What Happens When a 4-year-old Encounters a Marshmallow?

Reading time ~ 4-5 minutes

Back in the 1970s, researchers at Stanford University were testing the willpower of 4 to 6-year-old children. They did this by using a candy, viz. a Marshmallow.

In the experiment, the kids were one by one taken into a room which had a simple layout with just a table and a chair.

The researchers would make the child sit on the chair; and place the candy of the kid’s choice (e.g. a Marshmallow) in front of them on the table.  The researcher would then go on to explain that the child was free to eat the Marshmallow immediately, or at the child’s option, wait for a few more minutes till the researcher left the room and came back after some time (around 10-15 mins but sometime even up to 20 minutes!).

If the child did not eat the marshmallow until the researcher got back, then the child would be rewarded with another marshmallow (so they would get two Marshmallows instead of one!)

Unbeknownst to the child, the researchers were watching the children as they tried to control their urge to gobble up the marshmallow when the researcher was out of the room.

During the experiment, some kids ate the marshmallow at that instant. Some gave in to the temptation after fighting it for a few minutes.

Some kids, however, were able to resist their temptations and were rewarded with a second Marshmallow when the researcher got back. When asked later how they coped, some children reported that they were thinking happy thoughts as they resisted their temptation.

The Marshmallow experiment has been replicated with other kids over a number of years, and it is hilarious to watch the candid camera moment when the kids twist and turn when they fight their temptation. Here’s one such video.

TWIST TO THE TALE

The interesting thing about this experiment is not just those 20 minutes, but rather what happened afterwards.

As the children grew up, the researchers kept a tab on the children’s progress. To their delight, the researchers realized that the kids who were able to resist the temptation were generally better at resisting temptation overall in their lives.

Thus, over the next 40 years, the kids who resisted that Marshmallow were generally better with their SAT Scores, they had generally lower levels of obesity, they had better responses to stress, and an overall better score on other areas of their lives.

The results of this long term experiment showed that delayed gratification certainly had its benefits in the long run, and the traits could be seen as early as age 4-6.

SUBSEQUENT RESEARCH

With the popularity and immense success of this test, a lot of further research was conducted in this area. The further research however showed that perhaps the sample that was originally selected may not be the most representative, since most kids from that test were from affluent families in and around the Stanford University. Thus, when a suitably large sample was taken, the results from the experiment were somewhat diluted.

Various other factors such as faith in the researchers (to give the second Marshmallow), the income levels of the household, upbringing at home, etc. made a difference to the measurement of whether the children were able to delay their gratification or not.

Nonetheless, it was clear that there was a specific link to a reward and the response.  Further, the researchers realized that the traits at age 4-6 are not set in stone, and anyone can learn to build better habits to delay gratification in order to achieve long terms success.

The Stanford Professor Walter Mischel, who originally conducted these experiments, eventually wrote a book by the name “The Marshmallow Test – understanding self-control and how to master it” in the year 2014-15.

In this book, the author has given some of strategies which, if applied by us, can help us to improve self-control in our own lives. Lets look at two such strategies.

Strategy #1 – Increase Distance Between You and Your Temptation

This can be achieved in two ways. You can either put physical distance or psychological distance between you and your temptation.

Physical distance. If you cannot resist unhealthy/ junk food at the 4 pm snack time, it will be a good idea to simply not buy such food in the first place, and to rather fill up your pantry with alternative healthy food instead. Next time you crave for a snack at 4 pm, all you have are the healthier options.

Psychological distance. A smoker who’s trying to quit smoking can visualize himself in the future and think about sitting in a doctor’s office who’s giving the grim news of a lung cancer caused by smoking. Such visualization can help the smoker to increase the psychological distance between him and his craving; and eventually make the cigarette less appealing.  

Strategy #2 – If/ When … then decisions (i.e. If/when ‘x’ happens, then I’ll do ‘y’)

This is an absolutely interesting strategy, and one of my favourite. Since we are creatures of habits, one way to break out of the bad ones is by setting up new follow through actions as we get a specific cue. Our new action will help us to set up a new routine. For instance, if you realize that you get angry with your spouse when he forgets to take out the trash, you can schedule an if-then routine which could be “If my husband forgets to take out the trash, then I will count down from ten, and calmly remind him to do so.”  

I have set up several of these for myself.

• If I find myself drifting in my thoughts, then I will take a couple of deep breaths and bring myself into the present (for my mindfulness practice).
• If I think about an idea for a new blog post, then I will immediately write it down in the notes app on my phone (else I always forget about the idea later).
• When I get up from bed, I’ll drink a glass of warm water (to hydrate my body).
• When I get into the shower, I will chant my mantra (to improve my spiritual well-being).

FINAL THOUGHTS

As a child I suffered from asthma/ cough for years. During this time, I accidentally had my own Marshmallow Test, when I had to abstain from eating all the junk food that I loved (such as cakes, bhel, pani puri, chips or even a vada pav) not because someone asked me not to, but because it made me sick. You can read that story here.

I now realize that the food abstinence at that time built the reps on my self-control muscle. And it is helping me even today after all these years.

Someone has wisely said “Self-Discipline is when your conscience tells you to do something and you don’t talk back.”

Ultimately, delaying gratification by building self-discipline will help anyone achieve better habits over the long term. All you need to do is work on it one day at a time.  

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^{Cover Photo by Eiliv-Sonas Aceron on Unsplash}