The Marshmallow Test is one of the most famous psychology experiments of the modern world. It is used to explain how one key element of character, self-control, corresponds with overall success in life. In the experiment, originally conducted in Stanford’s Bing Nursery School by psychologist Walter Mischel, four-year-olds were left alone in a closet with a marshmallow on a plate in front of them and told they could eat the marshmallow, but if they waited for fifteen minutes they would get two marshmallows. The ability of the children to delay gratification correlated to their success later in life (Bourne). The Marshmallow Test shows that self-control is a major determinant of one’s behavior. It explored the link between time waited and success …show more content…
The groups all had a relatively equal amount of children. During high school, kids in the group that ate the marshmallow immediately had behavioral problems and scored an average of 210 points less than their peers of the group that waited (Lehrer). These findings continued through the lives of the children. Those in the group that waited were generally more successful than those of the group that did not. These findings have been consistent with other trials of children from different backgrounds, which shows that the skill of delayed gratification is not learned from a child’s environment. Since the results were constant between the “relatively homogeneous group”(Bourne) of children of the professors of Stanford and groups of children from lower income families, such as the trial in the Bronx (Lehrer), the home environment of the children had no effect on the children’s self-control. The success of the children had a direct link to their ability to delay gratification, and Mischel wanted to study this link more