Pinning down exactly what qualities ensure success is a tricky business.
Success is defined and measured in so many different ways it’s hard to even bring the subject up. But in our capitalist society, we can at least say perception of success is heavily influenced by our bank account. For the sake of argument, we’ll say success comes from having a good education, a good job and a clean criminal record.
Now comes the even more contentious question of what quality determines success. Is it an innate ability like intelligence or talent, or can it be learned and practiced to perfection?
Strangely enough, one of the best indicators of future success just might be the ability to not eat a marshmallow.
In the late 1960s, Walter Mischel of Stanford University conducted an experiment hoping to discover at what age children develop the ability to delay gratification. He took children ages 4 to 6 and put them in a room with a marshmallow.
Mischel told each child they could eat the marshmallow, but if they waited until he came back they would get another marshmallow.
What followed was complete agony for the children.
Some kids would shove the marshmallow in their mouths as soon as the door closed, while others would sit, stare at and even sniff the marshmallow, trying desperately to hold out against temptation. In the end most of the children ate the marshmallow, but about a third of the kids successfully resisted the puffy white treat until Mischel returned 15 minutes later.
Mischel analyzed the data and concluded age does affect our ability to delay gratification. However, the really interesting results would come a few years later.
Many of the children from the experiment went to school with his daughters. In the following years their classmates would come up in conversation.
Eventually, Mischel noticed a trend. The children having a hard time in school usually had eaten the marshmallow.
Fascinated by this idea, Mischel began a series of follow-up studies, which have continued to this day. The first follow-up took place 10 years after the initial experiment and involved SAT scores. Incredibly, Mischel found that students who waited for the second marshmallow out-performed students who ate the marshmallow immediately by more than 200 points.
Over the years, Mischel has conducted dozens of follow-up studies and come up with some pretty incredible results. Not only are kids who waited more likely to attend college and get good grades, but they also have a lower body mass index, a clean criminal record and a higher annual income.
The marshmallow experiment suggests the most important quality for determining success isn’t intelligence or talent but the ability to delay gratification. Children who were able to put up with temporary discomfort in exchange for a future reward are now more successful in almost every measurable way.
The ability to delay gratification may be the key to success, but it doesn’t mean people with poor self control are doomed to failure.
The kids who waited didn’t do it because their brain told them they didn’t want to eat the marshmallow. Every child was tormented by the treat — some were just better able to resist its allure. Everyone has this
ability to some extent, but the key is practicing it.
In modern America, instant gratification is king, and patience is more scarce than ever. The inability to delay gratification has a hand in everything from rising credit card debt to the mortgage meltdown. Most of us would rather sacrifice tomorrow to get our results today, but in the long term, waiting is almost always better.
So the next time you want to go out the night before an exam, at least try not to eat the marshmallows.
Andrew Shockey is a 20 year-old biological engineering sophomore from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Ashockey.
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Contact Andrew Shockey at [email protected]