Kids Wait For Treats Longer If They’re Trying To Impress Others

In a twist on the classic “marshmallow test” researchers found that children were willing to wait longer for a reward if they were told their teacher would find out how long they waited.

The “marshmallow test” is a famous psychology experiment used to determine a child’s ability to delay gratification.

In the initial experiment, which was conducted back in the 70’s, Walter Mischel put kids in a room with a marshmallow. He told them if they could wait until he got back to eat the treat they could have two, instead of one.

Later research has found that the better kids are at waiting, the better they do in school. They’ve also showed that the kids had fewer behaviour problems, got better SAT scores, were better at dealing with stress and were more successful in life. 

For example, a 2018 study found that a person’s ability to delay gratification was more predictive of how they earned than age, ethnicity or height.

This new study, published in the journal Psychological Science, expands on this earlier research and shows that young children will wait nearly twice as long for a reward if they are told their teacher will find out how long they wait.

“The classic marshmallow test has shaped the way researchers think about the development of self-control, which is an important skill,” said Gail Heyman, a professor at the University of California San Diego and lead author on the study, in a statement.

“Our new research suggests that in addition to measuring self-control, the task may also be measuring another important skill: awareness of what other people value. In fact, one reason for the predictive power of delay-of-gratification tasks may be that the children who wait longer care more about what people around them value, or are better at figuring it out.”

The study included 273 preschool children in China aged 3 to 4 years old and like the original “marshmallow test” they were told they could either have a treat now, or wait and get a bigger reward.

The kids were assigned to one of three conditions: a “teacher” condition, in which they were told that their teacher would find out how long they wait; a “peer” condition, in which they were told that a classmate would find out how long they wait; or a “standard” condition that had no special instructions.

Researchers observed that kids would wait longer in the teacher and peer conditions than in the standard condition, and they also noticed that they waited about twice as long in the teacher condition as compared to the peer condition.

According to Heyman, this could mean that when children decide how long to wait, they do a cost-benefit analysis that takes into account the possibility of getting a social reward, not just a “marshmallow-type reward, in the form of a boost to their reputation. This may also suggest that the desire to impress others is strong and can motivate human behavior starting at a very young age.

Heyman and her colleagues were surprised by their findings because it’s often believed that 3- and 4-year-olds are too young to care about what other people think of them.

“The children waited longer in the teacher and peer conditions even though no one directly told them that it’s good to wait longer,” said Heyman.

“We believe that children are good at making these kinds of inferences because they are constantly on the lookout for cues about what people around them value. This may take the form of carefully listening to the evaluative comments that parents and teachers make, or noticing what kinds of people and topics are getting attention in the media.”

However, it’s worth noting that there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the “marshmallow test” research and it’s implications.

For example, recent research has found that kid’s social and economic background, not willpower, influence a child’s ability to delay gratification.

Other studies have also found that cultural background can play a role in how well children do on the marshmallow test. One study, which compared children from Germany and Cameroon, found that the children from Africa consistently waited longer for their reward than children from Germany. They also weren’t as tortured by the waiting period. In fact 10% of them fell asleep.

There’s also evidence that suggests how trustworthy kids think their environment is can play a role in how long they’ll wait for a second marshmallow.

“Kids take under consideration the statistical nature of what has happened in the past,” Celeste Kidd, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester, told NPR in an interview. “So for example, if a child is living in an environment where there’s a lot of uncertainty and instability, then they may think that waiting isn’t likely to pay off even though they have the ability to delay gratification.”

In other words, more research is needed to see if the results of this study actually show that children are willing to delay their reward to impress others or if it’s just a byproduct of their environment and upbringing.