Friday, October 26, 2012

Delaying Gratification Is About Worldview As Much As Willpower

Brought to you by: Emilynne


A young volunteer contemplates a tempting sugary treat during an experiment that tests her willingness to wait for a better reward. In a recent experiment, kids who dealt with a more trustworthy experimenter were more likely to resist the urge to eat a marshmallow when told that abstaining would earn them a second one. 
Credit: J. Adam Fenster / Univ. of Rochester

6 comments:

Nicholas said...

I think most of the studies in this article were pure luck. It just does not make sense that a kid who can wait will be better at academics. I can see the social side, but academics is pure luck. Any number of things could have influenced this experiment. All they did was pick any old kids out of the streets. If someone had a higher IQ, if someone got more treats usually could have influenced the whole experiment. I might have believed this article if they "did their homework" and selected kids who personalities were very similar. They picked kids 3-5. Who says that three year-olds waited a short amount of time and the kids who were five could wait longer. Overall I would say a good article, but the experiments might have skewed results.

Kallie said...

I agree that they should have chosen kids with similar personalities, ages, etc., but the academics actually might be affected. They might be waiting for class to be over so that they can have a cookie for snack, or they might be waiting to start playing games after school.

Sabina said...

I think that this experiment didn't prove much, because it is tested on 3-5 year olds. I mean really, if someone that age wants a snack, why wait 15 minutes? Why not just get a cookie now? I think that there would probably be different results if the experiment was tested on kids that are 8 and older because like Nicholas said, they would have a higher IQ and understand that instead of getting one treat now, they can get two in 15 minutes. This is a very interesting article, but if they had tested it on older kids, the results would be very different.

Elena said...

I think that the most interesting part about this article is the test they did with the art projects. It is amazing how something as simple as that can alter what they do next. They were let down with their art project, so they wanted more. They took the treat earlier because they wanted more, whereas the kids who got what they were promised waited longer. I also think this shows a sense of satisfaction with the kids. Some kids are more satisfied with what they got than others. The others usually will want to then complete their satisfaction. I wonder if this works with adults. If an adult is promised a sum of, let's say, $50 if they wait 30 minutes and a sum of $10 if they wait 5 minutes, then will the adult wait the 30 minutes, or not? Some adults will want to wait, because they want the money, but to other adults, money is money, and they'll just take the $10 and go. I think that this article was very interesting, and I'd like to learn more about it.

Bianca said...

I agree with Nick and Elena. I agree with Nick, because the fact that the kids are different people, does not make the experiment fair. It is just like measuring something with your hands and expecting it to be perfectly accurate. I agree with Elena that an interesting part of the article was about the kids and the art project. I also wonder if it works with adults, and think Elena had a very good train of thought their. I thought is was very interesting that kids from different families tend to have different ways of doing things. I just wonder how it would help them academically. I understand socially like it would help develop trust, patience, and other good qualities. I believe people who can get anything they want quickly will pick the marshmallow now instead of getting two later. I believe they should have done more experiments and on more ages. I would love to know about the patience of teens, tweens, and adults.Would teens(tweens, adults, etc...) wait and be patient?

Weston said...

This was sort of interesting. I didn't really find it to be a worth while study, but it was still a good theory. I don't think that most kids would actually wait that long, and the one who did was just waiting with no idea of what was going on around him. I don't think that it was a good experiment, so I didn't really like it overall.