Page 4 - Flipbook: Sociology Shortcuts Issue 4: Testing the Marshmallow Test

One Test – or Many Tests?

One of the things about the Marshmallow test is that although it’s
often described as a child sitting at a table with a single
marshmallow in front of them, this was only one form of the test.

In all Mischel et al (1990) used four test conditions, where
“ideation” refers to the experimenter providing the subjects with
ideas about how to stop themselves thinking about eating the
marshmallow:
Condition 1. Marshmallow exposed / no ideation

Condition 2. Marshmallow exposed / ideation

Condition 3. Marshmallow obscured / no ideation

Condition 4. Marshmallow obscured / ideation

The important point here is that only the first
condition (the child has the marshmallow in view The key takeaway here is that if the correlation only
and is given no instructions about how to stop appears under very specific experimental conditions
themselves thinking about eating it) resulted in a any attempt to translate the Test results into real
statistically significant correlation with subsequent world behaviour – such as teaching children “self-
SAT scores. Mischel et al also warn that even this control” in schools – is unlikely to work if the aim is
set of conditions may “lose its diagnostic potential to somehow “improve academic achievement”: by
early in the course of development”. the time children reach school age they will have
already begun to learn the “techniques of self-
In other words, the Test may only be an effective control” required to effectively bias the test.
diagnostic tool – predicting future academic
achievements – when used with very young While this is an important qualification, a much
children. This follows, they argue, because more-significant question relates to the relationship
between the ability to delay gratification in pre-
“As children become older, their delay behavior school children and their subsequent academic
becomes less responsive to this manipulation”. development.

To put this another way, as children develop they: While the original studies found a correlation, this is
a long way from saying the former causes the latter
“become aware of basic rules to facilitate delay by – even if, for the sake of argument, we assume the
distracting their attention from the rewards…and fact that 50% of the original test takers who were not
can purposefully influence their own ideation to tracked into adulthood did not materially affect the
overcome the impact of exposed rewards”. relationship (and that’s a Really Big If…).

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