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The Marshmallow Test: What Does It Really Measure?

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

#201

Post by Grue3 »

imjustsaying wrote: post #148
Grue3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

>sidewalk coin Rich man would pick it up, that's $720/hour if it takes 5 seconds. It's things like that that make you rich. Poor guy would probably pick it up too unless he's paranoid people will think he's poor. >bus Again looks like huge earnings per hour. He'll take the bus in this example unless he has something very lucrative that he's missing out on, but he's drunk so that's very unlikely. >restaurant Depends o…

You're assuming all rich people are pennypinchers like Warren Buffet. In reality most rich people are rich because they were born into a rich family and had the ideal opportunities to win at life from the start. The fact that in reality you won't see rich people riding buses or picking up coins on the street just shows that it's not about making most money per hour.

And in marshmallow test specifically you don't have kids who are good at business and kids who are bad at business. You have kids of rich parents and kids of poor parents. The fact that the former are supposed to act like pennypinchers, despite not ever having to worry about money or being fed seems counterintuitive to me.

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

#202

Post by booleandilemma »

thegabez wrote: post #174
lkrubner wrote: post #154

About this: " 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. " Since "standardized test scores" tends to measure IQ, it seems this can be re-phrased as "those who did well on the will-power test did not nec…

Now that I think about it how is athleticism not considered a parameter of IQ? If you can learn to shoot a basketball 10x faster and with more accuracy than me, isn't your brain learning faster than mine?

Maybe the people who devise IQ tests are bad at sports? I’m only partially joking.

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

#203

Post by mcphage »

reitanqild wrote: post #179
thegabez wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I think about it how is athleticism not considered a parameter of IQ? If you can learn to shoot a basketball 10x faster and with more accuracy than me, isn't your brain learning faster than mine?

Because IQ is a very specific thing. It doesn't mean you know a lot or are good at high school maths. IIRC an ideal IQ test would be something you could take even if you can't read and haven't learned maths and it will tell you something about your general problem solving skills. And as we all know, people can be excellent problem solvers without being very athletic at all, so mixing that into the score would actuall…

> Because IQ is a very specific thing.

IQ is definitely not a specific thing at all, unless by that you mean “IQ is what gets measured by IQ tests”.

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

#204

Post by wgerard »

marketgod wrote: post #193
thegabez wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motor skills and muscle memory both originate from the brain, just a different area than brain thinkings stuff. I would assume shooting a ball would require more brain activity than solving a math problem because more senses are involved.

It always perplexed me why the people who were great at math could not figure out how to spin the ball of the backboard and score from anywhere on the court without athleticism required.

I'm sure they could, or at least approximate it to a close degree.

But even if you determine the proper amount of force and launch angle for a given position, that doesn't mean you'll be able to actually execute. Also, of course, basketball isn't played in a vacuum. No defender is going to let you sit there and calculate the proper trajectory or let you shoot the ball unimpeded.

A much better example would be pool - and in fact, pool is often used as a teaching method for basic geometry (angles/reflections/etc) and physics (elastic collisions).

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

#205

Post by jacobolus »

marketgod wrote: post #193
thegabez wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motor skills and muscle memory both originate from the brain, just a different area than brain thinkings stuff. I would assume shooting a ball would require more brain activity than solving a math problem because more senses are involved.

It always perplexed me why the people who were great at math could not figure out how to spin the ball of the backboard and score from anywhere on the court without athleticism required.

Because very precisely throwing a ball using the human muskulo-skeletal system is an extraordinarily difficult and complicated problem, not easily amenable to symbolic analysis.

Even stating the problem precisely (on paper) requires PhD-level physics/math, there are dozens of moving parts involved, the timing of various actions must be perfectly choreographed, and the system is constantly changing.

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

#206

Post by saghm »

wgerard wrote: post #204
marketgod wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always perplexed me why the people who were great at math could not figure out how to spin the ball of the backboard and score from anywhere on the court without athleticism required.

I'm sure they could, or at least approximate it to a close degree. But even if you determine the proper amount of force and launch angle for a given position, that doesn't mean you'll be able to actually execute. Also, of course, basketball isn't played in a vacuum. No defender is going to let you sit there and calculate the proper trajectory or let you shoot the ball unimpeded. A much better example would be pool -…

> A much better example would be pool - and in fact, pool is often used as a teaching method for basic geometry (angles/reflections/etc) and physics (elastic collisions).

It gets even more interesting once you start adding spin to your shots! Unfortunately, my physics skills are relatively lacking, so most of my pool knowledge/skills don't have much of a mathematical basis.

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

#207

Post by paulddraper »

jakobegger wrote: post #159
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…

> this controlling would remove most of the signal That's the whole point of controlling. If all of your signal can be explained by a correllation, then you aren't measuring what you think you are. If "willpower" (waiting for second marshmallow) was important, it would be important regardless of whether your parents are rich or not. This means that among poor kids, those with willpower would be more successful, and a…

> The important factor is your parents income, not your "willpower".

Or perhaps the opposite is true.

Maybe all the studies that reference parental income "should" be referencing the child's willpower. Maybe willpower is the most important/influential trait, and we should be looking at the several factors increase willpower: parental income, parenting technique X, an inherited willpower gene, etc.

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

#208

Post by tchaffee »

wavegeek wrote: post #115
mijamo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is a list of assertions without any base and ties netween each other. Why would we have to sacrifice anybody? How do you define intelligence and how is it biologically inherited? Why would those be the three influencers and not stuff like school, neighbours, family as a whole and public support? Why would feminism have killed fathers at home? Who said gangs are more accepted or that there is even more vi…

> How do you define intelligence and how is it biologically inherited? Any textbook on the topic will explain. This is not even controversial.

Yes it is. For sure some of it is inherited, but some is environment. The controversy is exactly how much of each. There are unexplained things like the Flynn effect that are probably environment.

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

#209

Post by fnord123 »

booleandilemma wrote: post #202
thegabez wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I think about it how is athleticism not considered a parameter of IQ? If you can learn to shoot a basketball 10x faster and with more accuracy than me, isn't your brain learning faster than mine?

Maybe the people who devise IQ tests are bad at sports? I’m only partially joking.

It was indeed developed by an Ashkenazi.

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

#210

Post by [deleted] »

akvadrako wrote: post #89
chronial wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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