“Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things… I am tempted to think there are no little things.” ~ Barton Sutter
The other day I stumbled on an article about a Stanford research project that attempted to correlate a single aspect of human behavior as an indicator for future success or failure. The series of studies conducted by professor Walter Mischel came to be known as The Marshmallow Experiment. The experiment was essentially about deferred gratification as a predictor of future achievement. James Clear describes the setup like this.
The experiment began by bringing each child into a private room, sitting them down in a chair, and placing a marshmallow on the table in front of them.
At this point, the researcher offered a deal to the child.
The researcher told the child that he was going to leave the room and that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. If the child decided to eat the first one before the researcher came back, however, then they would not get a second marshmallow. The researcher would leave for 15 minutes and then return. The team filmed the kids fidgeting, staring, and frequently succumbing. What makes the experiment famous is that these children were then checked in on for the next 40…
