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The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

theatlantic.com

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

#81

Post by Blackstone4 »

gcthomas wrote: post #7

I see so many forum discussions where posters criticise the poor for their 'weak' decisions and effectively blame the poor for their own plight. Why don't they just work harder and earn the money to pay for their healthcare and education? they say. It is easy to withhold funding from deprived areas if you convince yourself that it is their own fault. These results should be on the front pages of newspapers and on TV…

I think that's why socialist countries seem to take the attitude that we, as politicians, know what's good for you and you don't. So we will regulate you and put in laws to protect you while restricting your choices and freedom.

This may benefit the poor and irritate the rich.

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

#82

Post by sheepmullet »

gcthomas wrote: post #7

I see so many forum discussions where posters criticise the poor for their 'weak' decisions and effectively blame the poor for their own plight. Why don't they just work harder and earn the money to pay for their healthcare and education? they say. It is easy to withhold funding from deprived areas if you convince yourself that it is their own fault. These results should be on the front pages of newspapers and on TV…

> The idea that children raised with few resources need help to plan for the long term seems to be rather lost on many politicians these days.

The truth is unacceptable to our modern society. We still live in a harsh world where we have to sacrifice some people for the good of the community.

Many critical traits like intelligence are largely inherited.

Once we focus on the nurture side the three key influencers are growing up with a father in the home, living in a safe community, and having plenty of entry level jobs that build skills.

Feminism has destroyed the first.

Acceptance of gang violence and thug behavior has destroyed the second.

Outsourcing and bringing in cheap migrant labor have destroyed the third.

Until we fix these three key areas the divide between rich and poor will only grow.

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

#83

Post by chronial »

vanderZwan wrote: post #72
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 moth…

Please refer to the hn guidelines (linked in the footer)

> Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

Regarding the content of your post: I don't see how that quote relates at all to the parent. They were talking about how "desire/ability to pass a test" is an interesting variable in these scenarios – something that's not mentioned in the article at all.

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

#84

Post by sbov »

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…

If the marshmallow test is truly valid, then we should see a difference for kids in low income households that waited for the second marshmallow vs kids in low income households that didn't.

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

#85

Post by jstewartmobile »

orbifold wrote: post #22

I've come across variations of this conclusion many times now: That it is really your parents affluence and educational background that predicts your success in school and how much you will earn in the future. This is often portrayed as being unjust. To me it always seemed obvious that children with affluent and well educated parents are more likely to be intelligent, have good self-control and other traits that are…

From my cohort, I'd pin it more on discipline/self-control than anything else. Well-disciplined peers--who weren't particularly wealthy or bright--did the best. Gifted peers with more IQ points than self-control had much bumpier rides.

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

#86

Post by vezycash »

The article misses a keyword - RISK or risk tolerance.

Rich kids are able to take MORE risks than poor kids. We know that risk taking is positively correlated with wealth.

Both rich kids and poor kids take risks (financial and otherwise) get different results when they fail and when they succeed.

Simply, the rich kids suffer less from financial failures and make more money from their financial successes.

FAILURE

The poor become fearful after a few failures. Then over-compensate (by being wasteful spenders as mentioned in the article) or under-compensate (stick only to absolutely safe paths - bad in the long term)

A loss of $10,000 might get only a shrug from the rich kid but the poor kid might go mad with depression and suicidal thoughts.

SUCCESS

Finally, let's look at what success means to both classes. If we look at money as leverage, then even financial success between the rich and the poor is completely different.

Let's look at what a $0.1 increase in a stock price means to the two classes.

Person A has 100 stocks - $10 profit. Person B has 100,000 - $10k profit. Same investment. Both succeed in the same stock but result is completely different.

Writing this has clarified one point for me. The poor need to risk a larger percentage of their networth to see sizeable returns on their success.

When wins don't feel like wins and losses are devastating, it creates apathy towards trying.

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

#87

Post by jasode »

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…

>, but for a "generalised ability/desire to take and pass tests [...] the desire to pass the Marshmallow test). [...]

You and the blog you linked are getting sidetracked by the word "test" in "Marshmallow Test". You're thinking of academic/schooling connotations of "test" instead of the scientific observations of a "test".

I'd suggest to rewrite the "Marshmallow Test" in the brain as "Marshmallow Experiment". It is the observation of an experiment.

The children ages 4 to 6 in the original Stanford experiments were not aware they were "taking a test" for a "correct" answer. There is no correct answer. It's a setup for choices taken by children. Choosing 1 marshmallow instead of waiting 15 minutes for 2 is not a "wrong" answer. The choices are collected as observations and researchers try to find correlations. In this way, the "Marshmallow Test" is more like "Pepsi/Coke taste test" instead of "SAT tests".

The Marshmallow experiment may be flawed and the correlations may be also be dubious but dismissing it because children are trying to "pass tests" is misinterpreting it.

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

#88

Post by fwdpropaganda »

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.

I suspect you might misunderstand what "controling for" means.

Suppose you want to predict A (here "increase household income in adult life") using variable X (here "will power"). You do this by regressing A against X. Saying that you "control for Y" (here "income of a child's household") just means that you regress A against both X and Y simultaneously.

What sense does that make? Suppose that you regress A against X and conclude that "X explains some of A" (these are vague terms which I can make more precise if you want) and you hope that your correlation is capturing some narrative of causality. Well, someone could come along and say "yes, A and X are correlated, but actually the causality is Y causes A, and X just happens to be correlated with Y. So you're focusing your study on X when the interesting dynamics is on Y". This is valid criticism.

One way to mitigate that criticism is that you study how A depends on X while controling for Y (i.e. you include both in the regression). The rationale here is that if the result is that "both X and Y explain some of A" and someone makes that previous criticism you can respond "Yes, you're right that Y has some effect on A, but in addition X also has some effect on A, independently of Y. Therefore, X has signal regardless of whatever is going on in the dynamics between A and Y."

So, to answer your question: Yes, it's perfectly valid if you mean "controlling" in the sense that it is used in statistics.

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

#89

Post by akvadrako »

chronial wrote: post #83
vanderZwan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 moth…

Please refer to the hn guidelines (linked in the footer) > Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." Regarding the content of your post: I don't see how that quote relates at all to the parent. They were talking about how "desire/ability to pass a test" is an interesting variable in these scenarios – s…

It's directly related. His quote says that students who did well on the marshmallow test didn't do better on standardised tests. So it's unlikely they are just better test-takers.

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

#90

Post by vanderZwan »

chronial wrote: post #83
vanderZwan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 moth…

Please refer to the hn guidelines (linked in the footer) > Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." Regarding the content of your post: I don't see how that quote relates at all to the parent. They were talking about how "desire/ability to pass a test" is an interesting variable in these scenarios – s…

GPs explanation is nothing more than a hypothesis as to why the Marshmallow test would be predictive of later performance:

> The post argues that [a "generalised ability/desire to take and pass tests"] is an underrecognised character trait which can predict success in today's Western test-oriented world.

In other words: it follows the assumption that being good at the Marshmallow test represents inherent character traits that are predictive of later performance. Except that the whole point of the article is debunking this notion, and the paragraph that I quote highlights this in particular.

The new paper shows that this is not the case. The Marshmallow test still is predictive, but that seems to be because being able to take it correlates with having affluent backgrounds, not with it representing an inherent character trait that predicts anything.

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