The Marshmallow Test | How To Delay Gratification & Build Willpower
The Marshmallow Test were a series of experiments conducted by Professor Walter Mischel and his team at Sandford university during the 1960s. The subjects of the tests were hundreds of children aged between four and five years old.
The premise of the test was to grasp a greater understanding of the effects of delayed gratification.
The kids were given an ultimatum by researchers, they were told that they could eat a single marshmallow or wait fifteen minutes and be granted a second marshmallow. If they ate their marshmallow before the fifteen minutes elapsed they would not receive the second marshmallow.
The children had different reactions across the board. Some children would eat the marshmallow instantly and others would distract themselves until the researcher had returned.
The data of the experiment was collected, and the children were tracked over the next forty years.
An astonishing pattern was recognized among the children that had successfully weathered the storm and received the second marshmallow. These children on average went on to have:
Higher SAT scores
Lower rates of obesity
Better stress tolerance
Many other positive life metrics.
So, the question that needs to be asked is;
“How can we build our willpower and learn to delay gratification?”
I have thought about this for a while and have come up with the following suggestions:
One: Build systems and traps for the future
When you are grocery shopping and fill up your cart with carrots, kale and cabbages that you intend on eating later, do not make the erroneous assumption that many fall into. The error comes when we assume that; when the time arrives to eat the vegetables we will be in the same headspace as when we were buying them.
The reality is, the person who opens the fridge later that night and makes a choice between the vegetables and the cake might as well be someone else! You are at battle with that future version of you, it is up to present you to set traps and systems to ensure that future you isn’t bamboozled by instant gratification.
These systems might be as simple as removing all other foods from your fridge before filling it up with healthy alternatives. The traps you lay might be to promise a loved one a video of you eating the food. The idea of this preventive way of thinking is to ensure that future you will have to face an incredible amount of resistance when regarding any other alternatives to the choices that you have made prior.
If you want to go for a run in the morning make sure to hide your remote and have your sneakers by your bed. Lower the resistance and make it easy for future you to comply.
Two: Start small and build up
The children that waited for two marshmallows did not later go on to succeed in life simply because of that one test. The same attitude they showed in the test demonstrated the ethos of their lives. These children would delay gratification in a range of other matters.
If we wish to build up our capacity of delaying gratification we must start small and build up. Just like anything we do, we can internalize the mindset until it becomes automatic. Once it becomes automatic the rest will be a breeze.
Here are some things you could consider doing:
Making your bed before you go out and have your breakfast
Exercising before you watch TV
Reading a book before you surf the net
Eating your food at a normal pace when hungry
Not cutting people off during conversations and listening
attentively
The world we are living in is conducive to the ‘instant gratification’ mentality, become an outlier and wait for your second marshmallow.
The Studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3...
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
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