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Why Wealthy Kids Do So Well on the Marshmallow Test
How to use the test to teach your children about willpower.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the marshmallow test cited. To be fair, it is one of the most famous and important developmental psychology experiments ever done — or so we thought.
For the few who don’t know, it had a very simple premise. In 1970, Stanford psychology professor, Dr. Walter Mischel, wanted to test the impact of a child’s ability to delay gratification. And specifically, they were correlating this to a person’s ego strength and impulse control.
How it all worked
A child was presented with the chance to eat one marshmallow now, or wait 15 minute and get two. The catch was, they had to sit in the room with just the marshmallow on a plate in front of them.
What was particularly interesting was the observed tactics some children employed to exercise restraint. Some whistled songs to themselves to avoid thinking about the marshmallow. Others refused to look at it. Some tapped their feet and looked at the ground to distract themselves. We saw their self-control on full display.
Researchers found that when the marshmallow wasn’t visible, children could wait much longer. In interviewing children, those who said they thought about the marshmallow the most tended to struggle with waiting.
But what made the study even more famous were the follow up studies, including one by Cal Berkely Professor Ozlem Ayduk, which showed the children who successfully delayed gratification, went on to have higher test scores, lower BMI indexes, higher earnings and other positive life outcomes.
Huge publicity then surrounded this study and it renewed interest in the power of self-control, as it was seen as a magical tool to improve and climb the social strata. Even the original author, Dr. Mischel, was surprised by these follow up studies, as they had never been his intent.
And so people around the globe began doing marshmallow tests, wondering if this was the proven predictive test for their child’s future. And some of the results came back quite amusing and wholesome. Stanford Physics professor and fellow writer, Dr. Richard…
