00:00Let's say you're looking at a marshmallow. You have two options. You can either wait for the
00:04first marshmallow and get a second marshmallow, or you can have one marshmallow now, but then
00:09you're done. How long do you think you'd wait for that second marshmallow? Or would you wait
00:13for the second marshmallow at all? This is the dilemma facing preschool-aged children in the
00:181960s. Little did they know that the way they handled this dilemma would be part of one of
00:21the most famous psychological studies of all time. In this video, I'm going to be telling you a
00:26little bit about the Stanford marshmallow test, what it was, what it said about success,
00:31and the impact it's had on psychology to this day. So, the premise of this test was pretty simple.
00:36Stanford professor Walter Mischel and his team put a single marshmallow in front of a child,
00:41usually around four or five years old. They told the child that they would leave the room and then
00:45come back in a few minutes. Now, if the child ate the marshmallow, they could not get a second.
00:49But if the child waited until the researchers was back in the room, the child would get a second
00:54marshmallow. Researchers recorded which children ate the marshmallow and which ones waited.
00:59And then, researchers waited. They waited and waited and waited. And when the children were
01:04teenagers, the researchers revisited the children and asked their parents a series of questions about
01:09their cognitive abilities, how they handled stress, and their ability to exhibit self-control
01:14under pressure. They also took a look at the child's SAT and ACT scores. And a few years later,
01:19the researchers tested the participants again on their self-control. So, what did they find?
01:24Well, in short, Mischel and his team found that developing self-control as a child had a profound
01:29impact on the child's later success in life. Success came in many forms. In general, the children who
01:35waited for the second marshmallow scored higher SAT scores, reported lower levels of substance abuse,
01:40were less likely to be obese, and overall had better social skills and self-control, according to their
01:46parents. In fact, one of the children who succeeded at the marshmallow test, which surprised me,
01:50was Susan Washkiki, YouTube's very own CEO. Her mother, in her book, How to Raise Successful
01:56People, actually noted that one of the researchers contacted her and said that Susan was the child
02:00who waited the longest. So, due to the nature of the experiment, the results were published in the
02:051980s and the 1990s. Since then, the world of psychology has regarded this study as one of the most
02:10important studies, paving the way for different ways of looking at how personality influence and
02:15predicts success. But let's talk a little bit about why the children would eat the marshmallow
02:19right away. Well, the marshmallow test was able to give researchers a link between self-control and
02:24success. In short, having self-control as a child could influence your success as an adult. But what
02:31influenced self-control? Because not all children grabbed the marshmallow right away. Michel and his team
02:36developed a hot and cool system of thinking that explained why children would have eaten the
02:40marshmallow immediately. The same system of thinking could be applied to any task that involves
02:45instant gratification, kind of like making a purchase or smoking a cigarette. So here we go,
02:49the cool system is where most people are whenever we're not tempted. It's the cognitive ability to
02:54think about long-term benefits. We know that smoking is bad for us, and resisting a cigarette will
02:59result in long-term health. We know that if we wait, we'll get more marshmallows. And we know that if
03:05we go to
03:05the gym instead of hitting the snooze alarm, we will feel more awake later and more healthy in the long
03:09run.
03:10But on the other side is hot stimuli. They threaten the cool system. When things warm up and get hot,
03:16our behavior then becomes impulsive. We smoke the cigarette, we take the marshmallow, and we hit the
03:21snooze button. But that raises a question. Why do some people heat up faster than others? Well, why are some
03:27stimuli hotter than others? These are the questions that psychologists like Michel have been trying to solve.
03:32And there's a few other studies in this area. The Stanford Marshmallow Test took data from a relatively small
03:37and not exactly diverse group of participants. Not all of the researchers were convinced that the test had found
03:43the one true key to success. So a more recent study was set out to redo the marshmallow test, focusing
03:49on different
03:50social and economic factors that could also play into a child's success. The main factor they chose was the mother's
03:56educational background. They split participants into groups based on whether or not the mother had obtained a college degree.
04:02Researchers also controlled for factors like family background, early cognitive ability, and the child's
04:07environment at home. In short, what they found was that self-control didn't exactly have an impact on the
04:12success, like the marshmallow experiment said that it did. Children who came from more wealthy homes were
04:17more likely to just practice self-control. And when the researchers accounted for social and economic factors,
04:22they found that self-control wasn't really necessary in predicting success, which raised a lot of big flags.
04:28This doesn't just put the results of self-control into question, it also questions why children grabbed the
04:33marshmallow in the first place. Researchers have offered different opinions, including thoughts on
04:37how scarcity impacts a child's ability to use and take resources. Think about it. Wealthy kids don't have
04:44too many problems waiting for food, toys, or other things. Their parents can afford it. They'll get it.
04:49But kids from lower-income families, they have more to worry about. The food might be scarce. A parent may
04:54promise to bring their kids to a nice restaurant or buy them an interesting toy, but they may not just
04:58be able to follow through with it. If something is right in front of you, you might as well just
05:02take it, because you can't guarantee that it's going to be there later, or that you'll get a reward
05:06for waiting. I thought that this twist to the marshmallow test was kind of interesting.
05:10Another few studies on willpower and self-discipline have noted that people are able to resist temptation
05:15longer if they get the temptation out of their control. For example, if an alcoholic throws away any
05:21alcohol around the house, or if a person trying to lose weight has someone else shopped for them,
05:25or finally someone wanting to study simply sells their gaming console. The idea is that it's very
05:30hard to resist temptation, but it's very easy if you just remove the choice. In the marshmallow
05:35experiment videos, they found that the kids who did the best were the ones who distracted themselves.
05:40They covered their eyes, they played a game, or maybe they sang to themselves. This is just a little
05:45bit more insight into the theory of willpower, but I'll have another video on that later.
05:49Let's get back to the marshmallow test. While recent studies have claimed to debunk the marshmallow
05:53test, it's impossible to deny that the impact of the study is very interesting.
05:57Michelle's work was able to show the world how certain personality traits impacted a child's
06:02chance at success. Further work has since been done on different personality traits and how they
06:06relate to success in things like business or a romantic relationship. We might not know the terms
06:11like growth mindset or even emotional intelligence if the marshmallow test didn't exist.
06:16And the marshmallow test is not the only classic experiment that has recently undergone
06:21criticisms. Psychology is currently undergoing what is called a replication crisis. Replications
06:26of world-renowned experiments like the marshmallow test or the Stanford Prison Experiment show that
06:31these tests may not be as solid or accurate as we once were taught in schools. Like any type of
06:36work
06:37that involves the scientific method, psychology is always evolving and psychologists are continuing to
06:41tweak, change, and adjust theories that don't hold up to modern tests. But as we get back onto track,
06:47self-control does have an impact on behavior and possibly success, but it's up to the current and
06:52future generations to learn more about just how self-control is actually influenced and how it
06:57influences other personality traits and factors. So as I end this video, I want to thank you so much for
07:02watching this video on the marshmallow experiment. And if you have any questions, feel free to leave them
07:06below. I love to respond to questions, and I encourage you to watch more videos in my social psychology
07:11series. I'll see you in the next one.
