Mischel delay of gratification 1972
Preschool children waited longer for a larger reward when they were distracted from it and for less time when they focused on it. A 2018 study found a weaker link between early waiting and later achievement than earlier work suggested.
Main paper: Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Zeiss, A. R. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(2), 204–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0032198
The question
What helps young children wait for a larger reward, and does waiting predict how they do later?
Design: experiment
The researchers set the conditions and compare outcomes between or within groups. Each profile says whether participants were randomly assigned.
The 1972 paper reports experiments that manipulated what children attended to or thought about during the wait. The later 2018 study is observational and is covered under reassessment.
Focus on the reward
- Reward in view or thoughts about it
- Wait or signal to stop
Result reportedShorter waits
Distraction
- Reward out of focus or thinking of fun things
- Wait or signal to stop
Result reportedLonger waits
Original diagram drawn for this site from the descriptions in the sources. It is a simplified summary, not a figure from the paper.
Procedure
In the 1972 experiments, preschool children could wait for a larger reward or stop and take a smaller one. The researchers varied what the children could attend to or were encouraged to think about during the wait, such as the rewards themselves or fun things unrelated to them.
The widely told marshmallow story, with long-term follow-up, comes from later work. This profile keeps the 1972 experiments and the 2018 observational study separate.
Findings
Distraction from the rewards helped children wait, and focusing on the rewards shortened the wait. Not every kind of thinking helped: thinking about fun things worked as a distraction, while sad thoughts and thoughts about the rewards led to shorter waits.
The 2018 study (Watts, Duncan and Quan) analyzed a sample of 918 children. Its main focus was 552 children whose mothers had not completed college. In that group the association between early waiting and later achievement was weaker than in earlier work and weaker still after accounting for family background and early ability.
Interpretation
The 1972 experiments suggest that how children direct attention and thought affects how long they wait, so waiting is not only a fixed trait. The 2018 authors read their results as limited support for the view that early waiting alone shapes later outcomes.
Limits on what it shows
- Short waits for treats in a lab do not measure self-control across a life.
- The 2018 study is observational. A reduced association after controls does not show that waiting causes, or fails to cause, later outcomes.
- The 1972 children came from a university setting, which is a narrow sample.
Ethics
Children were asked to wait for a treat, a mild stress, and needed parental consent and the right to stop. Another concern is how popular retellings suggest that one child's choice fixes their future, which the evidence does not show.
Replication and reassessment
Watts, Duncan and Quan (2018) tested the follow-up claim in a larger and more varied sample and found a weaker association that shrank after background controls. They called it a conceptual replication. It is a reassessment of the follow-up claim, not of the 1972 attention experiments.
Think it through. An original practice question written for this site.
A news story says a child's wait time predicts their adult income. What two questions would you ask before believing it?
Show a way to reason about it
Ask what other factors differ between children who wait and those who do not, such as family resources, and ask how large the association is once those are accounted for. A link in an observational sample does not show that waiting causes later outcomes.
Nothing you think or select here is recorded.
Textbook connection
Covered in this sectionOpenStax Psychology 2e, 11.4 Learning Approaches
Section describes the marshmallow study.
Sources and access scope
Each label says how much of the source was opened while preparing this profile. An unopened source is listed so the claim can be checked, not because it was read.
- Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Zeiss, A. R. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(2), 204–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0032198Consulted sourceOriginal researchNot inspected; citation only
Bibliographic record for the original paper. The paper has not been inspected for this profile, so no sample size is given.
- Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020). Psychology 2e. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/11-4-learning-approachesTextbook contextSelected textbook passages inspected
Textbook context. The section describes the marshmallow study.
- Watts, T. W., Duncan, G. J., & Quan, H. (2018). Revisiting the marshmallow test: A conceptual replication investigating links between early delay of gratification and later outcomes. Psychological Science, 29(7), 1159–1177. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618761661Consulted sourceReassessment or critiqueSelected full-text sections inspected
Sections inspected with page tools give the full sample of 918 and the main analysis of 552 children whose mothers had not completed college.