Observations-Marshmallow Experiment

The marshmallow experiment is a famous experiment, it has been referred to by people studying cognition, motivation, and decision making because the experiment demonstrates that a person’s ability to delay gratification is a trait that correlate with success in the later life. In other words, the children who are able to put off the gratification stage are more likely to have success in their lives. Here is an excerpt from James Clears web page that describes the experiment.

In the 1960s, a Stanford professor named Walter Mischel began conducting a series of important psychological studies.

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.

The Marshmallow Experiment

The experiment began by bringing each child into a private room, sitting them down in a chair, and placing a marshmallow 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.

As you can imagine, the footage of the children waiting alone in the room was rather entertaining. Some kids jumped up and ate the first marshmallow as soon as the researcher closed the door. Others wiggled and bounced and scooted in their chairs as they tried to restrain themselves, but eventually gave in to temptation a few minutes later. And finally, a few of the children did manage to wait the entire time.

Published in 1972, this popular study became known as The Marshmallow Experiment, but it wasn't the treat that made it famous. The interesting part came years later.

The Power of Delayed Gratification

As the years rolled on and the children grew up, the researchers conducted follow up studies and tracked each child's progress in a number of areas. What they found was surprising.

The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and generally better scores in a range of other life measures.

The researchers followed each child for more than 40 years and over and over again, the group who waited patiently for the second marshmallow succeed in whatever capacity they were measuring. In other words, this series of experiments proved that the ability to delay gratification was critical for success in life.

And if you look around, you’ll see this playing out everywhere…

·       If you delay the gratification of watching television and get your homework done now, then you’ll learn more and get better grades.

·       If you delay the gratification of buying desserts and chips at the store, then you’ll eat healthier when you get home.

·       If you delay the gratification of finishing your workout early and put in a few more reps, then you’ll be stronger.

… and countless other examples.

Success usually comes down to choosing the pain of discipline over the ease of distraction. And that’s exactly what delayed gratification is all about. [1]

The premise is that if you have the willpower, discipline, or the mental aptitude to forestall your immediate desire to have gratification, the marshmallow, you are more likely to have more success later on in life. Having this ability demonstrates our willpower to put off the immediate rewards while dealing successfully with the unpleasant duties.

During our crisis moment in the COVID-19 pandemic, we are challenged just as those children were challenged. We are asked to put off immediate gratification of living our regular lives, or making our livings as we normally would. We are asked to not go shopping, go out to eat and drink, to put off everything we had considered normal as our society goes through the lockdown.

We were all able to comply because we understood the ramifications of letting the virus persist unchecked. We learned and believed in lowering the curve and to forestall the possible chaos that could come from a full-blown pandemic. We did it with some grumbling, but we all took it in stride because this pandemic is such a massive unknown. After months under a lockdown it is understandable that we all have a short fuse.  We are pretty much at our wit’s end and are itching to go out and lead our regular lives again, the return to normality that is the carrot at the end of the stick.

The undesired and unintended consequence that this lockdown has wrought is that it has essentially destroyed the economy.  36 million people out of work to date is catastrophic. Large and small businesses have been decimated; many have declared bankruptcy never to return again.

It is no wonder that we are all itching to get back to reclaim our society, our jobs, our economy, and our normal way of life. So much so that some have taken to the streets to protest what some consider to be draconian measures continuing the lockdown. In their haste to return to normality, I would guess that the vast majority did not considered or is ignoring the fact that the nationwide infection rate is still on the climb, ignoring the expert opinions  on everything, infection rate, the necessity of further isolation, the need for more significant testing, and the dangers of igniting the infections anew.

In essence, a number of people who has failed the marshmallow experiment. They cannot delay their gratification: their desire for returning  to a state of normality, so they chose to ignore the potential dangers with reopening before all the states has reached the CDC edict on the when reopening is safe and have taken it upon themselves to jump the gun.

Unfortunately, some of the chief executive, leaders, have failed the marshmallow experiment as well. As of the last weekend, 48 states have reopened their states to businesses, some with strict social distancing restrictions, and some with relatively lax rules. Only nine states meet the reopening criteria that the CDC recommends.

There is nothing that can be done at this point to reverse the reopening, unless a catastrophic second wave hits all the states and municipalities that have opened prematurely. As an individual, we can choose to not partake in the reopening until we are sure that the second wave has been averted. The unsatisfactory and nagging feeling is that  we, those who passed the marshmallow test, are at the mercy of those who did not, that our lives may be adversely affected by their inability to delay their gratification, and that those who passed the marshmallow experiment are not infected or worse because of the actions of those who did not pass the marshmallow experiment.

No basket of hot wings is worth sentencing your fellow human to extreme sickness or death.