The Gratification Game

In the world of Psychology, there is an often-cited study that was conducted at Stanford University called the Marshmallow Experiment. This was research targeting the study of delayed gratification. The research consisted of multiple test variations, but the process across the board was similar. The test subjects, children, were offered the option of one marshmallow now or two marshmallows later, if they were willing to wait. Again, the study was intended to measure the children’s self-control. The researchers would then follow up a decade or so later to see if the test subject’s ability to delay gratification resulted in a measurable difference in SAT scores, etc. Would the child who was willing to delay gratification be predestined to more success based on their ability to resist eating that first marshmallow?

These researchers came to their own conclusions on this relationship between one’s marshmallow decision and how that relates to one’s future successes in life. And like most research, this study has also received its fair share of criticism too. Here’s my question, could one opt for eating the first marshmallow now for reasons unrelated to self-control or patience? What if I wasn’t interested in two marshmallows, and eating one now was more appealing for me personally. Could this decision be deeper than just a binary conclusion separating participants into categories of patient and impatient?

This seems silly to dialogue about when we are talking marshmallows, but there are many examples in life where we are offered incentives to delay engagement. For these 6-year-old test subjects, it was about marshmallows, but for 62-year-olds, this decision is about claiming social security.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• http://thoughtsonmoney.com
• http://thebahnsengroup.com