{"id":885,"date":"2012-02-22T19:03:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T01:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=885"},"modified":"2012-02-20T18:14:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T00:14:09","slug":"delaying-gratification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/delaying-gratification\/","title":{"rendered":"Delaying Gratification"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were told that you would get 2 marshmallows if you could wait for 15 minutes while 1 marshmallow was sitting in front of you \u2013 could you wait? What if you were between 4-6 years old? This was a study, called Stanford Marshmallow experiment, done in the late 1960s (of all the articles and blogs I read, the information varied a lot between all of them). This study has fascinated me from the first time I heard about it (Crucial Conversations- book<\/a> & my blog<\/a>), and somehow references to this study keep coming into my life.<\/p>\n

The initial results were that about 30% of the children were able to wait the 15 minutes to receive the 2nd marshmallow; they weren\u2019t told to not eat the first marshmallow, they could just with the consequences of not getting a second marshmallow. Yet, of the children who managed to wait, many years later were the ones who scored higher on their SATs and had longer lasting relationships \u2013 they had a higher resiliency than their peers who couldn\u2019t stop themselves from eating the marshmallow before the 15 minutes were up.<\/p>\n

What made the children who could wait different from those you didn\u2019t? Often the children that resisted eating the marshmallow, found ways to distract themselves from the temptation sitting there \u2013 they looked at the ceiling and sang a song, cover their eyes, kicked the table, etc. \u2013 essentially not focusing on the marshmallow.<\/p>\n

You might be able to glean then why these \u201clong delayers\u201d scored higher on their SATs and in general seemed to be more successful \u2013 they had the skills to put off pleasurable activities to accomplish things. They would be able to resist going to a party in order to stay in and study. Many people are talking about how this is self-control \u2013 and yes, it is, the self- control to delay gratification.<\/p>\n

Every day we face temptations. How we respond to these are what matters \u2013 and now I tend to think about marshmallows. I don\u2019t know that I would have managed to wait long enough to eat two of them as a child, yet this doesn\u2019t mean I can\u2019t stretch those self-control \u201cmuscles\u201d now.<\/p>\n

The scientists are continuing to study the original group and other studies on this also are active. There is some data to suggest that we can learn how to become \u201clong-delayers\u201d \u2013 and focus our attention away from the temptation and avoid giving in. I think this requires enough practice to have success \u2013 we need the positive reinforcement, even internally, to have the motivation to keep stretching that self-control muscle.<\/p>\n

The marshmallow study is motivation for me \u2013 the idea pops up periodically and I then pause to consider what self-control might be applied. Sometimes it\u2019s walking away from a tempting purchase for a period of time. Sometimes it\u2019s putting things away before I sit down and relax. Sometimes it\u2019s waiting for time to pass and see if the desire is real \u2013 like the temptation to eat. Sometimes it\u2019s exercising when I don\u2019t really feel like doing it \u2013 not procrastinating when it would be \u201ceasy.\u201d In essence, I try to apply this to most areas of my life.<\/p>\n

Can the marshmallow study be motivation for you too? How would you apply it to your own life and choices?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stanford marshmallow experiment fascinates me \u2013 the idea of delaying gratification, imposing some self-control \u2013 to get what we want. It\u2019s inspired me to stop and consider the marshmallow of much I encounter in my life and whether I can apply the self-control for my benefit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10,8,18,5,9,7,22,15],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personaldevelopment","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-motivation","tag-procrastination","tag-productivity","tag-resources"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-eh","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":895,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}