Marshmallow Test

The Marshmallow Test is a study that was done by Walter Mischel in 1972 to test how children are able to delay gratification and how that might affect them later in life. The four year old children were told they could either eat the first marshmallow in 15 minutes or wait and receive a second marshmallow. They were visited again when they were 20 and the ones who were able to resist temptation had less behavioral problems and did better on their SATs. There are three types of research methods used in this study. One is experimentation.

Experimentation is when researchers manipulate certain variables to see how they affect other variables. There are two types of variables, independent and dependent. The independent variable is the variable that might cause an effect. The dependent variable is the variable that shows the outcome of the experiment by showing the effects of the independent variable. In this study the independent variable is the marshmallow, or the ability to delay gratification. The dependent variable is being able to delay gratification as a child makes one less likely to have behavioral problems, and also do better in school.

The second type of method used in this study is correlation. Correlation shows how two things relate to each other. In this study, they are the two variables, which are the ability to delay gratitication as a child and how well someone does as a young adult. These two variables correlate by showing that a child who is able to not eat the marshmallow in 15 minutes is more likely to not have behavioral problems later in life and to do better on their SATs. The third method used in this study is observation.

Observation studies behaviors as they happen, without any intervention. This study shows that because the person who runs the study observes the children after telling them the rules and does not intervene with how they reacted to the marshmallow, whether that be eating it, playing with it, smelling it, etcetera. They did not interfere with the outcome of the study. In conclusion, this study shows that children who are able to delay gratification are more likely to be able to be more socially competent and get higher test scores.