The Great Importance Of The Marshmallow Test

Life throws challenges at a single person everyday, but with the help of self-control we can accomplish these problems. There are not a lot of test that can explore a person’s ability to resist temptation, but the Marshmallow test certainly does.  Dr. Walter Mischel states that the results show a child’s strength  to control its impulses when confronted with a stressful situation. By the child not eating the treat and showing techniques to delay gratification, a reflection of how he or she will act later on in life in a stressful, is shown”I was watching this miracle that occurs when our kids … really begin spontaneously to show dramatic changes in their ability to control their impulses,”(Hadad).This seems logical and accurate opposed to other theories from scientists stating “longitudinal studies show is that children who come from an environment where they have learned to be more trusting have better life outcomes”(Elharo). This theory is illogical because children grow up in all different environments that have opposing types of living styles which conflicts with their everyday reasoning. For example a child whom comes from a suburban community might trust others because his environment is small and everyone in his community is trustworthy. While a child from an urban community choses to trust few people because of the lack of trust in his large environment. It all depends on how your child is raised and the influence of its environment when it comes to how easily someone will trust another, not a marshmallow test. This would simply  be the wrong test for trust issues unless you pick children from the same neighborhood or community.

This is important for a parent to know so a child can achieve help to gain  self-control “I realized that I didn’t have a clue about what was going on in my children’s heads that allowed these changes to occur and that’s what I wanted to understand.”(Hadad). With a parent having their child placed into programs that build up his her ability to control their impulses they are easy placing him on better path to succeed in life. Now it is helpful for a parent to realize this problem ,but it is vital for a child to realize also. Once a child can realize how to delay gratification the sooner he or she is  on a better track to succeed. results show the children who had enough self-control to not eat the first treat had higher grades, were not as addictive, and also were able to hold down more jobs compared to the children whom eaten the treat.

Work Cited

Elharo. “A New Interpretation of the Marshmallow Test.” – Less Wrong. N.p., 05 July 2013. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.

Hadad, Chuck. “What the ‘marshmallow Test’ Can Teach You about Your Kids – CNN.com.’ CNN. Cable News Network, 22 Dec.2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.