THE MARSHMALLOW EXPERIMENT

In 1960s, Stanford Professor Walter Mischel conducted a series of experiments which became famous by the name of MARSHMALLOW EXPERIMENT.

During his experiments, Mischel and his team tested hundreds of children — most of them around the ages of 4 and 5 years old — and revealed what is now believed to be one of the most important characteristics for success in health, work, and life.

Each child was taken into a private room and a marshmallow was put on the table in front of them.

At this point, the researcher offered a deal to the child.

The researcher told the child that he was going to leave the room and that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow.

However, if the child decided to eat the first one before the researcher came back, then they would not get a second marshmallow. So the choice was simple: one treat right now or two treats later.

The researcher left the room for 15 minutes.

Many of the children consumed the marshmallow within the time the researcher left and returned.

However, some of them did manage to wait till the researcher arrived and they got their second Marshmallow as a reward.

The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the 2nd marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, and better social skills.

It can be seen in day to day life as well.

If you delay the gratification of consuming alcohol with your freinds, you will go home and eat something healthy.

If you delay the gratification to constantly have an argument with someone over trivial matters, you will have time to learn better and more useful things.

A growing body of literature has linked the ability to delay gratification to a host of positive outcomes, including academic success, physical health, psychological health, and social competence.