Would you wait fifteen minutes for a second marshmallow? This is the true story of the most famous test of willpower ever made — and of the experiment that changed what it means.
Ten words and phrases in four activities. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words: self-control · reliable · to predict. Say the right one, then reveal.
Read each part. Then answer the quick questions from memory before you check. Then discuss the question.
In the late 1960s, a psychologist called Walter Mischel began a series of experiments at the nursery school of Stanford University in California. The children were three, four and five years old. Between 1968 and 1974, more than 500 of them took part.
The test was simple. A child sat at a table in a small room. A researcher put a treat in front of them — often a marshmallow — and offered a choice: "Get one little treat now, or two if you can wait for me to come back." Then the researcher left the room. The treat stayed on the table. The wait could be fifteen or twenty minutes, which is a very long time when you are four.
Some children ate the treat almost at once. Others waited — and the way they waited was the most interesting part. Some turned their backs on the treat or covered their eyes. Some sang to themselves. Some played with their toes as if they were piano keys. Another whispered the rules again and again: "If I wait, then I get both; but if I don't, then I just get one."
Mischel noticed something important. The children who waited longest were not the ones who stared at the marshmallow and fought it. They were often the ones who found a way to stop thinking about it. When the researchers covered the treat so the children couldn't see it, the children waited much longer. Self-control, it seemed, was not only a kind of strength. It was also a kind of strategy.
1. What was the choice that each child had to make?
2. Which children waited longest — and what did they do?
1. One treat now, or two treats if they waited until the researcher came back.
2. The children who distracted themselves: they turned away, covered their eyes, sang or played games. Hiding the treat also helped.
The experiments were about how children wait. But years later, Mischel and his team wanted to know something else: what had happened to those children? Was there any link between a few minutes at a table and the rest of a life?
With two colleagues, Yuichi Shoda and Philip Peake, he contacted the families and asked about the children's lives as teenagers. Parents and teachers described the children who had waited longer as better at dealing with stress and with frustration. And in a study published in 1990, the researchers reported that the longer waiters tended to have higher SAT scores — the test American students take before university.
The "marshmallow test" became one of the most famous experiments in psychology. It appeared in books, newspaper articles and talks. For many people the message seemed clear: if a child can resist a sweet at four, they will succeed later in life.
But there was a problem that few people talked about. Only a small group of the original children — fewer than a hundred — had SAT scores in that study. And almost all of the children in Mischel's experiments came from one place: they were mostly the sons and daughters of Stanford professors and students.
1. What did the 1990 study report about the children who waited longer?
2. What were the two problems with the famous result?
1. As teenagers, they tended to have higher SAT scores and to cope better with stress and frustration, according to parents and teachers.
2. The group with SAT scores was small (fewer than a hundred), and almost all the children were from the families of Stanford professors and students.
In 2012, a researcher at the University of Rochester, Celeste Kidd, asked a new question. What if some children don't wait because they don't believe the second marshmallow will ever come?
She tested 28 children, about four and a half years old. Before the marshmallow test, each child was given an old jar of used crayons and told: if you wait, I'll bring you some much better art supplies. For half of the children, the researcher came back with a tray of exciting new materials. For the other half, she came back with nothing and said, "I'm sorry, but I made a mistake. We don't have any other art supplies after all." Then the same thing happened again with stickers.
Then came the marshmallow. The children who had met a reliable adult waited, on average, about twelve minutes. The children who had met an unreliable adult waited about three. Nine out of fourteen children in the reliable group waited the full fifteen minutes. In the other group, only one did. Kidd's conclusion: when the world keeps its promises, waiting makes sense. When it doesn't, eating the marshmallow is the smart choice.
In 2018, a much larger study by Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan and Haonan Quan tested the famous result again with more than 900 American children from many kinds of families. Waiting still predicted a little about school results at fifteen — but the link was only about half as strong as in the old study. And when the researchers took family background and home life into account, most of it disappeared.
1. What happened to the children in the "unreliable" group before the marshmallow test?
2. What did the 2018 study find?
1. The researcher promised better art supplies and stickers, but came back with nothing and said she had made a mistake.
2. Waiting still predicted a little about later results, but the link was about half as strong, and most of it disappeared when family background and home life were taken into account.
The whole marshmallow test is a condition: "If I wait, I get both." When something is a real possibility in the present or future, we use the first conditional and a few close friends.
Put the verbs in brackets into the correct form.
1. If you (wait) until I come back, you (get) two marshmallows.
2. You (not / get) a second one unless you (stay) in your chair.
3. As long as the manager (keep) her promises, the team (trust) her.
4. I (call) you as soon as the results (arrive).
1. wait / 'll get 2. won't get / stay 3. keeps / will trust 4. 'll call / arrive
After if, unless, as long as and as soon as: present simple. In the other part: will / won't.
Each sentence uses if … not. Rewrite it with unless.
1. If you don't trust the person, you won't wait.
2. If the company doesn't pay the bonus, people will leave.
3. If we don't take family background into account, we'll get the wrong answer.
1. Unless you trust the person, you won't wait. / You won't wait unless you trust the person.
2. Unless the company pays the bonus, people will leave.
3. Unless we take family background into account, we'll get the wrong answer.
Check: unless + a positive verb. ✗ Unless you don't trust…
You'll use it again in the Speak tab — Task C asks you to set conditions for your own "marshmallow".
The experiments in this story are real, and the numbers come from the scientists who ran them. The interesting thing is how the meaning of the test changed over fifty years.
Speak against the clock — and use real conditions where they fit: If…, I'll… · unless… · as long as…
Retell the story in your own words. Use these steps: Stanford nursery school → one now or two later → the children's strategies → the hidden treat → the follow-up and the SAT scores → the two problems → Kidd's crayons and stickers → twelve minutes or three → the 2018 study.
Use at least three sentences with if, unless or as long as and five key words (temptation, resist, reward, self-control, reliable, predict, delayed gratification, replicate, a bird in the hand, keep / break a promise).
First argue FOR waiting: think about saving money, studying, long projects and the 1990 results. Then argue AGAINST: think about Kidd's unreliable adults, "a bird in the hand", and situations where the second marshmallow never comes. Finally, say what you really think — and when.
Choose one temptation in your own life — a habit, a purchase, a decision at work. Describe it. Then make three conditions for yourself: one with if, one with unless and one with as long as. Example: "I won't check my emails before ten unless my boss calls." Finally, say which of Mischel's strategies would help you most.
Or choose one of these: