies showed, the correlation was quite significant – the older the child, the longer it took him, on average, to give up and eat the marshmallow.

In the 1970s Mischel published his findings ⁽⁴⁾For instance, see: Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. B. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16(2), 329-337 and Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Raskoff Zeiss, A. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(2), 204-218  – and suddenly, that was it! The kids went home, he continued his professional life and everybody lived happily ever after. Although the results of Marshmallow Test were important, there were by no means revolutionary. There was no stir in the scientific community, no headlines in the newspapers and no viral posts on fantastic Internet blogs. ⁽⁵⁾Is it just me, or you have heard this joke before. I mean, „joke“

Mischel and marshmallows would have probably never become famous, were it not for the series of follow-up studies conducted by Mischel almost 20 years later.

THE POWER OF DELAYED GRATIFICATION

Mischel’s three daughters, together with a number of their friends, were also the Marshmallow experiment subjects. Throughout the 1970s, mostly during the occasional dinner conversations, Mischel would often ask them about their friends. About how they are doing in their lives. ⁽⁶⁾Apparently, good parents take interest in their children’s lives! So stop watching that fucking football game and ask your kid about his/her day. Yes, I know it is World Championship, but you can’t tell me Uruguay – Egipt match is more interesting than your own child! He began to notice that kids who were able to delay their gratification did very good in the academic environment.

In order to convince himself that is not just a coincidence, in 1981 he sent surveys to the teachers, parents and academic advisors of the original study subjects. He asked them to evaluate a broad variety of traits, like the ability to plan, to think ahead, to cope with the problems, etc. He even asked for their SAT scores.

Approximately one third answered the surveys. Mischel analyzed them. And the rest is history –the results he obtained were earth-shattering.  One follow-up study concluded that children who were able to wait longer are ‘more academically and socially competent, verbally fluent, rational, attentive, planful, and able to deal well with frustration and stress’.  ⁽⁷⁾Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Peake, P. K. (1988). The nature of adolescent competencies predicted by preschool delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(4), 687–696 Another two stated they ‘developed into more cognitively and socially competent adolescents, achieving higher scholastic performance and coping better with frustration and stress’. ⁽⁸⁾Mischel W, Shoda Y, Rodriguez MI. Delay of gratification in children. Science. 1989 May 26;244(4907):933-8. Review. PubMed PMID: 2658056. and Shoda, Yuichi & Mischel, Walter & K. Peake, Philip. (1990). Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Self-Regulatory Competencies From Preschool Delay of Gratification: Identifying Diagnostic Conditions. Developmental Psychology. 26. 978-986. 10.1037/0012-1649.26.6.978.  Other psychologists also conducted similar studies and showed childhood delay of gratification ‘predicts physical health, substance dependence, personal finances and criminal offending outcomes.’  ⁽⁹⁾Moffitt TE, Arseneault L, Belsky D, Dickson N, Hancox RJ, Harrington H, Houts R, Poulton R, Roberts BW, Ross S, Sears MR, Thomson WM, Caspi A. A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proc Natl AcadSci U S A. 2011 Feb 15;108(7):2693-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1010076108. Epub 2011 Jan24. PubMed PMID: 21262822; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3041102. It is even correlated with mental health – children being able to delay the gratification suffered from fewer mental illnesses, such as depression. ⁽¹⁰⁾Mischel W, Ayduk O, Berman MG, Casey BJ, Gotlib IH, Jonides J, Kross E, Teslovich T, Wilson NL, Zayas V, Shoda Y. ‘Willpower’ over the life span: decomposing self-regulation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2011 Apr;6(2):252-6. doi : 10.1093/scan/nsq081. Epub 2010 Sep 19.

Thus, Mischel discovered that children’s ability to delay gratification is highly correlated with his/her overall well-being achieved later in life. ⁽¹¹⁾Okay, to be completely honest, this is not completely true. There is an ongoing discussion about the validity of Mischel’s studies and his conclusions as a whole. Some critics claim the sample was too small, some critics claim the environment wasn’t controlled, some critics claim the sample consisted only of rich children whose background was a greater predictor of later success than the actual delay of gratification. One study that tried to replicate Mischel’s experiment didn’t quite get the same results: Tyler W. Watts, Greg J. Duncan, and Haonan Quan, Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes, Psychological Science, First Published May 25, 2018. It is above the paygrade of the author of these lines to determine who is right and who is wrong. For those of you who are interested, I have provided links to a number of articles that criticize the Marshmallow Experiment at the end of this post. For the sake of this article we have taken the stand that, even if the correlation between gratitude delay and well-being is not as high as Mischel thought, it is definitely existent. Mischel himself addressed a number of issues regarding the Marshmallow Experiment in his recent book The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control Is The Engine Of Success. When asked why he decided to publish the book so many years after the actual test, he said: „There have been so many misunderstandings about what the Marshmallow Test does and doesn’t do, what the lessons are to take from it, that I thought I might as well write about this rather than have arguments in the newspapers“

Now that we have established it, a natural question arises. Is there any way of becoming better at delaying our gratification? How does one do it? How does one get better at delaying his gratification?

HOW TO GET BETTER AT DELAYED GRATIFICATION

In 2013, a group of psychologists from the University of Rochester decided to repeat the Marshmallow experiment with one significant difference.  ⁽¹²⁾Celeste Kidd, Holly Palmeri, Richard N. Aslin, Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability, Cognition, Volume 126, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 109-114, ISSN 0010-0277

They divided the children in two groups:

• The first group was exposed to a set of unreliable experiences. They didn’t get the promised reward after the tests and very quickly refused to trust the researcher.
• The second group was exposed to a set of reliable experiences and found the researcher trustworthy.

As expected, the second group was able to delay its gratification for much longer. The child’s ability to delay gratification was not a predetermined trait – it was affected by the experiences and environment surrounding them. And it happened almost instantly – only one unreliable/reliable experience was enough to significantly alter the actions of a child in one direction or another.

The results of this study are consistent with other findings regarding willpower and self-control. In 1998, psychologist Roy Baumeister discovered that the more people were forced to exert willpower, the worse they were at actually doing it. He discovered that willpower is finite and can be drained. He called this phenomenon ‘ego-depletion’. ⁽¹³⁾Baumeister, R.F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M. & Tice, D.M. (1998), Ego depletion: is the active self a limited resource?, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74 (5), 1252

But the good news is – the basic level of our ability to delay our gratification can be increased. As much as the willpower can be drained, its loss can be slowed and it can be replenished.

Think of something mundane as making your bed. When you were a child, doing it was probably a drag. You weren’t able to delay the gratification of doing literally anything else, which led to a number of arguments with your parents, especially your mother. ⁽¹⁴⁾Every similarity with real life persons and events is completely arbitrary However, over the years, you have probably managed to make your bed thousands (or at least hundreds) of times.

This is why willpower is often compared to a muscle. After many repetitions, making the bed isn’t such a huge problem –  it becomes a habit. It doesn’t drain your willpower any longer. Making the bad isn’t an issue of willpower. It doesn’t require a delay of gratification any longer.

And this is precisely the way of improving our ability to delay gratification. Developing habits over the extended period of time is what leads to a greater level of willpower. Developing habits is the key to self-control.

But how does one set about establishing habits? A lot has been written on the matter and it is beyond the scope of this article to dwelve into the matter too deeply. Let us describe a couple of important ingredients of habit building:

• Start small

When starting a new habit, people get overenthusiastic and set the bar at the heights which aren’t sustainable. A person who starts going to the gym will hit the gym five times a week during the first couple of months. As a result, willpower will be drained very quickly and the person will start feeling burnt out. Sooner or later, this will lead to lack of motivation and breaking of the habit.

You wouldn’t go to a gym and try to break the world record in weight-lifting on your first day. Don’t do the same with the willpower. Remember – it is a muscle. And muscles have to been trained properly!

• Focus on the process

We have all heard the old „It’s all about the journey, not about destination“ cliche. In the context of habit building, this cliche is very relevant. Way too often, people decide to exercise habit with a specific goal in mind, like running one marathon or losing 20 pounds. ⁽¹⁵⁾See: any New Year’s Eve Resolution ever

What happens is that A) The goal is overambitious and people give up or B) The goal has been achieved, but what next? The outcome is the same – breaking of the habit.

Therefore, it is much better to focus on something process related – love for exercise, hanging out with people at the gym, becoming healthier in general, etc.

• Forgive yourself

Very often, during the habit-building period, people are too harsh toward themselves. A person who wants to give up cigarettes and smokes one on a Saturday night might kick him/herself for giving in to the temptation. This guilt is counterproductive

Realizing that you are human permitting yourself to fuck up here and there is a much better approach.

• Control the environment

Research about habits shows that the most effective way of developing a new habit is to focus on the routines, the triggers that lead to a certain behaviour.

For instance, it is well known that smokers often light a cigarette when drinking a coffee, during a break at work or after sex.

A person wishing to quit smoking should focus on these pre-cigarette rituals. Not having a cigarette/lighter in the vicinity during these rituals helps to eliminate the behavior associated with them.  ⁽¹⁶⁾Ideally, you’d wish to stop these rituals completely, but I think you will all agree it might not be the best approach here. The key to developing habits is the control of the environment.

And in the 21st century, it is getting increasingly difficult to do so.

B-B-B-B-BUT WHAT DOES FACEBOOK HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

In 2009, Facebook introduced a revolutionary new feature – the ‘Like’ button – and screwed our generation for decades to come.

Out of nowhere our every action, our every Facebook status, our every comment became something measurable. A subject of evaluation. A subject of a judgment of other people.

And since we humans are especially sensitive when it comes to approval of others, the mechanism behind the ‘Like’ button introduced a whole set of challenges connected with the gratification of delay. We humans are wired to seek validation, and Facebook has allowed us to do so instantly, in front of a broader audience.

And the problem is that instant gratification, just like in many other areas, has grave consequences.

Allow me to share my experience. I am pretty much aware I am definitely one of the ‘victims’ of the social media. Whenever I post something, I always keep track of the number of likes on Facebook. The number of upvotes on Quora. A number of views on the Instagram story.

And although I am aware I am behaving like a total narcissist, although I know how silly it is, although I am very much ashamed whenever I refresh my social media feed to see if someone new has validated me, I can’t help it. I laugh at this habit, I mock myself, I know I am behaving stupidly and irrationally.

Yet I still do it.

However, the biggest problem is that the number of likes doesn’t actually make me happy. Waiting for likes is a lose-lose situation  – if they don’t come it is a disaster and if they come, the dopamine rush lasts very shortly. Instant gratification is actually very brief. Instant gratification is fleeting gratification.

In a way, it is like an addiction. In the book Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How To Say No To Take Control Of Your Life, the authors have written that:

 „People who overuse technology display many of the same qualities associated with alcohol and drug addiction. A person receives a psychological jolt or reward (or anxiety reduction) for repeatedly checking social media, email, texts, or whatever it is the he or she engages with digitally. When the sensation or relief has passed, the person has a need for another “hit,” and the “addictive” cycle begins.“

And although social media are the most obvious example, instant gratification is more difficult to resist in other areas of life as well. Modern times are full of challenges related to instant gratification. Many problems in life are connected with the increasing need for having everything AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Instant gratification is degrading the overall quality of our life. Expecting instant gratification refers to long-term career growth, making relationships work and achieving goals. Expecting instant gratification initially and not getting it can make you impatient and give up on your dreams.

For instance, many people are not satisfied with their jobs not because their jobs objectively suck, but because they have unrealistic expectations. The first sign of discomfort and they try finding something new. Something better. ⁽¹⁷⁾Hypocrite alert! Hypocrite alert! But I will be fair – I actually think this lack of patience is one of the reasons my quarter-life crisis is alive and kicking

It is not surprising there are so many „get-rich-quick-schemes“ nowadays. I mean, there are so many millionaires younger than 25, what are you doing with your life? A big group of people became rich only because they promise to make others rich. Who wants to, like, invest and make financial plans when you can have it all now?

It is not surprising that divorce rates are plummeting. The approach to relationships is very much based on instant gratification nowadays. Fewer people are willing to put in work, willing to compromise, willing to delay their gratification. Many people don’t focus on the long-term value of the relationship. Many people approach the relationship in a transactional way: ‘I have a need, I want it fulfilled, the other people are unable to do so at the moment, time to move on.’

This impulsiveness is how kids approach life. Which brings me to the final part of the article.

DELAYING OUR GRATIFICATION LEADS TO ADULTHOOD

When you think of it, Mischel’s work is just another example of a scientific study confirming something all of us intuitively know. We encounter the positive side-effect of gratification delay in our own lives on a daily basis. For example:

• We would very much like to skip going to the gym today, but we delay our gratification because we know we will feel good afterward
• We would very much like to eat a box of chocolate, but we delay our gratification because the summer is coming and we don’t have a six-pack
• We would very much like to play computer games now instead of working on this article, but we delay our gratification because we know we often use computer games as an escape from obligations and not as a source of fun

Now, although the children in the Marshmallow experiment were able to delay their gratification, they were able to do so PRIMARILY because of external factors (they got rewarded!). We, on the other hand, are able to take the CONSEQUENCES into account and act on the basis of the EVALUATION of these consequences. Understanding that immediate pleasure has its price, being guided by a certain set of VALUES and higher-level PRINCIPLES and considering the ‘bigger picture’ while making our decisions are characteristics of true adulthood.

And it has nothing to do with the actual age of the person.

For instance, just the other day a guy in Zadar beat his ex-girlfriend because she ‘behaved conspicuously’. He was unable to control his impulses, unable to delay the gratification of pleasure that beating other people gives him. He is definitely not an adult. ⁽¹⁸⁾Source: https://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/crna-kronika/tko-je-nasilnik-koji-je-prebio-djevojku-u-zadarskom-kaficu-darka-kovacevica-u-zadru-znaju-skoro-svi-ali-nitko-o-njemu-nema-niti-jednu-lijepu-rijec/7500885/

Similarly, a person with a drinking problem who can’t delay his gratification and decides to grab the bottle is definitely not an adult.

A person with strong sexual urge who can’t delay his/her gratification and thinks the best way of fulfilling his/her sexual desires is molesting others in real life, or even online, is definitely not adult.

Thus, delaying gratification is one of the most notable stages between maturity and immaturity. Between being a dysfunctional, impulsive prick and being a healthy person. Between being a child and being a true adult.

I think this is incredibly important. Therefore, allow me to repeat this definition once again, loudly and clearly, with a bolded and caps-locked sentence in the middle of the screen:

MATURITY IS LEARNING TO DELAY YOUR GRATIFICATION, TO EXERCISE THE RIGHT CHOICE DUE TO A SET OF HIGHER-LEVEL PRINCIPLES AND ABSTRACT VALUES

⁽¹⁹⁾Naturally, this is a vast simplification. Please bear in mind most of the things I write on this blog are simplified models of incredibly complex phenomena. It is impossible to accurately define adulthood in a single sentence. Developmental psychologists like Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg and Robert Kegan have dedicated their lives to this subject. If you are interested in a simplified wrap-up of their theories, I can’t recommend Mark Manson’s article –  How To Grow The Fuck Up: A Guide To Humans highly enough. It may be the very best he has ever written

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

GRATIFICATION, SELF-CONTROL, MARSHMALLOW EXPERIMENT

Walter Mischel – The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control Is The Engine Of Success

Thoughtcatalog: The Problem With Instant Gratification

James Clear: Delayed Gratification

whatispsychology: Deferred Gratification Stanford Marshmallow Experiment

NewYorker: Don’t

Psychologytoday: 10 Reasons We Rush Immediate Gratification

Mark Manson: Habits

INSTANT GRATIFICATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Elitedaily: Instant Gratification

Magazine.nd.edu: Gotta Have It Right Now

Theisthmus: Instant Gratification And The Snapchat Generation

Huffingtonpost: The Era Of Instant Gratification

 CRITICISM OF THE MARSHMALLOW STUDY

thedailybeast: Just Let Them Eat The Marshmallow

Vox: Marshmallow Test Replication Mischel Psychology

nytimes: We Didn’t Eat The Marshmallow The Marshmallow Ate Us

Slate: The Marshmallow Study Revisited

The Atlantic: Why Rich Kids Are So Good At Marshmallow Test