In the classic “Marshmallow Experiment” on delayed gratification, researchers brought hundreds of children—mostly around 4 and 5 years old—into a room and offered them a deal. The researcher said that the child could eat a marshmallow now. Or, they could wait, and if they did not eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they would be given a second marshmallow.
It was a simple choice: eat one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows later.
The researcher’s left the room, and video footage of the children struggling to not eat the marshmallow has become famously entertaining. Some children ate the marshmallow right away. Others waited and got a second marshmallow later.
The study ended up being groundbreaking in part because, in follow-up studies, the children who were able to delay their gratification ended up doing better in most facets of life—they had had better performance at school, coped better with stress, were rated as more socially competent, and more.
