“The World Famous Marshmallow Test”

The Marshmallow Test was a study of nursery children to see if they had the ability to challenge their temptations. A marshmallow was put in front of them on a plate and the child had two options-to either wait fifteen minutes and receive another, or to eat the marshmallow right away. Many children have a difficult time restraining their needs, and not realizing what the consequences might be in the future. Children, especially nursery aged, do not know or realize that they have or can have willpower. Some might have it without realizing. For example, if a child does wait those fifteen minutes to receive another marshmallow, they are resisting their temptations no matter how hard it is.

Willpower is to have control of one’s impulses and actions; self-control. However, willpower is also “the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals.” In this case, children who were able to resist eating the first marshmallow were seen as having the ability to better stay in relationships when they were older. For instance, if a person can resist cheating on their partner, it can give them the ability of being loyal to him/her. The short temptations would be the cheating and the long-term goal would become loyal and perhaps starting a future together. But the question is why can some people resist their temptation, while others cannot? Suppose an individual needed to make some fast money and had two options in mind, having a healthy and steady job and having the salary $8 an hour or seeking out a secretive “spot” to help drug addicts fight their withdrawal symptoms making $1000 a day. The natural human instinct is to make the most money in a short amount of time, but what people do not realize in their moment of decision, is their long-term goals in contrast to short-term temptations.

For children to recognize this concept and understand how they can apply it to their everyday decisions can have a major impact on their lives and shapes them as individuals. According to Marina Chaparro, RD, one of the best things about willpower is that growing self-control in one areas of your life leads to other positive changes. Willpower changes the way people think. For instance, going to the gym may lead to eating healthier. Willpower is not innate, however it is similar to a muscle in a body where it can be strengthen over time. Yet, unlike muscles, willpower can be affected by emotions. If the child had a tough day, he/she might just eat the first marshmallow to make his or her day seem a bit better. Short-term temptations are diseases, cravings, thoughts that are turned into actions without rethinking about what the outcomes might be.

Those with high self-control also showed different brain patterns compared to those who had low self-control. For those who experience high self-control, researchers found that the prefrontal cortex becomes more active as opposed to those with low self-control; the ventral striatum shows a boost in activity. The Marshmallow Test is in fact a study testing children’s’ willpower and their self-control. Willpower has many factors including the child’s parents, the environment they grew up around, and if they have the ability to trust. Perhaps the individual working the $8 an hour job has a boost in their prefrontal cortex activity. On the other hand, the individual popularizing a certain secretive meeting spot does not have that advantage neurologically. The brain not only matures on its own, outside factors are a major component to this process, including the environment an individual is brought up in. Waking up everyday to the same surroundings shapes the way people think and act, and the people show them who to trust and who to look past. Growing up in an environment where children only know that the norm of their society is to have things and items taken away from them will cause them to grow up with having extremely low expectations and little to no trust in anyone around them.

Works Cited

Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2015. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/willpower&gt;.

Manning, Joy. “Willpower: How You Can Get More of It and Why It Runs Out.” WebMD. WebMD, 29 July 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2015. <http://www.webmd.com/diet/willpower-facts?page=1&gt;.

“Delaying Gratification.” Science 306.5695 (2004): 369l. American Psychological Association. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. <https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower-gratification.pdf&gt;.