The enduring impact of Hyperbolic Discounting
The Marshmallow Study
The famous “Marshmallow Study” was a long-term research project designed to assess what the ability to delay gratification could mean on your entire life; how you’d perform on tests, where you’d go to college, who you’d marry, what job you’d get, how much money you could make, and just perform in life overall.
Decades ago, psychologists, Walter Mischel, Ph.D., performed what is now considered a pioneering, seminal study of self-control. In the study, preschoolers were given a plate of kid treats like marshmallows. The child was told that the researcher was going to leave and they had a choice to make:
- If they wait until the researcher came back, they could have double the marshmallows.
- If they could not wait, they just get the one marshmallow.
The unique and impactful part of the research is that the study did not stop there. Mischel continued to track the success of children who participated in the marshmallow experiment. As teenagers, for example, those who had waited longer for the marshmallows were more likely to score higher on the SAT, their parents were more likely to rate them as having a greater ability to plan, handle stress, respond to reason, exhibit self-control in frustrating situations, and concentrate for longer periods without becoming distracted.
The Marshmallow Test and “Hyperbolic discounting.”
Hyperbolic discounting is the tendency for people to choose a smaller-sooner reward over a larger-later reward. If this was money, you would take $50 now rather than $100 next week. This inability to delay gratification or lack of self-control has implications in all areas as the researchers found; not just in our dietary habits.
Researchers tracked down the study participants into their 40s and tested their willpower and self-control. Incredibly, these willpower differences held up. In general, the participants who had been less able to resist eating the marshmallow all those years ago as kids also performed more poorly on self-control tasks as adults.
This was the consummate study in that the ability to delay gratification and the self-control necessary to sacrifice immediate pleasure in lieu of a greater opportunity at a later point in time.
Our ability to put off sleeping in now, pass on the donut today, read the book instead of turn on Netflix, focus on a loved one rather than scroll social media, finish your work now instead of putting it off to a later date are examples of passing instant and only momentary pleasures in favor of a later, greater reward.
The marshmallow example reveals that success, better health, or the body we want later is a measure of self-control that we can muster up now. Overcoming hyperbolic discounting impacts so many important areas of life.
Entire cultures and societies of people who perform better in education, sports, and business have learned to skip a few parties, TV, and social media time today for a radically better life tomorrow. You have to decide if the instant gratification is really worth it or pays off in the long run. Usually, the immediate pleasure lacks the satisfaction of long-term results.
TAKEAWAY: YOU CAN GAIN CONTROL!
As an interesting note, to investigate why some people seem inherently more capable of self-control than others, they also examined brain activity in the marshmallow participants and found more activity in the executive center of the brain. This is the prefrontal cortex; the part of the brain responsible for choices, addictions, and self-discipline.
Mischel states, “By harnessing the power of executive function and self-control strategies, we can all improve our ability to achieve our goals.” These kids learned to trick themselves into not eating the marshmallow. They looked away from it, tapped their fingers, counted, diverted their attention, and hid their eyes from seeing what they wanted now to gain a better return in the future. Those are executive strategies or “tricks” these children used that we can as adults or teach our kids as well to put off $50 now for a million dollars later.
Have fun saving the world
Dr. Ben
