Research centred on control of urgings
‘Marshmallow test’ measured self-control
The experiment was “simplicity itself,” its creator, psychologist Walter Mischel, would later recall. The principal ingredient was a cookie or a pretzel stick or - most intriguingly to the popular imagination - a marshmallow.
In what became known as “the marshmallow test,” a child was placed in a room with a treat and presented with a choice. She could eat the treat right away. Or, she could wait unaccompanied in the room, for up to 20 minutes, and then receive two treats in reward for her forbearance.
Conducting their work at a nursery school on the campus of Stanford University in the 1960s, Mischel and his colleagues observed responses as enlightening as they are enduringly adorable. Some children distracted themselves by putting their fingers in their ears or nose. At least one child caressed the marshmallow as he hungered for it. Only about 30 per cent of the children managed to wait for the double reward.
Mischel, who continued his career at Columbia University and died Sept. 12 at 88, followed a cohort of the children for decades and presented his findings to mainstream readers in his 2014 book The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control is the Engine of Success.
His observations, widely noted and hotly debated, were striking: Children who delayed gratification, he found, had greater success in school, made more money and were less prone to obesity and drug addiction.
“What emerged from those studies is a different view of self-control, one that sees it as a matter of skill” and not a matter of “gritting your teeth,” said Yuichi Shoda, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington.
Some psychologists challenged Mischel’s findings, arguing that a study group drawn from the privileged environs of Stanford could hardly yield reliable results. Skeptics noted children from disadvantaged homes learn that waiting to eat might mean not eating at all.
Mischel defended his research. The question, he said, is “how can you regulate yourself and control yourself in ways that make your life better?”