Marshmallow test results may reflect home life rather than willpower
Recent research suggests a child's decision to delay gratification can be influenced by the reliability of their environment.
A child's decision during the marshmallow test may reflect their home environment rather than just their level of self-control, according to a report by the Times of India.
The original experiment, conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel and colleagues at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s, involved offering preschool children a choice between a small immediate reward or a larger reward if they could wait.
While early follow-up studies linked the ability to wait with academic performance and behaviour, newer research suggests these findings may be influenced by external factors.
A 2013 study published in the journal Cognition by researchers Celeste Kidd, Holly Palmeri, and Richard Aslin found that children who experienced a reliable adult waited longer than those who experienced an unreliable one.
This suggests that children may be responding to whether they believe a promise will be kept, rather than simply struggling with impulse control.
A 2018 study by Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan, and Haonan Quan, published in Psychological Science, found that the link between waiting time and later academic achievement decreased significantly when accounting for family background and home environment.