Democrats are the one marshmallow party

[KrazyHorse]

Discuss

[giblets]

Children are more trusting than you think, proves 'marshmallow test' as under-fives are asked to wait for treats

New study casts doubt on classic test's ability to measure will power
Results show youngsters less likely to be tempted if they trust the promise of better things to come if they can use self control


For the past four decades, the 'marshmallow test' has served as a classic experimental measure of children's self-control: will a preschooler eat one of the fluffy white confections now or hold out for two later?

Longer wait times as a child were linked to more success in life years later, including higher exam scores, less substance abuse, and parental reports of better social skills.

But now a new study casts doubt on the test's ability to measure will power by showing that being able to delay gratification is influenced as much by trust as innate ability.

'Our results definitely temper the popular perception that marshmallow-like tasks are very powerful diagnostics for self-control capacity,' said Celeste Kidd of the University of Rochester, New York.

Ms Kidd, a doctoral candidate in brain and cognitive sciences, theorised that the children were actually rationally deciding how long to wait based their expectations about the world.

She set out to test this by manipulating their beliefs in a laboratory setting, to influence their decision-making by giving them different expectations of whether they felt they were being lied to.

'Being able to delay gratification — in this case to wait 15 difficult minutes to earn a second marshmallow — not only reflects a child's capacity for self-control, it also reflects their belief about the practicality of waiting,' she said.

'Delaying gratification is only the rational choice if the child believes a second marshmallow is likely to be delivered after a reasonably short delay.'

Ms Kidd and her colleagues assigned 28 three- to five-year-olds, who came with their parents to the Rochester Baby Lab, to either reliable or unreliable environments.

Both groups were given a create-your-own-cup kit and asked to decorate a blank piece of paper that would be stuck on to the cup.

In the unreliable set up, children were given a container of battered old crayons and told if they could wait, the researcher would return shortly with a bigger and better set of new art supplies for their project.

After two and a half minutes, the research returned and told them: 'I'm sorry, but I made a mistake. We don't have any other art supplies after all. But why don't you use these instead?'

Next a quarter-inch sticker was placed on the table and the child was told that if he or she could wait, the researcher would return with a large selection of better stickers to use. After the same wait, the researcher again returned empty handed.

The reliable group experienced the same set up, but the researcher returned with the promised materials: a rotating tray full of art supplies and a handful of large, die-cut stickers.

Then it was marshmallow time. The researcher removed the art supplies and placed a single marshmallow in a small desert dish four inches from the table's edge directly in front of the child.

The children were told they could have 'one marshmallow right now. Or – if you can wait for me to get more marshmallows from the other room – you can have two marshmallows to eat instead.'

From an adjoining room, the researchers and parents observed through a computer video camera until the first taste or 15 minutes had lapsed, whichever came first.

'Watching their strategies for waiting was quite entertaining,' says Holly Palmeri, co-author and coordinator of the Rochester Baby Lab.

Kids danced in their seats, sang, and took pretend naps. Several took a bite from the bottom of the marshmallow then placed it back in the desert cup so it looked untouched. A few then nibbled off the top, forgetting they could then longer hide the evidence since both ends were eaten, she said.

'We had one little boy who grabbed the marshmallow immediately and we thought he was going to eat it,' said Ms Kidd. Instead he sat on it. 'Instead of covering his eyes, he covered the marshmallow.'

However, the results were serious. Children who experienced unreliable interactions with an experimenter waited for an average time of three minutes and two seconds on the subsequent marshmallow task.

Youngsters who experienced reliable interactions, on the other hand, held out for 12 minutes and two seconds.

Only one of the 14 children in the unreliable group waited the full 15 minutes, compared to nine children in the reliable condition.

Richard Aslin, the professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Rochester, who also helped author the study, said he was 'astounded' at the impact the change in expectations had on results.

'I thought that we might get a difference of maybe a minute or so... You don't see effects like this very often,' he said.

In prior research, children's wait time averaged between 6.08 and 5.71 minutes, the authors reported. By comparison, manipulating the environment doubled wait times in the reliable condition and halved the time in the unreliable scenario.

Previous studies that explored the effect of teaching children waiting strategies showed smaller effects. Hiding the treat from view boosted wait times by 3.75 minutes, while encouraging children to think about the larger reward added 2.53 minutes.

The robust effect of manipulating the environment, concluded the authors, provides strong evidence that children's wait times reflect rational decision making about the probability of reward.

The results are consistent with other research showing that children are sensitive to uncertainly in future rewards and with population studies showing children with absent fathers prefer more immediate rewards over larger but delayed ones.

Professor Aslin added: 'This study is an example of both nature and nurture playing a role. We know that to some extent, temperament is clearly inherited, because infants differ in their behaviours from birth.

'But this experiment provides robust evidence that young children's action are also based on rational decisions about their environment.'

However, the professor sounded a note of caution to parents who might jump to conclusions about their own children's opinion of their trustworthiness based on the study's results.

'Children do monitor the behaviour of parents and adults, but it is unlikely that they are keeping detailed records of every single action,' he said. 'It's the overall sense of a parent's reliability or unreliability that's going to get through, not every single action.'

Ms Kidd added: 'Don't do the marshmallow test on your kitchen table and conclude something about your child.

'It especially would not work with a parent, because your child has all sorts of strong expectations about what a person who loves them very much is likely to do.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2219052/Scientists-test-trust-affects-ability-young-children-resist-temptation--promising-marshmallows.html

lol marshmallows

[Aeson]

The only good marshmallows are ones in smores. If some shrink had come to me and told me I could have a marshmallow now, or two later, I'd have told him to **** off if he didn't have any chocolate and graham crackers.

More on topic though, I'd say Dems are the 3 marshmallow party. They eat their initial marshmallow, cry until the test giver finally relents and gives them the second one too, and then conspire to steal one of the 2 marshmallow fellow's treats because they have too many.

[KrazyHorse]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...shmallows.html
lol marshmallows

Good job, dude. You are one of the best newish posters poly has.

Discount rates are generally composed of a piece that asks"what if x happens" as well as a piece that asks "what are the chances that x happens". Generally (given diversification) I think that the average person over-weighs the possibility that x does not happen.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Does that mean Republicans are the "No marshmallows, but that guy over there gets two marshmallows and you get what trickles down off him" party?

[Uncle Sparky]

Republicans are the 'you can pry our marshmallows from our cold, dead hands' party.

[kentonio]

The Republicans would definitely hoard their marshmellows and look for some brown people to invade to steal their marshmellows. Sorry, liberate their marshmellows and replace them with freedom.

[Kidlicious]

Both gribbler and KH just shocked the **** out of me.

I personally don't think kids are that smart though.

[Dinner]

I never liked marshmallows. What's so exciting about foamed sugar with corn starch?

[Kidlicious]

I never liked marshmallows. What's so exciting about foamed sugar with corn starch?

Well sugar and then there's the texture, that of boobs.

[Hauldren Collider]

KH, which specific policy are you referencing here? I can think of a few that might apply, generally regarding taxes ignoring elasticities.

[onodera]

I never liked marshmallows. What's so exciting about foamed sugar with corn starch?

Put them in a cup of hot cocoa. Not that Nesquik ****, real one.

[Sava]

Democrats have reliable parents?

[DinoDoc]

KH, which specific policy are you referencing here? I can think of a few that might apply, generally regarding taxes ignoring elasticities.

Pretty sure this is it:

The one marshmallow party[Update: The original title had a typo.]

Two years ago I did a post on the famous marshmallow experiment. At the end I made an offhand comment that the Dems were the “two one marshmallow party.” A lot of commenters were outraged, and I backed off. Yes, the GOP is often just as guilty.

But how will the Dems explain this outrage:

President Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals – like Mitt Romney – can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.

The proposal would save around $9 billion over a decade, a senior administration official said, while also bringing more fairness to the tax code.

The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”

Under the plan, a taxpayer’s tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement – or right around $3 million this year.

And please don’t give me any nonsense about “inequality.” This proposal is bad on both equity and efficiency grounds. Obama should propose cutbacks in Social Security for those why had high annual wage incomes (like me), not those who saved a high fraction of their income (like me).

I bet they don’t even grandfather in those (like me) who have already put a lot of money into their 401k plans. We really are becoming a banana republic. How much longer before the government simply seizes the private pensions, as they did in Argentina?

And why claim this adds “more fairness to the tax code?” Does Obama actually have any economic advisers who understand the basic principles of public finance? Is there anyone in the administration who understands why capital income should not be taxed? If not, maybe Brad DeLong could give them a short course.

PS. I notice that Greg Mankiw was also annoyed.

[Sava]

Supply siders are hilarious. It's such a willfully ignorant ideology.

With tens of trillions of dollars in assets just sitting around... not being invested and not in the hands of consumers... one would think they would get a clue about what's really wrong with the economy.