On average, Americans as a whole will spend 37 billion hours waiting this year alone. Our country is thought of having very little patience, which can be true in some cases. When I am craving a donut or a coffee from Dunkin Donuts on a monday morning just before my 9:35 class, I walk to the student center to fulfill my craving. When I see the line almost leading to China and back, my craving for that delicious treat or coffee disappears instantly and I settle for yogurt at Conn Hall. I no longer have the time or even the patience to wait in a line that long, but many students do. Some student will even wake up early to ensure they receive their coffee before the start of their day. So why do so many other countries believe Americans are so impatient?
I believe it is because of our inability to delay gratification. This is a skill that almost all Americans lack. Delayed gratification is the ability for a person to wait in order to obtain something that one wants. Joachim de Posada is one of many psychology professors who have studied this topic. His experiment was called the Marshmallow Study which he tested in the 1960’s. Joachim would conduct his study by placing 4-5 year olds in a very bland room and place a marshmallow in front of them. Next Joachim would tell the child that if they could wait 15 minutes and not eat the marshmallow, they would then be rewarded with a second marshmallow. Those conducting the study would then leave the room for the duration of the 15 minutes and come back and record if the child had or had not eaten the marshmallow. The study involved 35 preschool aged children, ⅔ of the children ate the marshmallow within minutes or even a few seconds and only ⅓ of the children were able to delay gratification and resist the urge of eating the marshmallow.
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Many children in this study seemed like they were able to delay gratification, but they did not show all the children at the end receiving or not receiving a second marshmallow. What was clearly shown in this video though was the children who were unable to resist the urge of the delicious marshmallow. One girl, towage the end of the video started eating the marshmallow even before the instructor finished explaining the test. This little girl had a mindset of eating the marshmallow and did not care about anything other than her treat. Some of the children waited a while, maybe a couple minutes before taking a few small bites and then fully eating the marshmallow.
So what is the point of this marshmallow test? When Joachim de Posada conducted this test he discovered that the ⅓ of the children who did not eat the marshmallow were more successful later in life than the ⅔ who ate the marshmallow. Joachim traced the children who were in his study 15 years later to see what they were like. He found that the children who delayed gratification had good grades, had high SAT scores, had good relationships with their teachers, and had a plan for their future. He also found that the children who ate the marshmallow were troublesome, had poor grades, had poor relationships overall and many dropped out of highschool or college. This test is more than just a test of seeing how well a 4 year old can resist the urge, it is also a strong predictor of future success. Students who are able to delay gratification are more likely to be successful later in life.
I believe as a society we do not all have the ability to delay gratification, though very few do. Many of us value instant gratification because you are given a reward right then and there, no waiting occurs. Instant gratification is popular with Americans because like I said before, Americans do not have the patience to wait, many of us rather have the reward as soon as possible.
I think teaching children at a young at the skills of delaying gratification can drastically change many of their future success. If more children are given the ability to learn this skill, more of the kids in the study would able to delay gratification and receive two marshmallows in the end. Before watching the video of Joachim de Posada’s study I had no idea what the marshmallow study was, but now I am so interested in the whole study. I never would have guess that something as simple as eating or not eating a marshmallow could predict if a child was going to be successful later in life. Psychology has always been a topic I’ve been interested in and the marshmallow sparked my interest even more than before!
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