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Joachim De Posada Talks About Delayed Gratification
grrlscientist writes "Here is a short talk in which Joachim de Posada shares a landmark experiment on delayed gratification — and how it can predict future success. With priceless video of kids trying their hardest not to eat their marshmallow."
The question now becomes: Can you teach this concept of self discipline to kids or are they born with it? To say that the kid who eats the marshmallow won't be successful is a bit misleading. I know for a fact that I would have eaten the marshmallow at that age. However, I was a 'B' student in school, I have a good career and a loving family. I don't live pay check to pay check. I would say I have succeeded in life.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
There's a neat article in The New Yorker, about teaching self-control that discusses the marshmallow experiment in considerable detail. What I thought was interesting was that the original experiment was just to see how children dealt with self-control issues, but the psychologist realized, half a dozen years later, in talking to his children (who were part of the experiment) that the kids who had done well in the original experiment were doing much better in school than the kids who hadn't done well, and from that realization he managed to come up with a whole different group of observations and experiments. He ended up showing that there's evidence if you teach children how to distract themselves to increase their sense of self-control, you give them lifelong benefits in terms of decision-making, and those benefits show up in better grades, better jobs, and better health.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I had seen this previously, and always thought there was a flaw in the experiment...
I would have done very well in this simply because as a kid, I didn't really like marshmallows. Roasted on a fire, maybe... but raw? I could let that sit for as long as they wanted.
Fact is, the researchers didn't have a good enough budget. They got away with cheaping out on a couple bags of marshmallows instead of investing in some more sure-fire chocolate bars.
Then again, if somebody said I can't have a marshmallow, I might want it more... :)
So if you stuck the marshmallow on a square of chocolate and graham cracker and they are able to resist that, then perhaps we will have found a future POTUS?
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
Why is this in idle? This is actually an intelligent study worthy of reading. I would prefer the NYT article than the video, but overall this should be front page.
Now give me that damn marshmallow.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
is worth over two on the table.
Delaying gratification is a form of risk taking; you're taking the risk that by delaying gratification now, you'll get greater gratification later.
If your experiences have led you to believe that you won't actually get the greater gratification, it's irrational for you to delay it. If the marshmallow will go stale sitting there and the second one won't actually be forthcoming, eat it now. If your savings are going to be destroyed by inflation, taxes and stock market crashes, spend the money now. If work expands to fill all available time, procrastinate now (or when you get around to it, anyway).
It could be that that is part of the reason that the experiment is predictive.
In non-pathological environments, fairly large amounts of trust are mostly a good thing. Both psychologically, just because trust is more comfortable than paranoia, and socially, because most social activities require a modicum of trust to work effectively(playing a game with people you trust to be good sports is much more enjoyable than trying to build a ruleset that can restrain all cheaters without devolving into hardcore lawyering just sucks), and economically, because distrust effectively imposes deadweight losses(If I distrust you, I'll either have to vet you extensively, which costs money, or be offered a better than usual deal to offset my distrust, which, just as in the more typical taxation or monopoly examples, many transactions that would be mutually beneficial do not occur). Empirically, there has been some very interesting work on the correlation between levels of trust in a society and a society's economic success.
It wouldn't at all surprise me if, in aggregate(and under non-pathological social conditions), people who generally trust more easily mostly exhibit better outcomes in school and beyond(it would, of course, be very interesting to see if there is a class of notable outliers here, either high trust people who get shafted 24/7 or paranoid bastards who rise to the top, or both, possibly the latter feeding on the former). I'm sure self control is also a virtue in itself; but it could well be that self control plus social trust is even better.
As an aside, this is the reason(beyond any ethical/moral ones) that permitting fraud and deceit and dismissing them with an "eh, let the buyer beware" is a bad strategy. Trust is extremely useful, distrust is costly(but necessary if highly untrustworthy individuals are a danger). If trust is an irrational position in a given society, it will become progressively less common, leading to higher costs across the board.
I could easily resist the marshmallow. I see it going like this:
"OK, gnick, we're going to place this beer right here in front of you. Your job is to..."
"I'm sorry - I wasn't listening. This beer is empty, can I have another?" *BURP*
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Washington won't eat the marshmallow and sneers at your plebian tastes.
Jefferson lights the marshmallow on fire, then lights other marshmallows from it.
Lincoln rips the marshmallow in half, then eats it, demonstrating that a marshmallow divided cannot survive.
U.S. Grant knocks the marshmallow on the floor in a drunken stupor. It's still under one of the White House sofas.
Teddy Roosevelt eats the marshmallow immediately, and asks you for another... while staring you down and carrying a rifle.
Calvin Coolidge waits until you give him the second marshmallow, then eats both without comment.
Franklin Roosevelt starts an government organization called Marshmallow Making Men, and soon has more marshmallows than he knows what to do with.
JFK doesn't eat either marshmallow, and what he later did with them, a containert of chocolate sauce, and Marilyn Monroe is lost to history.
Nixon has G. Gordon Liddy take your entire bag.
Jimmy Carter says "No thanks, I prefer peanuts".
Ronald Reagan waits, and eats both marshmallows, but only after getting Nancy's approval.
Bush Sr. says he won't eat the marshmallow, but does.
Bush Jr. eats the marshmallow immediately, and looks utterly and pathetically confused when he doesn't get the second one.
Obama notes the whiteness of the marshmallow and accuses the researchers of trying to set him up.