Ultimately, the new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to better outcomes. 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.
Kidd, Palmeri and Aslin, , replicating Prof. McGuire and Kable tested 40 adult participants. One group was given known reward times, while the other was not. The first group was significantly more likely to delay gratification. For example, someone going on a diet to achieve a desired weight, those who set realistic rewards are more likely to continue waiting for their reward than those who set unrealistic or improbable rewards. Gelinas et al. He is interested in theories of action and ethical systems.
Navidad, A. Marshmallow test experiment and delayed gratification. Simply Psychology. Ayduk, O. Regulating the interpersonal self: strategic self-regulation for coping with rejection sensitivity. Journal of personality and social psychology, 79 5 , Bradley, R. Developmental psychology, 20 2 , Gelinas, B. Unrealistic weight loss goals and expectations among bariatric surgery candidates: the impact on pre-and postsurgical weight outcomes. Bariatric Surgical Patient Care, 8 1 , Kidd, C.
Cognition, 1 , McGuire, J. Decision makers calibrate behavioral persistence on the basis of time-interval experience. Cognition, 2 , Mischel, W. Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16 2 , Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of personality and social psychology, 21 2 , These results led many to conclude that the ability to pass the marshmallow test and delay gratification was the key to a successful future.
However, Mischel and his colleagues were always more cautious about their findings. They suggested that the link between delayed gratification in the marshmallow test and future academic success might weaken if a larger number of participants were studied. The relationship Mischel and colleagues found between delayed gratification in childhood and future academic achievement garnered a great deal of attention. As a result, the marshmallow test became one of the most well-known psychological experiments in history.
In the study, each child was primed to believe the environment was either reliable or unreliable. In both conditions, before doing the marshmallow test, the child participant was given an art project to do. In the unreliable condition, the child was provided with a set of used crayons and told that if they waited, the researcher would get them a bigger, newer set.
The researcher would leave and return empty-handed after two and a half minutes. The researcher would then repeat this sequence of events with a set of stickers. The children in the reliable condition experienced the same set up, but in this case the researcher came back with the promised art supplies. The children were then given the marshmallow test. Researchers found that those in the unreliable condition waited only about three minutes on average to eat the marshmallow, while those in the reliable condition managed to wait for an average of 12 minutes—substantially longer.
Thus, the results show that nature and nurture play a role in the marshmallow test. In , another group of researchers, Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan, and Haonan Quan, performed a conceptual replication of the marshmallow test.
The researchers still evaluated the relationship between delayed gratification in childhood and future success, but their approach was different. Plus, when factors like family background, early cognitive ability, and home environment were controlled for, the association virtually disappeared. The researchers themselves were measured in their interpretation of the results. Psychology Perspective-changing experiences, good or bad, can lead to richer lives By Sujata Gupta September 1, Psychology Everyone maps numbers in space.
By Sujata Gupta August 23, Psychology Psychology has struggled for a century to make sense of the mind By Bruce Bower August 11, From the Nature Index Paid Content. Log in Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions. You can read this article for free. Subscribe opens in new window I'm already a subscriber.
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