The remarkable thing about the study is that a student’s ability at age four to defer gratification is correlated with better outcomes much later in life, such as academic and social competence. For example, one follow-up paper found a statistically significant relationship between how long a student waited to ring the bell and — more than a decade later — their “ability to cope with frustration and stress in adolescence.”
New York Times columnist David Brooks has cited this study and inferred that most social problems are rooted in an inability to defer gratification. He argues that for people with poor self-control “life is a parade of foolish decisions: teen pregnancy, drugs, gambling, truancy and crime.” I agree. I can find no other compelling explanation for why someone would do something as utterly ridiculous as dropping out of high school, no matter how bad the school is.
But I’ll see David Brooks and raise him one. I find myself asking an even bigger question: Is America as a nation losing its ability to wait for the second marshmallow? By that, I mean can we still muster the political will and personal sacrifice to make investments today that will make us richer and stronger 10, 20, or 50 years from now?
I am not sure. Both parties, but I blame the Democrats more, have learned that they get elected by offering the electorate more now. In other words, through largess. In their world a reduction in rate of growth becomes a “cut in benefits”. The slightest hint of austerity or that people may not get that to which they are “entitled†is ruthlessly demagogued.
As a result many pressing problems are off limits. Social Security is one and as a result it will limp along until it fails.
I was reading this and was struck by the paralells with the church. Does not the revisionist side in ECUSA really embody the instant gratification mentality? The Global AC said stop, no consecration for VGR, and they went ahead anyway.
This is an excellent article. I wonder, though, how much does growing up as an only child vs. with siblings affect the ability to delay gratification? I am an only child and find it pretty easy to delay gratification. I was one of those kids whose Halloween candy lasted until Christmas. Someone very close to me grew up with a brother and sister, and she has a much harder time delaying gratification. We’ve spoken about it, and in her household, she was constantly at risk of a sibling taking her things or of being ordered to “share that with your sister.” So she learned to consume the single marshmallow now, rather than wait for the two marshmallows — because who knew if those two marshmallows would ever come, or rather be stolen by a sibling or ordered to be shared away?
I don’t have children yet, but I am resolved that if I have more than one, I will not fall into the trap of “enforced sharing.” I think it sets up a fearful mentality in a child, so that the child is never sure what’s “his,” what he can “count on for later.” Since some sense of private property is the basis for investing in the future (which, after all, is what delaying gratification is), I think we need to make sure we give our children the security that if they put candy away for later, for example, it will still be theirs when they come back to it.