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The Marshmallow Test Revisited

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Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#21

Post by lurker14 »

wallflower wrote: post #4

When I saw the title, I originally thought of: http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html I think the above is a more interesting challenge. Particularly because there is a magical point where the kids or even adults realize that they just have to start playing with the spaghetti - can't just stare at it.

It would be delightful if the secret undercurrent of that game is that *someone always eats the marshmallow", and the importance of the exercise is in who eats the marshmallow, when it is eaten, and how everyone reacts.

Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#22

Post by lurker14 »

hwallace wrote: post #17

My issue is this: I do not know at what age the ability to prioritize is developed(this may be ignorant). I feel prioritizing and weighing pros vs cons are both much more valuable than delaying gratification. I am not a young child, anymore, but I could imagine a child (me) taking the marshmallow that is sitting in front of me, because maybe I'd rather have a marshmallow now, and waiting 15 minutes is just too long f…

Good point. I'd hope the study would control for this by locking you in a room for 15 minutes regardless of marshmallow logistics.

Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#23

Post by philwelch »

goldenchrome wrote: post #19
thejteam wrote: post #7

Whenever I meet a new kid, I mentally classify them as either a "one marshmallow child" or a "two marshmallow child" based on what I think the result woud be if they took the marshmallow test. One thing I have noticed is that there is a strong correlation between one marshmallow kids and one marshmallow parents.

The question then is then: is it a genetic predisposition or is it more behaviorally learnt?

This calls for a twin study!

Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#25

Post by rcthompson »

tomasien wrote: post #8

Did any of the kids eat one marshmallow and then trick the study administrators into giving them the other two marshmallows? Those are the kids that are going to be founders. Maybe I'm reaching.

I think I remember reading about some of the kids (in the original study) who hollowed out the marshmallow and ate the insides, then left the shell on the plate to trick the adults.

Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#26

Post by DanielRibeiro »

wallflower wrote: post #4

When I saw the title, I originally thought of: http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html I think the above is a more interesting challenge. Particularly because there is a magical point where the kids or even adults realize that they just have to start playing with the spaghetti - can't just stare at it.

I thought of the parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQvBrEEYS20

Which was actually the first time I had heard of this test.

Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#27

Post by timr »

gizmo686 wrote: post #12
jonnathanson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's a tempting conclusion, it's a tough to justify. The original experiment didn't study or account for the parental variable, so it's impossible to tell what effect it may, or may not, have had "behind the scenes." It's entirely possible that the reliability of adults is a factor in developing a child's impulse control. It's also possible that it's a significant factor. But we'd have to design experiments t…

>Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the variable being studied in the original experiment, impulse control, was actually just a red herring disguising parental reliability as the true factor. The variable being studied was weather or not the children would wait for the second marshmallow, and that the children who did wait did better in life. I suspect that everyone would agree that this is not an casual relationshi…

"This experiment shows that the trustworthiness of the environment plays a significant role in determining how the children make their decision."

No, the experiment shows that the trustworthiness of the person establishing the immediate challenge plays a significant role in the outcome. It's a huge leap to go from that relatively mundane finding, to the conclusion that the randomly selected participants in the original study were biased in a systematic way toward mistrust of adults.

"This result support the hypothesis that the original marshmallow experiment was a proxy for the living environment of the children, not their impulse control."

It provides only extremely weak support for that hypothesis. A reasonable prior expectation is that it is unlikely for a randomly selected group of young children to share a mistrust of adults that would carry on throughout their lives.

Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#28

Post by edanm »

MattGrommes wrote: post #18

In watching my kids grow up I'm always struck by my inability to figure out why they did certain things. They obviously had reasons but when questioned those reasons were regularly things I would have never thought of. I always felt it was a bit like anthropomorphizing animals to make deductions about their behavior. You might think you have a good hypothesis but it's very difficult to know that you're working with t…

The more I read about psychology/rationality, the more I realize that what you're saying is also true about ourselves. We regularly do things that don't make sense, and have only vague, and often wrong, ideas about why we did what we did. Except that our brain is amazingly good at self-delusion, making us believe that there were reasons behind it all.

Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#29

Post by InclinedPlane »

timr wrote: post #27
gizmo686 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the variable being studied in the original experiment, impulse control, was actually just a red herring disguising parental reliability as the true factor. The variable being studied was weather or not the children would wait for the second marshmallow, and that the children who did wait did better in life. I suspect that everyone would agree that this is not an casual relationshi…

"This experiment shows that the trustworthiness of the environment plays a significant role in determining how the children make their decision." No, the experiment shows that the trustworthiness of the person establishing the immediate challenge plays a significant role in the outcome. It's a huge leap to go from that relatively mundane finding, to the conclusion that the randomly selected participants in the origin…

"It provides only extremely weak support for that hypothesis. A reasonable prior expectation is that it is unlikely for a randomly selected group of young children to share a mistrust of adults that would carry on throughout their lives."

I think you misunderstand gizmo686's point. My reading (of gizmo686's post as well as the study) is that this is not about a question of merely the individual child's responses but also about their environment, which at the age of 3 is going to be primarily controlled by their parents. It's not just a matter of whether a child who grows up mistrusting the world is at a disadvantage. It's more that a child who grows up in a world that is untrustworthy is at a disadvantage.

Let me be blunt, we are talking about shitty parents. Or, to tone it down one notch, less capable parents. On the one hand you have parents who can provide for their children, who are attentive to their needs, etc. Those parents will tend to raise children better, and will tend to raise children who grow up to be more successful. On the other hand you have parents who let their children down often, are unable to provide for them as well, make promises that go unfulfilled, etc. Those parents will tend to raise children less well, and will tend to raise children who grow up and have more problems in life, problems finding jobs, problems with law enforcement, problems with relationships, etc.

In broad strokes this is essentially what the second experiment is trying to show that the first experiment is testing. By intentionally priming children to either be trusting or untrusting of their immediate environment and of adults they show that they can control the outcome of the marshmallow experiment. And that in turn leads to the argument that perhaps it is a similar degree of priming (through the ongoing experiences with their family) and the underlying level of trust for adults that is being tested in the first experiment.

It's not an ironclad experiment but it's an interesting hypothesis, certainly, and at the very least it unravels some of the overly simplistic interpretations of the first marshmallow experiment.

Re: The Marshmallow Test Revisited

#30

Post by dhimes »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #29
timr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This experiment shows that the trustworthiness of the environment plays a significant role in determining how the children make their decision." No, the experiment shows that the trustworthiness of the person establishing the immediate challenge plays a significant role in the outcome. It's a huge leap to go from that relatively mundane finding, to the conclusion that the randomly selected participants in the origin…

"It provides only extremely weak support for that hypothesis. A reasonable prior expectation is that it is unlikely for a randomly selected group of young children to share a mistrust of adults that would carry on throughout their lives." I think you misunderstand gizmo686's point. My reading (of gizmo686's post as well as the study) is that this is not about a question of merely the individual child's responses but…

I believe timr's point is that this is a hypothesis based on the outcome of the study, but the study did not measure it. The study measured the response to the experimenter.

I would add that it's possible that the two marshmallow experiments have very little to do with each other besides using children and marshmallows to perform. Further study is needed to make further conclusions.

For example, we might be tempted to try to combine the results and say something like "kids who trust and respect authority do better in life as adults." But this is not what the study/studies measured, and while this study may inspire interesting hypotheses for future work, that work needs to be performed before we can make conclusions.

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