SOMETIMES EATING THE MARSHMALLOW IMMEDIATELY MAKES SENSE. I have posted, including here, about the marshmallow experiment. Children who showed on the “marshmallow test†that they could defer gratification did better academically and had fewer behavior problems in later life. (The “marshmallow test†measures how long a person–say, a four year old–can hold out on eating a marshmallow with the reward being an additional marshmallow in a few minutes). The experiment was first done by Walter Mischel in 1972. Now this article in Scientific American by Simon Makin describes an experiment by a group headed by Celeste Kidd which shows that children who have reason to doubt that they will get the second marshmallow are less likely to wait before eating the first marshmallow (3 minutes for children who have reason to doubt versus 12 minutes for those who have reason to trust).
Celeste Kidd, the leader of the research team, said that she got the idea while working in a homeless shelter because “she realized that all the kids around her would eat their marshmallows straight away, living as they did in an environment where anything they had could be taken away at any time.”