The Marshmallow Test is a psychological experiment conducted on children to assess their ability to delay gratification. In this test, a child is offered a choice between a small immediate reward (usually a marshmallow or a cookie) or a larger reward (e.g., two marshmallows) if they can wait for a specified period, typically 15 minutes, without consuming the immediate reward. It measures self-control and the ability to defer immediate gratification for a larger, delayed reward.
Aspect
Description
Key Elements
1. Self-Control: The primary focus is on the child’s self-control and their ability to resist the temptation of an immediate reward in favor of a larger, delayed one. 2. Delay of Gratification: The test assesses the child’s willingness to delay gratification for a better outcome, revealing differences in their ability to resist impulsivity. 3. Follow-Up Studies: Researchers often conduct follow-up studies to examine the long-term consequences of a child’s performance in the Marshmallow Test on various life outcomes.
Common Application
The Marshmallow Test is widely recognized in the field of psychology and has been used to study self-control, delayed gratification, and the development of these skills in children. It has implications for understanding decision-making, achievement, and behavior in adulthood.
Example
A child is presented with a marshmallow and told that if they wait for 15 minutes without eating it, they will receive two marshmallows as a reward. The child’s ability to resist eating the marshmallow immediately and wait for the larger reward is observed.
Importance
The Marshmallow Test is significant for shedding light on the development of self-control and its long-term implications. It has been a foundation for research in areas like behavioral economics, education, and psychology, providing insights into human decision-making and impulsivity.
Children, typically around the age of four or five, are brought into a room and presented with a tempting treat, such as a marshmallow, cookie, or pretzel.
The experimenter explains that they can either eat the treat immediately or wait for a few minutes (usually around 15 minutes) while the experimenter leaves the room. If they wait, they will receive an additional treat as a reward.
Observation and Data Collection:
The experimenter observes the child’s behavior through a one-way mirror or video camera, noting whether the child eats the treat immediately or exercises self-control and waits for the promised reward.
The duration of time the child waits before succumbing to temptation is recorded as a measure of their ability to delay gratification.
Follow-Up Studies:
Researchers have conducted follow-up studies to assess the long-term outcomes and correlates of children’s performance on the Marshmallow Test, including measures of academic achievement, socio-emotional development, and life success.
Key Concepts in the Marshmallow Test:
Delayed Gratification:
The Marshmallow Test assesses children’s ability to delay gratification by resisting the immediate temptation of a small reward in favor of a larger reward available after a delay.
Children who can wait for the larger reward demonstrate greater self-control and the capacity to tolerate short-term discomfort for long-term gain.
Self-Control and Impulsivity:
Performance on the Marshmallow Test reflects individual differences in self-control and impulsivity, with children who eat the treat immediately exhibiting lower levels of self-regulation and higher impulsivity.
Self-control is a crucial skill for managing emotions, impulses, and behaviors, with implications for academic achievement, social relationships, and life success.
Executive Functioning:
The ability to delay gratification and exercise self-control on the Marshmallow Test is related to executive functioning skills, including cognitive processes such as attentional control, working memory, and inhibitory control.
Executive functioning plays a central role in goal-directed behavior, problem-solving, and decision-making, with implications for academic and life outcomes.
Applications and Implications of the Marshmallow Test:
Predictive Validity:
Performance on the Marshmallow Test has been found to predict various outcomes in children’s development and adulthood, including academic achievement, social competence, health behavior, and financial success.
Children who demonstrate the ability to delay gratification on the Marshmallow Test tend to exhibit better self-regulation, higher academic performance, and more adaptive socio-emotional functioning over time.
Intervention and Skill Development:
The Marshmallow Test has inspired interventions and programs aimed at promoting self-control, impulse regulation, and executive functioning skills in children.
Strategies such as mindfulness training, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and behavioral interventions can help children develop the capacity to delay gratification and make more adaptive choices in various life domains.
Parenting and Education:
Understanding children’s ability to delay gratification and exercise self-control has implications for parenting practices, educational strategies, and policy interventions aimed at fostering positive development.
Parents and educators can support children’s self-regulation skills through scaffolding, modeling, and providing opportunities for practice and reinforcement in real-world contexts.
Challenges and Criticisms of the Marshmallow Test:
Cultural and Contextual Differences:
Critics of the Marshmallow Test point out that performance on the task may be influenced by cultural factors, socioeconomic status, and environmental context, which may not be adequately accounted for in the original studies.
Cultural variations in child-rearing practices, family dynamics, and societal values may shape children’s responses to the task and interpretations of delayed gratification.
Individual Variation and Developmental Trajectories:
The Marshmallow Test captures individual differences in self-control and impulsivity at a specific point in time but may not fully capture the dynamic nature of self-regulation development and individual trajectories over time.
Some children may exhibit variability in their ability to delay gratification depending on situational factors, developmental stage, or personal characteristics, highlighting the need for longitudinal research and nuanced assessment approaches.
Ethical Considerations:
Ethical concerns have been raised regarding the potential stress or frustration experienced by children who participate in the Marshmallow Test, particularly if they struggle to resist temptation or feel pressured to perform.
Researchers must prioritize the well-being and dignity of participants, ensuring that experimental procedures are conducted ethically and with sensitivity to children’s emotions and developmental needs.
Conclusion:
The Marshmallow Test is a classic psychological experiment that assesses children’s ability to delay gratification and exercise self-control, with implications for various aspects of development and life outcomes. By understanding the cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes underlying delayed gratification, researchers, educators, and policymakers can develop interventions and strategies to support children’s self-regulation skills and promote positive development across the lifespan. Recognizing the complexities and limitations of the Marshmallow Test is essential for advancing our understanding of self-control, impulse regulation, and decision-making processes in children and adults.
Case Study
Implication
Analysis
Example
Self-Control and Academic Success
Link between early self-control and academic achievement.
Studies based on the Marshmallow Test have found correlations between a child’s ability to delay gratification and their later academic success. Children with better self-control tend to perform better academically.
Researchers conduct a follow-up study on a group of children who excelled in the Marshmallow Test by delaying gratification. Years later, they find that these children have higher standardized test scores and better educational outcomes compared to their peers who struggled with self-control.
Long-Term Life Outcomes
Examining the relationship between test performance and life outcomes.
Researchers use data from the original Marshmallow Test to explore the long-term consequences of self-control. They find that children who showed better self-control during the test tend to have more favorable life outcomes in areas like health, finances, and relationships.
A study tracks individuals who participated in the Marshmallow Test as children. Those who demonstrated greater self-control by waiting for the second marshmallow are more likely to have healthier lifestyles, better financial stability, and more satisfying relationships in adulthood.
Intervention Programs
Developing interventions to improve self-control.
The Marshmallow Test has inspired educational programs and interventions aimed at enhancing self-control in children. These programs teach strategies to delay gratification and make better decisions.
A school implements a self-control program inspired by the principles of the Marshmallow Test. Students participate in exercises and activities that help them develop strategies for resisting immediate temptations and improving their self-control.
Economic Decision-Making
Influence of self-control on financial choices.
Behavioral economists use insights from the Marshmallow Test to study how self-control impacts financial decision-making in adulthood. They find that individuals with greater self-control tend to make more prudent financial choices.
Researchers examine the financial behaviors of adults who participated in the Marshmallow Test as children. Those who demonstrated higher self-control in the test are more likely to save money, invest wisely, and avoid impulsive spending decisions.
Parenting and Child Development
Parenting strategies to foster self-control in children.
Parents and caregivers consider the lessons from the Marshmallow Test when raising children. They implement strategies that promote self-control, such as setting clear boundaries, teaching patience, and rewarding delayed gratification.
A parent uses the principles of the Marshmallow Test to teach their child the value of patience and delayed gratification. They create situations at home that encourage the child to practice self-control and reward their efforts.
Convergent thinking occurs when the solution to a problem can be found by applying established rules and logical reasoning. Whereas divergent thinking is an unstructured problem-solving method where participants are encouraged to develop many innovative ideas or solutions to a given problem. Where convergent thinking might work for larger, mature organizations where divergent thinking is more suited for startups and innovative companies.
The concept of cognitive biases was introduced and popularized by the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972. Biases are seen as systematic errors and flaws that make humans deviate from the standards of rationality, thus making us inept at making good decisions under uncertainty.
Second-order thinking is a means of assessing the implications of our decisions by considering future consequences. Second-order thinking is a mental model that considers all future possibilities. It encourages individuals to think outside of the box so that they can prepare for every and eventuality. It also discourages the tendency for individuals to default to the most obvious choice.
Lateral thinking is a business strategy that involves approaching a problem from a different direction. The strategy attempts to remove traditionally formulaic and routine approaches to problem-solving by advocating creative thinking, therefore finding unconventional ways to solve a known problem. This sort of non-linear approach to problem-solving, can at times, create a big impact.
Bounded rationality is a concept attributed to Herbert Simon, an economist and political scientist interested in decision-making and how we make decisions in the real world. In fact, he believed that rather than optimizing (which was the mainstream view in the past decades) humans follow what he called satisficing.
The Dunning-Kruger effect describes a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a task overestimate their ability to perform that task well. Consumers or businesses that do not possess the requisite knowledge make bad decisions. What’s more, knowledge gaps prevent the person or business from seeing their mistakes.
Occam’s Razor states that one should not increase (beyond reason) the number of entities required to explain anything. All things being equal, the simplest solution is often the best one. The principle is attributed to 14th-century English theologian William of Ockham.
The Lindy Effect is a theory about the ageing of non-perishable things, like technology or ideas. Popularized by author Nicholas Nassim Taleb, the Lindy Effect states that non-perishable things like technology age – linearly – in reverse. Therefore, the older an idea or a technology, the same will be its life expectancy.
Antifragility was first coined as a term by author, and options trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Antifragility is a characteristic of systems that thrive as a result of stressors, volatility, and randomness. Therefore, Antifragile is the opposite of fragile. Where a fragile thing breaks up to volatility; a robust thing resists volatility. An antifragile thing gets stronger from volatility (provided the level of stressors and randomness doesn’t pass a certain threshold).
Ergodicity is one of the most important concepts in statistics. Ergodicity is a mathematical concept suggesting that a point of a moving system will eventually visit all parts of the space the system moves in. On the opposite side, non-ergodic means that a system doesn’t visit all the possible parts, as there are absorbing barriers
Systems thinking is a holistic means of investigating the factors and interactions that could contribute to a potential outcome. It is about thinking non-linearly, and understanding the second-order consequences of actions and input into the system.
Vertical thinking, on the other hand, is a problem-solving approach that favors a selective, analytical, structured, and sequential mindset. The focus of vertical thinking is to arrive at a reasoned, defined solution.
Metaphorical thinking describes a mental process in which comparisons are made between qualities of objects usually considered to be separate classifications. Metaphorical thinking is a mental process connecting two different universes of meaning and is the result of the mind looking for similarities.
Maslow’s Hammer, otherwise known as the law of the instrument or the Einstellung effect, is a cognitive bias causing an over-reliance on a familiar tool. This can be expressed as the tendency to overuse a known tool (perhaps a hammer) to solve issues that might require a different tool. This problem is persistent in the business world where perhaps known tools or frameworks might be used in the wrong context (like business plans used as planning tools instead of only investors’ pitches).
The Peter Principle was first described by Canadian sociologist Lawrence J. Peter in his 1969 book The Peter Principle. The Peter Principle states that people are continually promoted within an organization until they reach their level of incompetence.
The straw man fallacy describes an argument that misrepresents an opponent’s stance to make rebuttal more convenient. The straw man fallacy is a type of informal logical fallacy, defined as a flaw in the structure of an argument that renders it invalid.
The Google effect is a tendency for individuals to forget information that is readily available through search engines. During the Google effect – sometimes called digital amnesia – individuals have an excessive reliance on digital information as a form of memory recall.
The Streisand Effect is a paradoxical phenomenon where the act of suppressing information to reduce visibility causes it to become more visible. In 2003, Streisand attempted to suppress aerial photographs of her Californian home by suing photographer Kenneth Adelman for an invasion of privacy. Adelman, who Streisand assumed was paparazzi, was instead taking photographs to document and study coastal erosion. In her quest for more privacy, Streisand’s efforts had the opposite effect.
Single-attribute choices – such as choosing the apartment with the lowest rent – are relatively simple. However, most of the decisions consumers make are based on multiple attributes which complicate the decision-making process. The compromise effect states that a consumer is more likely to choose the middle option of a set of products over more extreme options.
In business, the butterfly effect describes the phenomenon where the simplest actions yield the largest rewards. The butterfly effect was coined by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in 1960 and as a result, it is most often associated with weather in pop culture. Lorenz noted that the small action of a butterfly fluttering its wings had the potential to cause progressively larger actions resulting in a typhoon.
The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias that describes consumers’ tendency to value something more if they have made it themselves. That is why brands often use the IKEA effect to have customizations for final products, as they help the consumer relate to it more and therefore appending to it more value.
The overview effect is a cognitive shift reported by some astronauts when they look back at the Earth from space. The shift occurs because of the impressive visual spectacle of the Earth and tends to be characterized by a state of awe and increased self-transcendence.
The house money effect was first described by researchers Richard Thaler and Eric Johnson in a 1990 study entitled Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes on Risky Choice. The house money effect is a cognitive bias where investors take higher risks on reinvested capital than they would on an initial investment.
As highlighted by German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer in the paper “Heuristic Decision Making,” the term heuristic is of Greek origin, meaning “serving to find out or discover.” More precisely, a heuristic is a fast and accurate way to make decisions in the real world, which is driven by uncertainty.
The recognition heuristic is a psychological model of judgment and decision making. It is part of a suite of simple and economical heuristics proposed by psychologists Daniel Goldstein and Gerd Gigerenzer. The recognition heuristic argues that inferences are made about an object based on whether it is recognized or not.
The representativeness heuristic was first described by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The representativeness heuristic judges the probability of an event according to the degree to which that event resembles a broader class. When queried, most will choose the first option because the description of John matches the stereotype we may hold for an archaeologist.
The take-the-best heuristic is a decision-making shortcut that helps an individual choose between several alternatives. The take-the-best (TTB) heuristic decides between two or more alternatives based on a single good attribute, otherwise known as a cue. In the process, less desirable attributes are ignored.
The bundling bias is a cognitive bias in e-commerce where a consumer tends not to use all of the products bought as a group, or bundle. Bundling occurs when individual products or services are sold together as a bundle. Common examples are tickets and experiences. The bundling bias dictates that consumers are less likely to use each item in the bundle. This means that the value of the bundle and indeed the value of each item in the bundle is decreased.
The Barnum Effect is a cognitive bias where individuals believe that generic information – which applies to most people – is specifically tailored for themselves.
The anchoring effect describes the human tendency to rely on an initial piece of information (the “anchor”) to make subsequent judgments or decisions. Price anchoring, then, is the process of establishing a price point that customers can reference when making a buying decision.
The decoy effect is a psychological phenomenon where inferior – or decoy – options influence consumer preferences. Businesses use the decoy effect to nudge potential customers toward the desired target product. The decoy effect is staged by placing a competitorproduct and a decoy product, which is primarily used to nudge the customer toward the target product.
Commitment bias describes the tendency of an individual to remain committed to past behaviors – even if they result in undesirable outcomes. The bias is particularly pronounced when such behaviors are performed publicly. Commitment bias is also known as escalation of commitment.
First-principles thinking – sometimes called reasoning from first principles – is used to reverse-engineer complex problems and encourage creativity. It involves breaking down problems into basic elements and reassembling them from the ground up. Elon Musk is among the strongest proponents of this way of thinking.
The ladder of inference is a conscious or subconscious thinking process where an individual moves from a fact to a decision or action. The ladder of inference was created by academic Chris Argyris to illustrate how people form and then use mental models to make decisions.
Goodhart’s Law is named after British monetary policy theorist and economist Charles Goodhart. Speaking at a conference in Sydney in 1975, Goodhart said that “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” Goodhart’s Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
The Six Thinking Hats model was created by psychologist Edward de Bono in 1986, who noted that personality type was a key driver of how people approached problem-solving. For example, optimists view situations differently from pessimists. Analytical individuals may generate ideas that a more emotional person would not, and vice versa.
The Mandela effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people remembers an event differently from how it occurred. The Mandela effect was first described in relation to Fiona Broome, who believed that former South African President Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s. While Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and died 23 years later, Broome remembered news coverage of his death in prison and even a speech from his widow. Of course, neither event occurred in reality. But Broome was later to discover that she was not the only one with the same recollection of events.
The bandwagon effect tells us that the more a belief or idea has been adopted by more people within a group, the more the individual adoption of that idea might increase within the same group. This is the psychological effect that leads to herd mentality. What in marketing can be associated with social proof.
Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every two years. This observation was made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965 and it become a guiding principle for the semiconductor industry and has had far-reaching implications for technology as a whole.
Disruptive innovation as a term was first described by Clayton M. Christensen, an American academic and business consultant whom The Economist called “the most influential management thinker of his time.” Disruptive innovation describes the process by which a product or service takes hold at the bottom of a market and eventually displaces established competitors, products, firms, or alliances.
Value migration was first described by author Adrian Slywotzky in his 1996 book Value Migration – How to Think Several Moves Ahead of the Competition. Value migration is the transferal of value-creating forces from outdated business models to something better able to satisfy consumer demands.
The bye-now effect describes the tendency for consumers to think of the word “buy” when they read the word “bye”. In a study that tracked diners at a name-your-own-price restaurant, each diner was asked to read one of two phrases before ordering their meal. The first phrase, “so long”, resulted in diners paying an average of $32 per meal. But when diners recited the phrase “bye bye” before ordering, the average price per meal rose to $45.
Groupthink occurs when well-intentioned individuals make non-optimal or irrational decisions based on a belief that dissent is impossible or on a motivation to conform. Groupthink occurs when members of a group reach a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation of the alternatives and their consequences.
A stereotype is a fixed and over-generalized belief about a particular group or class of people. These beliefs are based on the false assumption that certain characteristics are common to every individual residing in that group. Many stereotypes have a long and sometimes controversial history and are a direct consequence of various political, social, or economic events. Stereotyping is the process of making assumptions about a person or group of people based on various attributes, including gender, race, religion, or physical traits.
Murphy’s Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Murphy’s Law was named after aerospace engineer Edward A. Murphy. During his time working at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949, Murphy cursed a technician who had improperly wired an electrical component and said, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.”
The law of unintended consequences was first mentioned by British philosopher John Locke when writing to parliament about the unintended effects of interest rate rises. However, it was popularized in 1936 by American sociologist Robert K. Merton who looked at unexpected, unanticipated, and unintended consequences and their impact on society.
Fundamental attribution error is a bias people display when judging the behavior of others. The tendency is to over-emphasize personal characteristics and under-emphasize environmental and situational factors.
Outcome bias describes a tendency to evaluate a decision based on its outcome and not on the process by which the decision was reached. In other words, the quality of a decision is only determined once the outcome is known. Outcome bias occurs when a decision is based on the outcome of previous events without regard for how those events developed.
Hindsight bias is the tendency for people to perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were. The result of a presidential election, for example, seems more obvious when the winner is announced. The same can also be said for the avid sports fan who predicted the correct outcome of a match regardless of whether their team won or lost. Hindsight bias, therefore, is the tendency for an individual to convince themselves that they accurately predicted an event before it happened.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
