You'd Better Wait For The 2nd Marshmallow - But Read This NOW!!!

This is from a comment posted to a blog entry about Dealing With Information Overload

A study of emotional intelligence and the ability to wait as an illustration on how this ability to wait could be used as a stronger predictor of the future success level than IQ - all because a 4 year old could wait for the 2nd marshmallow.

Walter Michel of Stanford created a test to determine how well a group of 4 year olds could control impulses and delay gratification. Each child one at a time went into a room with a one-way mirror. The child was shown a marshmallow. The experimenter told the child he had to leave and that they could have the marshmallow right then, but if they waited for the experimenter to return from his errand, the child could have two marshmallows. A single marshmallow was left on a table in front of the child. Some children grabbed the marshmallow within seconds of the experimenter's departure from the room. Others waited up to twenty minutes for the experimenter's return. In a follow-up study (Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990), the same children were tested at 18 years of age and comparisons were made between the third of the children who grabbed the marshmallow (the "impulsive") and the third who delayed gratification in order to receive the enhanced reward ("impulse controlled"). The children who were most impulsive at four years old scored an average of 524 verbal and 528 math. The children who waited patiently scored 610 verbal and 652 math.

google the STANFORD MARSHMALLOW STUDY for more info.