Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Marshmallow Test!

My husband did the Marshmallow Test with Ayla today. He set up a camera and really left for 15 minutes. He then took the video and edited it. I am so amazed at how well Ayla did!
Ring the bell and get one marshmallow now or wait fifteen minutes and get two. Let's see what Ayla did.

"In the late 1960s, researchers submitted hundreds of four-year-olds to an ingenious little test of willpower: the kids were placed in a small room with a marshmallow or other tempting food and told they could either eat the treat now, or, if they could hold out for another 15 minutes until the researcher returned, they could have two.
Most children said they would wait. But some failed to resist the pull of temptation for even a minute. Many others struggled a little longer before eventually giving in. The most successful participants figured out how to distract themselves from the treat’s seduction — by turning around, covering their eyes or kicking the desk, for instance — and delayed gratification for the full 15 minutes.

Follow-up studies on these preschoolers found that those who were able to wait the 15 minutes were significantly less likely to have problems with behavior, drug addiction or obesity by the time they were in high school, compared with kids who gobbled the snack in less than a minute. The gratification-delayers also scored an average of 210 points higher on the SAT."


The Marshmallow Test from Kurt Perry on Vimeo.

1 comment:

Missionary Momma said...

How freaking cute is this girl child of yours?!? I love love love the part where she smells the marshmallow and then grins from ear to ear! =)