The Marshmallow Test

On my drive into work this morning, I was listening to NPR's Morning Edition and they had a piece called Willpower: A Game of Strategy. In short, they discussed the loss of willpower and how to overcome that loss. A psychology professor named Walter Mischel at Columbia University did a series of experiments in the 1960's know as the "marshmallow test."

To do the experiments, he put hundreds of 4-year-olds in a room, one by one, with a marshmallow or cookie on the table in front of each. He told them he was going to leave the room and that the child could either eat the treat immediately or, if they could wait until he got back, and have two instead. Some of these kids could hardly last a minute. Others waited as long as 20. And Mischel believes you can learn much of what you need to know about the process of exerting willpower from the strategies employed by these children.

I found this fascinating and decided to try this out on myself. I'll admit that I have very bad willpower but I'm curious to see the results of a self test. So, this morning a poured a cup of coffee. I usually have 2 cups a day but I told myself that if I could limit myself to one cup today, then I'll allow myself two cups tomorrow.

As I now sip on my 3rd cup of coffee, I realize I more than lack the necessary willpower required to pass a willpower test. The below text is the rest of the article. I'm looking forward to working on my willpower:

The Good News About Distraction
Watch Mischel's video of the children in the marshmallow studies and you will see a familiar set of behaviors. There is kicking of tables, there is singing of songs, there is counting of numbers and twirling of hair and many other variations on this theme. What the children are doing, says Mischel, is distracting themselves. Distraction, says Mischel, is actually a perfectly respectable away of exerting willpower. You simply shift your attention away whenever temptation crops up.

Think Cold, Think Cognitive
The second strategy used by the mind to resist an impulse, says Mischel, is a little more complicated. It involves not distracting yourself, but actively changing the way that you think about the object of desire. "The pre-wired way that a 4-year-old thinks about a marshmallow if she allows herself to think about it," says Mischel, "is how yummy and chewy they're going to taste."People tend to focus on the immediate pleasure of the experience. They will think of the temptation, Mischel likes to say, in a "hot" or emotional way that makes it hard to resist. The same can be said of an adult smoker or alcoholic. But if you do want to resist, says Mischel, what you need to do is think about the object you desire in a cold or cognitive way. So, for example, to help the children resist the treat, before leaving the room Mischel told the kids to imagine the treat in front of them differently. "I told them to think about those marshmallows as if they were just cotton puffs, or clouds. Those instructions to the 4-year-old had a dramatic effect on her ability to wait for the thing that she couldn't wait for before." And the dynamic is identical in adults, he says. By refocusing thinking on, for example, the long-term consequences of giving in, it becomes easier to resist an impulse. Of course willpower is not all there is to resisting temptation. Motivation plays a role, as does physical addiction, and whether or not the object of desire can be avoided or not.

And obviously, consistently using these strategies is one of those things easier said than done. Which is why the Stop Smoking Hypnosis Clinic of Baltimore County will always have paying customers.