Even the Marshmallow Test falls after new research

[harley]

It seems that every "truth" we've been told throughout our lives falls apart after later research, especially when the researchers don't enter the experiment with the accepted expectations. Bacon and eggs are bad, then good. Statins will make you live forever, or kill you. Alcohol is bad, good, bad, good...

But the one thing I thought was real, and made sense, was that the ability to delay gratification as a kid would result in FIRE. Now even that universal constant is being questioned. Professor replicates famous marshmallow test, makes new observations

From the study -

the relationship between a young child's ability to delay gratification and later outcomes is much weaker than previously thought. The new study discovered that while the ability to resist temptation and wait longer to eat the marshmallow (or another treat offered as a reward) did predict adolescent math and reading skills, the association was small and disappeared after the researchers controlled for characteristics of the child's family and early environment. And there was no indication that it predicted later behaviors or measures of personality.

So, I'm off to eat marshmallow and bacon sandwiches with a glass of red wine. See you later, if I survive.

 

[HadEnuff]

An MD friend of mine once told me that the first lecture he ever had in med school included the following caveat: Half of everything we teach you will eventually be proven wrong. Unfortunately, we don't know which half.

 

[MichaelB]

Oh no. The marshmallow test doesn't categorize people into savers and spenders? I'm crushed. Next they'll be telling us the whole ants vs grasshoppers is also bogus. These are foundational principles.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

This is a perfect illustration...folks should take "research" with a grain of salt. With my Dad's terminal illness, I have done a LOT of research on his disease and hospice care (outcomes, prognosis, etc.) and the conclusion that I came up with was, "well, it depends." I read a LOT research information (not the press releases or abstracts) and it became clear that many of these were conducted with a very limited number of participants or with a super-specific subset of patients, and thus not real useful. So, like most things in life...I think about these things with an eye to "common sense". If it seems fishy, it probably is.

 

[Sunset]

Oh no...
What am I going to do with all these marshmallows

 

[Chuckanut]

It just shows that raising kids isn't for cream-puffs.

 

[GrayHare]

Here's the key: "...the association was small and disappeared after the researchers controlled for characteristics of the child's family and early environment."

This does not invalidate the marshmallow test, it merely states that the child's family and early environment influence the child's later decisions, such as save/spend. They also influence the marshmallow test.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Here's the key: "...the association was small and disappeared after the researchers controlled for characteristics of the child's family and early environment."

This does not invalidate the marshmallow test, it merely states that the child's family and early environment influence the child's later decisions, such as save/spend. They also influence the marshmallow test.

Well, that ruins the story!! Geez....stop pointing out the FACTS.

 

[ssarwar]

I encourage everyone to read this book on scientific theories that are blocking progress “ This Idea Must Die “ Edited by John Brockman.

 

[donheff]

I was surprised to read that the famous Stanley Milgram experiment we all heard about in school (people would shock subjects at lethal levels when told to do so by authoritative, white coated authority figures) was very misleading. Apparently we saw a limited subset of results. The effect declined with broader subsets and reversed when the white coated figures "order" the subjects to increase the voltage by saying things like "you must." In the later cases, people basically responded with a resounding "F-you."

 

[4legsgood]

I think there was a recent study that said most studies are deeply flawed....

 

[MichaelB]

An MD friend of mine once told me that the first lecture he ever had in med school included the following caveat: Half of everything we teach you will eventually be proven wrong. Unfortunately, we don't know which half.

I think there was a recent study that said most studies are deeply flawed....

Sturgeon's Revelation comes to mind.

 

[REWahoo]

Sturgeon's Revelation comes to mind.

Sounds fishy...

 

[4legsgood]

Oh no...
What am I going to do with all these marshmallows

make s'mores!

 

[ocean view]

Here's the key: "...the association was small and disappeared after the researchers controlled for characteristics of the child's family and early environment."



This does not invalidate the marshmallow test, it merely states that the child's family and early environment influence the child's later decisions, such as save/spend. They also influence the marshmallow test.

This would imply that siblings, raised in the same environment, would have similar save/spend habits. Not true in my family. I’ve always been a saver, my older sibs spent like it was burning a hole in their pocket...to this day.

How many in this forum have siblings who are spenders?

 

[donheff]

I think there was a recent study that said most studies are deeply flawed....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/

 

[4legsgood]

The marshmallow study never rang true for me, as someone who has always thought plain marshmallows are pretty gross, and possibly that people who like them are a little off.

 

[razztazz]

Oh no. The marshmallow test doesn't categorize people into savers and spenders? I'm crushed. Next they'll be telling us the whole ants vs grasshoppers is also bogus. These are foundational principles.

I thought it categorized people into rich successful capitalists and lazy bazztids on welfare? That's usually how the results are applied when people tell me about it

 

[Dtail]

Oh no...
What am I going to do with all these marshmallows

Make it into fluff.

 

[haha]

This would imply that siblings, raised in the same environment, would have similar save/spend habits. Not true in my family. I’ve always been a saver, my older sibs spent like it was burning a hole in their pocket...to this day.

How many in this forum have siblings who are spenders?

I have both in my birth family. I think birth cohort is very important also. My brother in his 70s and me in my 70s almost have to be held upside down and shaken to get money out of us. My 2 next sibs, born in early 50s, couldn't save a cent if they had to. But one of these two has 2 daughters born in the 80s who are very careful with money. IMO, people are generally not stupid unless stupidity has become common in their reference group, which today is often their birth cohort.

Ha

 

[travelover]

I'm feeling better about having gulped down that first marshmallow.

 

[Walt34]

How many in this forum have siblings who are spenders?

Sometimes I have to wonder if family makes much, if any, difference. My two siblings (sisters, one older, one younger) do just fine with money. One of my nephews, who I know wasn't raised that way, is a complete dolt with money. His sister, while better, has made a number of bad financial decisions.

 

[Red Badger]

IMHO, a very flawed study. Plain marshmallows? Really?!
My sister liked hers just slightly brown. Mine had to be charred by fire and then blown out.
But raw That's up there with pickled eel I had for breakfast in Germany when I was very hungover. A humanitarian crisis.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

A couple quotes from the originator of the marshmallow test, Walter Mischel -

The point of the marshmallow test was to show how flexible people are — how easily changed if they simply reinterpret the way they frame the situation around them. But that's not the moral that our culture drew from the marshmallow study. We decided that those traits in the preschoolers were fixed — that their self-control at age 4 determined their success throughout life. They're happier, have better relationships, do better at school and at work.

The marshmallow test became the poster child for the idea that there are specific personality traits that are stable and consistent. And this drives Walter Mischel crazy.
"That iconic story is upside-down wrong," Mischel says. "That your future is in a marshmallow. Because it isn't."

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...rsonality-fixed-or-can-you-change-who-you-are

 

[RAE]

An MD friend of mine once told me that the first lecture he ever had in med school included the following caveat: Half of everything we teach you will eventually be proven wrong. Unfortunately, we don't know which half.

Yeah, and the problem is, a lot of doctors today are still practicing medicine based on what they were taught back in med. school, whether more recent research has proven it to be wrong or not. And I shouldn't just single out doctors.........look at all the horrible diet/nutrition advice that is still being given out, by USDA, the American Heart Association, and others. It just goes to show you that you really need to keep up with this stuff on your own if you want to know what advice is sound, and what is bogus.