Even the Marshmallow Test falls after new research

[mrWinter]

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.

My thought too, by controlling for family and early environment influence and finding significantly less correlation, they are indicating that the results of the marshmallow test are not the cause of later decisions, it's merely correlated. But I didn't really think anyone thought that the marshmallow test caused later success, but rather it was an indicator of some other unidentified cause at play.

 

[mrWinter]

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.

I was going to agree wholeheartedly regarding raw mallows, until I saw that you are a fan of charred marshmallows. You are clearly off your rocker

 

[Lsbcal]

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

Bon appetite.

 

[Huston55]

Benja-Mallows

Benja[-]mins[/-]Mallows

The marshmallow test reminds me of when I was a kid (~6yo). I’d save my $$$ from pop bottles, yard work, allowance, etc. until I could change it for bigger bills; then I’d put the bills in an envelope & tape it to the underside of my bed frame. I remember very clearly the pleasure I got from knowing I had that $$$ there, and I could use it for wherever I wanted; but, I didn’t spend it because I enjoyed knowing that it was there.

I’m not really sure where that came from. My parents were frugal and financially responsible and I felt safe & cared for. Plus, my Grandad was almost always teaching me one financial lesson or another. So, maybe it was those things combined. Who knows. But, I can say that I still get somewhat the same feeling when I think about our NW today.

 

[GravitySucks]

My faith in the social sciences has fallen even further.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...es-and-fewer-half-got-same-results-180956426/

Also, currently reading Kahnemans Thinking, Fast and Slow and seeing the issue of small sample sizes and the over use of Undergrads as participants has me more convinced that many of these scientists are finding what they're looking for instead of what is there.

 

[Lsbcal]

...
Also, currently reading Kahnemans Thinking, Fast and Slow and seeing the issue of small sample sizes and the over use of Undergrads as participants has me more convinced that many of these scientists are finding what they're looking for instead of what is there.

Good points. I've often wondered about this.

 

[Chuckanut]

In the field of human health there are some classic examples of how what we 'knew' to be true - after all it was so obvious - turned out to be false.

One is cholesterol and eggs. If one wants to lower cholesterol or keep it from going up, don't eat foods like eggs that contain a lot of cholesterol. This should be intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers. But, for the vast majority of us, this isn't true.

Another is the cause of peptic ulcers in the stomach. Read the story of the guys who discovered they were caused by bacteria, not excess somach acid. There idea was pooh-poohed for years. Today, antibiotics is how most of these ulcers are treated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/health/nobel-came-after-years-of-battling-the-system.html

When two Australian scientists set out in the early 1980's to prove that a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, caused stomach inflammation and ulcers, they met opposition from a medical-industrial complex entrenched in the belief that psychological stress was the cause.


Opposition to their radical thesis came from doctors with vested interests in treating ulcers and other stomach disorders as well as from drug companies that had come up with Tagamet, which blocked production of gastric acid and was becoming the first drug with $1 billion annual sales.


Ulcer surgery was lucrative for surgeons who removed large portions of the stomach from patients with life-threatening bleeding and chronic symptoms. Psychiatrists and psychologists treated ulcer patients for stress.


The concept of curing ulcers with antibiotics seemed preposterous to doctors who had long been taught that the stomach was sterile and that no microbes could grow in the corrosive gastric juices.

 

[GravitySucks]

Yes, how we know what we know is a pretty difficult concept to start. Changing what you know is true and changing your actions due to knowing something new is close to impossible.

 

[Marita40]

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

S'mores, of course.

 

[GravitySucks]

So just reading a bit about the original 1960s study.
A whole 90 children participated in the study. All the children were picked from the Stanford University preK program.
Way to small a sample size and way to homogenous a sample to be useful, but we all love the study - maybe because we believe it shows we probably have a moral superiority to those without the wherewithal to retire early.
Believing not only are the social scientists finding what they want, but we love to believe what we want.

Wonder if all the kids had a big breakfast the day they took the test and did they all take the test the same time of day?