Wide-eyed, little Sofie stares at the marshmallow as if she's about to win a staring contest. Albert sits heavily on both hands and tries to ignore the marshmallow's existence, while Jens gently licks the marshmallow in a naive attempt to satisfy the growing urge to sink his teeth into the soft, sweet and tempting marshmallow. Can the children manage to sit in the chair with a clear view of the delicious marshmallow for 15 minutes without eating it, if it means that in 15 minutes they will get another marshmallow?
While this sounds like a cute experiment you might be tempted to subject your own children to, it's an experiment that has been used in psychology to say a lot about need deferral since it was first conducted in a Stanford preschool in 1972. In other words, they are interested in when we humans develop the ability to suppress our immediate desires and impulses in order to fulfill later goals - in other words, a form of future-oriented self-control.
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Relevance to your working life
Demand deferral and self-control are skills that are highly beneficial to possess in professional contexts. For example, if your boss asks you to travel to Germany for the third time this month, will you react to your immediate feelings and say: "Forget it - I'm so tired of traveling to Germany", or are you able to control these impulses and focus on the advantageous position your frequent traveling puts you in for the next salary negotiation where you hope for an extra big jump in salary? In other words, are you able to focus on future gains at the expense of your current emotions and impulses? If you were one of the kids who resisted temptation and ended up winning the prize of two marshmallows, chances are you'll react like the latter, and this way, you'll be more likely to succeed in your professional life.
It turns out that children who "passed" the marshmallow test later in life will possess a number of desirable skills compared to those who didn't. These include abilities such as being more attentive, better able to concentrate, more competent, better structured and even more intelligent with better verbal and logical skills than those who failed the test. In addition, they have better social skills, handle frustration better and are better at resisting temptation. All skills that are valued in professional and personal life.
So what if I ate the marshmallow?
Most people would probably like to possess the above characteristics, so if you're tempted to subject your child to the test, remember to emphasize that the result of the test determines the entire child's chance of future success. And if you're going for a job interview, it should be enough to point out that you actually passed the marshmallow test as a child.
But perhaps it's not quite so black and white. Doubts were raised as to whether the marshmallow test is sufficient to explain these trends. Is there really a direct correlation between whether I ate the marshmallow and all these properties? If so, things could be looking bleak for impatient children. However, new studies show that there is hope even if you ate the marshmallow.
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Hungry for sweets or a distrustful upbringing?
It turns out that the test not only examines self-control and need expression, but a number of factors play a role in whether the child eats the marshmallow. One major factor that comes into play is children's basic trust in adults. Children who have grown up in an environment that has unfortunately fostered a fundamental distrust of adults will eat the marshmallow significantly faster than children who trust adults. When the adult tells the child that they will get another marshmallow if they wait 15 minutes, it is essential that the child is convinced that the adult will actually come back - because if not, why not just eat the marshmallow?
These results open up a number of explanations that move beyond the rigid focus on whether or not you ate that marshmallow and your associated future abilities and skills. With this explanation, your upbringing is more important to the development of the above skills than how hungry and impatient you were when you took the marshmallow test. In this way, it is not possible to assess your future skills based on the marshmallow test alone. Celeste Kidd, the researcher behind the new findings focusing on confidence, points out: "Don't do the marshmallow test on your kitchen table and conclude something about your child".
So if you want to know if your little Sofie, Albert or Jens will develop beneficial traits and skills such as high concentration, good frustration management and even intelligence, don't just subject them to the marshmallow test. Make sure your children grow up in safe and trusting relationships, and then there's a better chance that grown-up Albert will agree to take that third trip to Germany and score his extra-large raise.
By Lise Melby
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