You've probably noticed children fidgeting impatiently in their chairs in line, or those who ask the question “How much longer?” every two seconds.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel and a colleague explored an interesting question: at what age do children become capable of self-control - for example, they can calmly wait for what is promised.
The ability to restrain one’s own impatience and the immediate desire to get some result indicates the ability to control one’s behavior. To find out how much self-control young children have, researchers conducted a series of famous “marshmellow tests”.
One marshmallow now or two, but later?
The experimenters offered children from four to six years old the following deal: they placed in front of them a plate with one marshmallow marshmallow (there could be another sweet in its place). Before the delighted child grabbed the treat, the experimenter made a tempting offer: do not eat the marshmallows now, but wait 15 minutes and get two marshmallows. After this, the leader of the experiment left, leaving the child alone with temptation - just an empty room, a child and a plate. No distractions.
How did the children behave?
Some children (a minority) grabbed the marshmallows as soon as the experimenter left the room. From the behavior of the other children, it was noticeable how difficult it was for them to try to restrain themselves - they impatiently dangled their legs, nervously fiddled with their clothes and hair, turned away from the plate in anger and covered their eyes with their hands, touched the marshmallow with their finger and gently stroked it. A third of these heroes were able to pass the test with dignity and wait for the double portion of marshmallows.
The experiment did not end there: over the next 40 years, psychologists observed children participating in the “marshmallow test” and assessed their social-emotional skills, academic performance, psychological and physical health, and other criteria that could indicate well-being in life. It turned out that those who in childhood were able to hold out until the end of the experiment and get two marshmallows show better results and, in general, can be considered more successful in life. Apparently, their ability to self-control was formed at the right age and allowed them to adequately perceive various life obstacles, successes and failures.
The interpretation of the results of the experiment and subsequent long-term observations still causes debate in the psychological community. The experimental conditions are designed in such a way that not only self-control mechanisms are involved, but also mechanisms such as trust in authority (what if the experimenter doesn’t return in 15 minutes?) or the ability to obey instructions (what will happen if I don’t listen?). Surely some of the children participating in the test ate marshmallows not only because they could not restrain themselves, but also for other reasons.
In the summer of 2017, modern psychologists led by Bettina Lamm repeated the Stanford “marshmallow test”. For the first time, children who did not grow up in Western culture took part in this canonical experiment - four-year-olds from the NSO ethnic group of the Tikar people, Cameroon.
The researchers decided to study the extent to which sociocultural aspects influence passing the marshmallow test. Could it be that children raised in Western cultures behave differently than children from traditional cultures?
Two groups of children took part in the experiment: one was children from Germany growing up in middle-class families, the other was children growing up in rural Africa, in houses made of clay, without running water or electricity.
Cameroonian children, of course, were not offered marshmallows (they don’t even know what they are), but the local flour sweet “puff-puff”.
Guess which children coped with the waiting better - German or Cameroonian?
African children clearly outperformed Western children: 30% of German children and 70% of Cameroonian children were able to wait until the end of the waiting period. In addition, German children showed much more emotions while waiting - they cried from powerlessness, fidgeted, frowned, kicked their legs and were clearly nervous.
Bettina Lamm
research psychologist
They were really fighting against time - playing with their fingers, talking to themselves, trying in every possible way to distract themselves from waiting. Cameroonian children just sat and waited. 10% of them even fell asleep.
Researchers honestly admit that they have not found any obvious reasons for this meditative behavior of young African children. But one possible hypothesis is the style of parental behavior.
Cameroonian children learn very early to control their negative emotions, largely due to the fact that from the first months of life they do not have the need to express them. Cameroonian mothers feed their babies not even on demand, but without demand at all - even before the child asks and begins to express feelings of hunger or discomfort.
There is some authoritarianism in this: mothers believe that they know better what the child needs; they do not catch signals from the child and do not even wait for them to occur. This model of upbringing continues to operate in the subsequent years of the child - mothers expect obedience and respect from children, giving them what they need when the mother considers it necessary.
Children, in turn, hardly express their personal desires and are always ready to wait, knowing that the rules set by their mother and adults are unshakable.
It does not occur to Western mothers to feed the child when he does not ask for it, and not to feed when he asks. In Western culture, there is either a paradigm of “scheduled feeding” (even if it is inconvenient for both mother and baby) or “pull feeding” (where the baby essentially controls the mother’s schedule). In the first option, the key drawback is the external controller - the schedule, and not the mother's needs. In the second option, the controller is a child who is not yet able to realize his needs and needs external control.
Perhaps the experience of African rural children will once again remind parents that firm rules (but not dictatorship), consistency in their actions (but not manic meticulousness) and responsibility for them are a potential basis for developing the ability to self-control and basic trust in the world from a small age. years.
Scientists from Stanford University, UK, have summed up the results of the marshmallow experiment, conceived by psychologist Walter Mischel and conducted almost 40 years ago. LiveScience reports.
More than 600 children then took part in the experiment. The gist of it was that a 4-year-old child was offered a marshmallow and a choice: eat it right away or wait a little and get two pieces. “Sometimes the experimenters didn’t even have time to finish speaking, and the children were already eating the marshmallows,” says neurophysiologist BJ Casey, who took part in subsequent studies on this topic. “Other 4-year-olds might wait, look away, or make up imaginary friends to distract themselves.”
Follow-up of the group showed that children who succumbed to the temptation to eat sweets right away often had lower grades in school, a higher body mass index and a slightly increased risk of substance abuse later in life.
Now, with the advent of new methods for studying brain activity, the researchers decided to continue studying willpower in people from the experimental group. But first they had to establish that there were still differences between the people who ate the marshmallows. Since the participants in the experiment are now just over 40 years old, marshmallows and cookies are no longer as attractive to them as they are to 4-year-olds. Scientists had to develop a new impulse control test.
The new study involved 60 volunteers from the experimental group, who then showed extreme values: either everything was eaten very quickly, or they were able to completely withstand the test. The scientists showed volunteers pictures of happy or scary expressions, and the volunteers were asked to press a button when they saw certain people and not press a button when they saw other people.
Happy faces became the second marshmallow. People preferred happy expressions over others and pressed buttons even when they weren't supposed to. Thus, psychologists have concluded that people who had problems controlling themselves 40 years ago still find it difficult to deny themselves pleasure.
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers have found that reward processing occurs in the striatum of the brain. Such research will help discover new ways of working on self-control, helping in the fight against obesity and various addictions.
As Around the World previously reported, one study previously showed that addiction is a primary disorder and does not appear as a result of emotional or psychiatric problems.
Stanford marshmallow experiments or marshmallow tests- a series of experiments aimed at studying delayed gratification in children.
Author of the experiment: American psychologist Walter Mischel, specialist in the field of social psychology and personality psychology.
Participants: preschool children.
Walter Mischel - American psychologist
specialist in social psychology and personality psychology.
In the late 1960s, American psychologist Walter Mischel conducted an experiment in which children were asked to make difficult choices. A Stanford kindergarten student was seated at the table, and a delicious marshmallow (cookie, mint candy, or pretzel) was placed in front of him.
After a note in the New York Times, the media dubbed the experiment the “marshmallow test.” The name stuck, despite the fact that marshmallows were not always used in Walter Mischel's research.
Then the experimenter announced that he needed to go away and promised the child that if he did not eat the sweetness before his return, he would receive another portion. After this, the experimenter left the room, leaving the child alone with an irresistible desire to enjoy the treat. Just imagine how difficult it is for a child to cope with temptation!
The situation was complicated by the fact that there were no toys in the room that could be distracted while waiting. Just a chair, a table and a marshmallow.
As a result, some children ate the treat immediately, while others, after 15 minutes, received the promised reward.
A person who is able to control himself is able to control his future!
About 600 children took part in the marshmallow tests. For several decades, a group of scientists led by Walter Mischel monitored their successes and failures. It turned out that children who showed willpower in kindergarten were more successful than those who immediately ate marshmallows. Not only did they do well in school and university, but among them there was a low percentage of those suffering from obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction and depression.
It should also be noted that the results of the marshmallow test increase the chances of future success, but do not guarantee it.
Self-control is a learned ability, not an innate one.
What helped kindergarteners tame their immediate desires?
1. Switching attention.
To pass the time, the children sang songs, made up rhymes, made faces, picked their noses, drummed their fingers on the table, pretending to play the piano. Some closed their eyes and tried to sleep.
2. Physical removal.
To reduce temptation, kindergarteners sought to remove the object of desire from view. They turned away or pushed the plate of marshmallows to the edge of the table.
Additional experiments also demonstrated the significance of deletion. If the researcher placed the reward on the tray in front of the child, the child waited on average less than a minute. The same children waited 10 minutes longer if the sweet was hidden with a napkin.
3. Changing the idea of the object.
Subjects waited longer if the experimenter asked them to think of the marshmallow as something inedible (a piece of cotton wool, a cloud, fluff) or edible, but less desirable.
How to develop willpower in children?
1. Encourage your child's independence. Excessive parental control and overprotection hinder the development of willpower.
2. Trust is the key to successful parenting. If the parent does not keep promises, then the child will not wait for the second marshmallow, realizing that he will be deceived.
3. Teach your child to resist temptation.
In addition to the marshmallow tests, Michel conducted an interesting experiment called "Mr. Clown Box." A clown was placed in the playroom, which was a wooden box with flickering lights. In his hands were compartments with rotating toys and treats, and in his head was a speaker through which the experimenter tried to distract the subject.
The scientist’s assistant took the child into the room and introduced him to the available toys. Later she reported that she needed to go away and asked to complete a boring task. For example, the child was asked to insert pins into a special typesetting field.
If the child worked without a break, then he was allowed to play with a clown and interesting toys. Otherwise, broken dolls awaited him.
The assistant also warned that if the clown asks to play with him, then you need to answer: “ I can't. I am working" As soon as the girl left the room, the clown began to sparkle with lights and try to talk to the subject.
A child who knew how to react to the words of a clown was distracted for 5 seconds and managed to insert 138 pins. The one who did not have such a plan of action paused for 24 seconds and inserted about 97 pins.
How can the results of the marshmallow test affect the life of an adult?
Mechanisms that ensure self-control help regulate negative character traits, fight bad habits, and make it easier to endure stress.
In his book Developing Willpower, Walter Mischel gives an example of an impulsive patient. A man would argue and throw food at his wife if she read the newspaper instead of listening to him carefully. Following Michel's recommendations, the husband took control of destructive emotions by counting down to himself (switching attention). He then used constructive behavior patterns. For example, he asked me to give him a page with business news.
The scientist suggested that a woman who had separated from her loved one should not plunge into the abyss of negative experiences, but distance herself, look at them from a different angle (changing the idea of the object).
Those who want to quit smoking and lose extra pounds will also benefit from the findings of the marshmallow test.
Do you always have to wait?
The main challenge is to understand when to wait for a second marshmallow and when to enjoy one. Delaying gratification for too long is as deplorable as indulging every impulsive desire. But if we don't learn to wait, then we simply won't have a choice.
A complete description of the marshmallow test can be found in Walter Michel's book, Developing Willpower. Lessons from the author of the famous marshmallow test" (translated from English by V. Kuzin, 2015).
Joachim de Posada briefly talks about TED TALKS about Michel's famous experiment “The Marshmallow Test” on the ability to delay gratification and how this relates to a child’s likelihood of future success.
Article by Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda, Columbia University in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 1988 by the American Psychological Association, Inc., 1988, Vol. 54, No. 4.687-696
Born in Vienna on February 22, 1930. He and his older brother Theodor, who later studied philosophy of science, grew up in a wealthy family, their house was not far from Freud's house. The tranquility of childhood was shattered in 1938 by the Nazi invasion. That same year, Michel's family left Austria and moved to the United States. After traveling around the country for some time, they settled in Brooklyn in 1940, where Walter graduated from elementary and high school. Before he could get a scholarship to college, his father unexpectedly became seriously ill, and Walter had to earn money through various odd jobs. However, he managed to attend New York University, where he became interested in art (painting and sculpture) and divided his time between art and psychology.
After graduating from the University, Michel entered the master's program at the City College of New York with a degree in clinical psychology. While studying for his master's degree, he also served as a social worker in the Lower East Side slums, a job that made him question the applicability of psychoanalytic theory and the need to draw on empirical evidence to evaluate any claims made by psychology.
From 1953 to 1956, Michel continued his graduate studies at Ohio State University. At the time, the Ohio University psychology department was informally divided into two groups supporting the two most influential professors, Julian Rotter and George Kelly. Unlike many undergraduate and graduate students, Michel was equally interested in both Rotter and Kelly and learned from both. As a result, Mischel's cognitive social theory was influenced by both Rotter's social learning theory and Kelly's cognitive theory of personal constructs.
After receiving his doctorate from Ohio, Michel spent some time doing cross-cultural research. From 1956 to 1958, he spent a lot of time in the Caribbean, studying religious cults practicing techniques of spirit possession, as well as researching delay of gratification in the interaction of different cultures. There, he became determined to learn more about why people prefer future, but highly valued, rewards to immediate, but less valuable ones. Most of his later research dealt with this topic in one way or another.
Michel then taught for two years at Colorado State University before moving to the Department of Public Affairs at Harvard, where his interest in personality theories and diagnostics was enhanced by discussions with Gordon Allport, Henry Murray, and David McClelland. David McCleland) and other scientists who worked there. In 1962, Michel moved to Stanford, where he began working with Albert Bandura. After twenty years at Stanford, Michel returned to New York and began teaching at Columbia University.
While teaching at Harvard, Michel met and married Harriet Nerlove, a graduate student in cognitive psychology. They had three daughters, and although this marriage ended in divorce, he still made his contribution to psychology: the Michels jointly published several scientific works (N. N. Mischel & W. Mischel, 1973; W. Mischel & H. N. Mischel , 1976, 1983). Michel's most significant early work is Personality and Assessment (1968), which emerged as a continuation of his research into identifying people who would become successful Peace Corps volunteers. As a Peace Corps consultant, he saw that people were as good at predicting their own behavior as standardized tests. In Personality and Diagnostics, Michel argued that personality traits are poor predictors of a person's actions in various situations and that the situation itself has a greater influence on behavior than personality traits. Some believed that Michel was trying to subvert the concept of stable personality traits and even deny the existence of personality. Michel (1979) later responded to his critics that he did not reject personality traits as such, but generalized traits that contradict the existence of individuality and uniqueness in each person.
Michel's most famous book, Introduction to Personality (1971), was reprinted in 1976, 1981, 1986 and 1993. Michel has received several awards for his scientific work, including the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Clinical Division of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1978 and the APA Distinguished Contributions to Science Award in 1982.
“Self-control depletes memory resources” is the headline of an article posted in the Science section of The Guardian, the most visited British newspaper website. What is the “Marshmallow Test” and how self-control can depress memory and attention , you can find out from the full translation of the article. In short, self-control and cognitive functions of the brain are activated by the same brain regions and compete for the same resources. When there is a lot of self-control, memory and attention suffer. Thus, this is my hypothesis, trauma and developed PTSD, as well as personality disorders (everything that requires the creation of powerful psychological defenses for survival and maintaining mental health) will certainly depress the cognitive sphere. Such people should be accustomed to various “glitches” with concentration and memory, many of which may look mystical.
Self-control drains memory resources
A new study has shown that volitional efforts carried out by a person worsen memory functions due to the depletion of general brain mechanisms and structures.
A famous series of bullying experiments was conducted in the 1960s by psychologist Walter Mischel. Preschool children were seated one at a time at a table, on which a sweet treat was placed in front of them - a small marshmallow, cookie, or cracker. Each of the young participants was told that they would be left alone in the room, and that if they could resist the temptation to eat the sweets on the table in front of them, they would be rewarded with even more sweets when the experimenter returned.
The so-called Marshmallow Test was developed to test self-control and the ability to refuse pleasure. Mischel and his colleagues tracked the development of some children, and then argued that those who managed to last longer in the original experiment were more successful in school, and went on to be more successful in life, than those who could not resist the temptation to eat the treat before before the researcher returned to the room.
The ability to exercise willpower and suppress impulsive behavior is considered the main features of the brain's executive functions (the set of neural processes - including attention, thinking and memory - that regulate our behavior and thoughts and allow us to adapt them in accordance with the changing demands of the tasks at hand).
Executive brain function is a rather vague term. We still don't know much about the underlying mechanisms or how the various components of a given control system relate to each other. New research shows that self-control and memory compete with each other for the same brain resources. Thus, exercising volition depletes these general resources and impairs our ability to encode memories.
In the laboratory, self-control (inhibition reactions, as neurologists more often say) is often tested using the “Go/No-Go” method. This usually involves presenting the subject with a group of signals, most of which must be responded to by performing simple actions such as pressing a button ( "Go"), For example. But a small subset of signals are slightly different from the rest, and when they appear, the subject must avoid performing the habitual action and refrain from pressing the button (“ No-Go"). The number of times the participant incorrectly presses the buttons on these “no-go” signals is therefore a measure of his self-control.
Earlier this year, Yu-Chin Chiu and Tobias Egner of Duke University in North Carolina reported that response inhibition impairs memory encoding. They asked volunteers to do "Go/no-go"-test using photographs of faces as stimuli and then tested their ability to recognize the faces used in the experiment. They found that memory for subjects' faces, which was recorded during tests with inhibition reactions (« No-Go"), deteriorated significantly. And for this reason, it has been hypothesized that response inhibition competes with memory encoding for shared attentional resources.
To test this idea, Chiu and Egner repeated the experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). They recruited 24 additional participants and asked them to take "Go/no-go"-test , while scanning the subjects' brains. The researchers also used photographs of faces as visual cues and tested participants' ability to recognize them shortly afterward.
The earlier conclusions were completely confirmed. Ability to remember in subjects (« No-Go") was worse than those participants who performed "Go" - task . The scans showed that response to stimulus and response inhibition generated coincidental firing patterns in brain regions (right frontal and parietal lobes), a network previously implicated in response inhibition.
It is important to note that No–Go trials activated this network to a greater extent than Go trials. Activity in one specific brain region (the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) predicted participants' memory strength. The greater the activation of the observed network, the more likely it is that participants will forget the person later. At the same time, the researchers also noticed a significant decrease in activity in brain regions involved in visual memory processing and during No-Go trials compared to Go trials.
These data strongly suggest that self-control and memory encoding processes share common brain structures and mechanisms, competing with each other for them, and also support the “inhibition of induced forgetting” hypothesis of Yu-Chin Chiu and Tobias Egner. These general neural resources are limited, and so response inhibition quickly depletes them, reducing their availability for memory encoding. We already know that paying close attention to something can cause us to overlook other things that would normally be obvious, and future research is likely to reveal more about how attention, memory, and self-control relate to each other and with other components of the brain's executive function system.
References
Chiu, Y. -C. & Egner, T. (2015). Inhibition-Induced Forgetting Results from Resource Competition between Response Inhibition and Memory Encoding Processes. J Neurosci 35: 11936–45.
Chiu, Y. -C. & Egner, T. (2015). Inhibition-Induced Forgetting: When More Control Leads to Less Memory. Psych. Sci., 26: 27-38.
Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. B. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 16: 329–37.
