The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure? • Hacker News Board

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#71

Post by Grue3 » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:10 AM UTC

billner wrote: post #39

Grue3 wrote: post #17

You'd expect poor kids to be good at self control (they're used to not be fed every 15 minutes) while rich kids being spoiled and not caring for an extra marshmallow.

Someone who's hungry has less will power than someone who's well fed.

Consider the following experiments:

- a poor man and a rich man are going to work when they each see a dollar coin on a sidewalk. Which of them would bother to pick it up?

- a poor man and a rich man are both drunk after spending a night at the bar. Which one would take a $50 taxi home, and which one will take a bus for $5 (you have to wait 15 minutes for a bus).

- a poor man and a rich man are both hungry and walk by a restaurant for rich people. It would take an extra 15 minutes to walk to a crappy diner for poor people, but a lunch costs 5x cheaper there. Where would each man dine?

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#72

Post by vanderZwan » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:17 AM UTC

Smaug123 wrote: post #20

I found the following post [1] to make a very compelling argument that the Marshmallow test isn't really testing for the ability to defer gratification, but for a "generalised ability/desire to take and pass tests" (manifesting itself here as the desire to pass the Marshmallow test). The post argues that this is an underrecognised character trait which can predict success in today's Western test-oriented world. Certa…

Not to be snarky, but a comment like this makes it look like you did not bother to read the submitted article, as it states:

> This new paper found that among kids whose mothers had a college degree, those who waited for a second marshmallow did no better in the long run—in terms of standardized test scores and mothers’ reports of their children’s behavior—than those who dug right in. Similarly, among kids whose mothers did not have college degrees, those who waited did no better than those who gave in to temptation, once other factors like household income and the child’s home environment at age 3 (evaluated according to a standard research measure that notes, for instance, the number of books that researchers observed in the home and how responsive mothers were to their children in the researchers’ presence) were taken into account. For those kids, self-control alone couldn’t overcome economic and social disadvantages.

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#73

Post by YouAreGreat » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:23 AM UTC

yasp wrote: post #2

Has anyone studied whether time preference might be genetically heritable? Edit: why am I being downvoted for this?

> why am I being downvoted for this?

It's somewhat complicated...

If members of the Western ruling class believed in heritability of all the good traits, they'd feel pressure to limit themselves to a mating pool they don't find entirely to their taste. They really want every freedom they feel they deserve, therefore collectively insist that "good breeding" is all about the right schools.

In a sane world, nobody else would give a damn and that would be the end of it. Alas, the aspirational middle class tends to always mindlessly ape their betters. They also need to really believe what they're aping, otherwise the cognitive dissonance would be too much to take. That true belief is why they downvote you.

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#74

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:32 AM UTC

niklasd wrote: post #32

Another example of studies that seem to be hard to dublicate is about the concept of priming [0]. I think sometimes the non-scientific community picks up an idea which just seems so good and starts to apply it to an array of life sitations, while the idea itself might be limited to a small amount of sitations/conclusions. Especially with priming, I read some hair-raising statemens from laymen, about how priming seems…

[deleted]

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#75

Post by ItsMe000001 » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:32 AM UTC

joosteto wrote: post #64

fvdessen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is poverty really linked to food scarcity in western countries anymore ? The statistics show that overall, the poor are fatter than the rich.

Often the poor are fat because healthy food is more expensive. So yes, scarcity of healthy food is linked to poverty.

I'm not sure that healthy food is more expensive when you only look at the items, because vegetables are not (some fruits are, but veggies are far more important). With even limited cooking skills you can produce pretty cheap and yet very good meals.

However, I still think your point is valid, because it's not just the food items themselves. You need time to prepare them, plus a stressful life puts psychological pressure (which is real and not "imagined") on your brain for swift and easy rewards. So if you don't just look at the stuff on the plate, but see "eating" as a system consisting of sooo much more, the entire context, I think that's a big part of what in the end indeed makes bad food more expensive.

I almost forgot to mention a possibly even bigger part: When you live in poor areas availability of certain foods is vastly limited, and availability of bad foods is through the roof. Try shopping in supermarkets in poor areas and compare it to a wealthy suburb supermarket.

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#76

Post by code_duck » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:36 AM UTC

Smaug123 wrote: post #52

skookumchuck wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel that testing is irrelevant to mastery of a subject? That testing does not test for useful skills?

That's too absolute a statement. If you're really good at a subject but terrible at taking tests, you can still do really well in a test by pure brute ability. But one of the money quotes from the blog post is: > When my friends said I was a “genius,” I would sort-of-joke that I didn’t know anything but could score 75% on any test with a Scantron. Test-taking is an ability that you can train (and, like any ability, s…

When I was in school I used to joke that my greatest aptitude was for taking multiple-choice tests. I can do well on almost any multiple choice tests by using elimination and observations about the system of the test writer.

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#77

Post by misja111 » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:40 AM UTC

abainbridge wrote: post #9

> The researchers also, when analyzing their test’s results, controlled for certain factors—such as the income of a child’s household Is that a valid thing to do? If "will power" was a strongly inherited trait, and the theory is that will power leads to increase household income in adult life, then this controlling would remove most of the signal. The original paper relied partly on a questionnaire that asked the par…

>> Is that a valid thing to do? If "will power" was a strongly inherited trait, and the theory is that will power leads to increase household income in adult life, then this controlling would remove most of the signal.

Exactly. The way to control for the income of a child's household while not filtering out a possible inherited trait, would be to do the test with only adopted children. Then it would be ok to control for parents' income.

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#78

Post by macromaniac » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:43 AM UTC

>For them, daily life holds fewer guarantees: There might be food in the pantry today, but there might not be tomorrow, so there is a risk that comes with waiting.

If food is scarce, wouldn't food hoarding be the rational action?

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#79

Post by MikkoFinell » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:44 AM UTC

wombat92 wrote: post #33

I was always skeptical of the marshmallow test. It let too many questions open on why children eat the marshmallows. Was it because they hadn't eaten before and came to school with low blood sugar, knew that waiting fifteen minutes for two sweets the price of a penny is idiotic or that they felt uncomfortable in the room and wanted to leave as early as possible?

So you were able to think of a couple confounding factors off the top of your head, but you dismiss the idea that the researchers had considered those factors and controlled for it? Despite the fact that their full time job it is to think about things like that, and their careers are on the line if they embarrass themselves by disregarding something as obvious and trivial like that? Did you even read the original paper?

Re: The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

#80

Post by ghusbands » Sun, Jun 03, 2018, 10:45 AM UTC

fvdessen wrote: post #58

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scarcity is an outstanding book about this, and makes the point that severe constraints on anything - money, food, free time - can have psychologically damaging effects. In fact it’s extremely toxic - far more damaging than manynthings that have been banned now.

Is poverty really linked to food scarcity in western countries anymore ? The statistics show that overall, the poor are fatter than the rich.

Yes.

"America's dirty little secret: 42 million people are suffering from hunger" https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret...

UK: "Child poverty: Pale and hungry pupils 'fill pockets with school food'" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43611527

"Germany’s hidden hunger: On the breadline in Europe’s richest country" http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/09/world/germany-foo...