The marshmallow test supposedly shows which kids are able to defer gratification, and those who can will ultimately be more successful than those who can’t. Nut new studies have debunked the marshmallow test and showed that children of affluent families can defer gratification better than those from poor families. They know the pantry is always well stocked. They know that they can defer gratification without risk of getting nothing at all.
You will find this article intriguing.
“The marshmallow test is one of the most famous pieces of social-science research: Put a marshmallow in front of a child, tell her that she can have a second one if she can go 15 minutes without eating the first one, and then leave the room. Whether she’s patient enough to double her payout is supposedly indicative of a willpower that will pay dividends down the line, at school and eventually at work. Passing the test is, to many, a promising signal of future success.
“But a new study, published last week, has cast the whole concept into doubt. The researchers—NYU’s Tyler Watts and UC Irvine’s Greg Duncan and Hoanan Quan—restaged the classic marshmallow test, which was developed by the Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s. Mischel and his colleagues administered the test and then tracked how children went on to fare later in life. They described the results in a 1990 study, which suggested that delayed gratification had huge benefits, including on such measures as standardized test scores.
“Watts and his colleagues were skeptical of that finding. The original results were based on studies that included fewer than 90 children—all enrolled in a preschool on Stanford’s campus. In restaging the experiment, Watts and his colleagues thus adjusted the experimental design in important ways: The researchers used a sample that was much larger—more than 900 children—and also more representative of the general population in terms of race, ethnicity, and parents’ education. The researchers also, when analyzing their test’s results, controlled for certain factors—such as the income of a child’s household—that might explain children’s ability to delay gratification and their long-term success.
“Ultimately, the new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to better outcomes. Instead, it suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in large part by a child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success.”
I bought the earlier study’s conclusion but wondered about the role of trust. The experimenters were strangers. Could they be trusted to deliver on their promises? Plus there was an adage I heard as a child that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” which advocated being happy with what you had as opposed to lusting after “more.” It did seem more complicated than just “delayed gratification” but I didn’t spend enough time thinking about it to dissect it then.
Thanks!
On Sun, Jun 3, 2018 at 8:00 AM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “The marshmallow test supposedly shows which kids are > able to defer gratification, and those who can will ultimately be more > successful than those who can’t. Nut new studies have debunked the > marshmallow test and showed that children of affluent families c” >
One of the problems with psychology is that it is “soft science.” Results less reliable than the results from the exacting results of chemistry or physics. Much of the information gleaned from psychology are observational. The conclusions rely on how the observer interprets the results. Whether those observations are accurate depend on the perspective of the observer. How many times have we seen mysteries where the psycopath outsmarts the psychologist that has misdiagnosed him or her?
Standardized tests provide with similar uninformed results that work against poor students or students that are different from the norm of middle class white male on whom the tests are based. Since poor students do not perform as well as wealthy or middle class students, it is assumed these students are less capable or their teachers or schools have “failed” them. These interpretations are the same type of inexact “science” as the marshmallow test.
not only inexact “science,” but directly and devestatingly prejudicial “science”
Agreed. That is why we have an over representation of ELLs in special education. The tests are biased against them in terms of language and culture.
The marshmallow studies were debunked ages ago, even before Paul Tough started promoting them. They ran the marshmallow studies as usual, except that the kids were told “we’re running behind, you’ll have to wait a bit, but here’s some coloring sheets and crayons.” Then they gave the kids some really crappy crayons. The experimenter would then say, “Oh, dear, those are really bad. Hold on, I have some new crayons. Let me go get them.” In half the cases, the experimenter would come back with new crayons as promised. In the other half the cases the experimenter would come back and apologize and say that they didn’t have new crayons after all. Guess which kids ate the marshmallow?
Interesting.
Wait 15 minutes? I read somewhere that only 10% of low SES children actually trust adults.
The study is behind a paywall. The articles about the study are hard to evaluate. Certainly who the experimenters are and are perceived to be could make a difference in trust. I think that studies that make predictive claims (cause-effect) always need to be interrogated.
Abstract
We replicated and extended Shoda, Mischel, and Peake’s (1990) famous marshmallow study, which showed strong bivariate correlations between a child’s ability to delay gratification just before entering school and both adolescent achievement and socioemotional behaviors.
Concentrating on children whose mothers had not completed college, we found that an additional minute waited at age 4 predicted a gain of approximately one tenth of a standard deviation in achievement at age 15.
But this bivariate correlation was only half the size of those reported in the original studies and was reduced by two thirds in the presence of controls for family background, early cognitive ability, and the home environment.
Most of the variation in adolescent achievement came from being able to wait at least 20 s. Associations between delay time and measures of behavioral outcomes at age 15 were much smaller and rarely statistically significant.
Thank you for sharing this. Even as I told my students about the marshmallow test, something bothered me. Remembering my own stint with food insecurity, I wondered if it’s not one’s own ability to believe there will be more food, don’t have to eat this now… socioeconomic status, perhaps. Something seemed off to me, and I told my young adult students this. It’s a privilege for some to be able to assume food will always be there. Having said that, education sure does require a lot of delayed gratification for many; their families need their help NOW. Very interesting.
Let’s substitute the marshmallow for a cup of cool, fresh water and then cut off all water to the kids they are going to test for three days before offering that cup with an offer that if they wait fifteen minutes, they will get another one.
Marshmallow Science
Marshmallow science
Puff that is squishy
Over reliance
On stuff that is fishy
Put a dollar bill in front of Bill Gates and tell him that he can have a second one if he can go 15 minutes without taking the first one, and then leave the room.
When you come back, your wallet is sure to be missing.
LOL…yeah, very funny.
Just your wallet?
No, for sure Gates has employees that would end up getting every penny in your accounts, in your pockets, and they would go after your house, and your car would be missing and on its way to Mexico to be cut up for parts.
If you had Social Security and Medicare, a Gates paid hacker would erase all the data that you ever existed and a warrant would be issued for ICE to pick you up and kick you out of the country because the new fake papers that replaced the real ones, would list your place of birth in Iran or North Korea.
Dollar Bill
Dollar Bill
The billyanaire
Tried to fill
His castle fair
With a hundred
Dollar bills
But his hunger
Never fills
Wealth breeds a parasite in the blood of the wealthy with a thirst that can never be quenched. That parasite invades their brains and changes them into something arrogant and horrible to behold.
These studies are problematic. I remember Piaget’s study with the water and the difference shaped glasses and even if the small child saw that both glasses had the exact same amount of water, the taller, thinner glass looked as if it had more. Made sense. I even successfully replicated it with the nursery school children I had under my care at the time.
Years later I read a follow up study which I adopted as my philosophy towards life. If the beaker that was used had a crack in it, the children felt this was the cause of the discrepancy and were able to recognize that both glasses were the same. I call this the leaky beaker approach to life. When something doesn’t make sense, look for that leaky beaker for a possible explanation.