Just Finished Reading: The Marshmallow Test – Understanding Self-Control and How to Master It by Walter Mischel (FP: 2014)

Imagine you are a child sitting in an empty room looking at a plate on the table in front of you. On the plate is a marshmallow, a cookie or a sprinkle of M&Ms. You are told that you can have the item(s) if you wish – but if you wait an indeterminate time (until the person returns) you can have double the amount. So you wait…. And wait….. and then what do you do? Surprisingly, in study after study from across cultures, socio-economic groupings and many other variations of humanity the same results seem to hold true – the longer you can wait, the longer you can put off gratification the more likely you are to do well in school, go to university, have a higher income throughout your life, live longer, divorce less, have fewer long term health issues and spend less time explaining yourself to the police or a judge – just from waiting a bit longer than the next kid who gives into their impulse and grabs the cookie now.

Of course nothing is quite THAT straightforward! For one thing the results are statistical rather than personally predictive. The longer you wait increases the odds that you’ll end up doing a degree but it won’t ensure it no matter how long you wait. Being able to put off instant rewards until after you’ve finished your assignment is what gets you to college – not that one time you waited 15 minutes for the extra sweet. It’s the ability to think ahead, see the consequences of your actions, to plan and not be distracted (most of the time) by friends who just want to have fun. After the initial tests back in the 1970’s Mischel and various team members over the years replicated the work, discovered others who had replicated/validated it and dug into the WHY of things rather than just accepting that deferred gratification is both a good thing in itself and something that pays actual real-world dividends. What is more they wanted to know if the skills used by the children to control their natural desires to have the cookie and have it now could be taught to those who failed to control their desires (apparently it can!).

I’d heard of the original Marshmallow Test some time ago – probably in school or from the TV – and this was a good way of finding out the complete ins and outs of the experiment. I was not disappointed. The author (who was at the centre of the original tests) not only goes through the thinking back in the 70’s but then goes on to explain exactly what was going on in those quite rooms as the child struggles with their desires for a tasty treat. Funnily when I went to college back in the late 70’s one of our teachers described the new intake as ‘Middle Class’ to which we all laughed! We were a very working class bunch (my father for example was a pipe layer on building sites) and thought the idea of being described as middle class the height of absurdity. But then he said two words – deferred gratification. We were putting off rewards now (a low payed dead-end job) for greater rewards (a better payed job with prospects) later. That, he said, was a ‘Middle Class attitude’. Maybe I would’ve done quite well in the Marshmallow Test if I’d been given it? Then again with two siblings it was every child for themselves……! This is a fascinating book for a whole host of reasons especially if you have young children (or to be honest any age children) or even if you’re struggling with self-control yourself. It shows how self-control works, why it’s so difficult to master it and ways you can take back control or teach other people to do so. Recommended.