The Marshmallow Test

A four-year-old is sitting at a table with a marshmallow on it.

Does this sound like the start of a good joke?

It turns out that it was, in fact, a very serious experiment dreamed up by psychologist Walter Mischel of Columbia in the late 1960s.

Along with the marshmallow, the four-year-old is given a simple choice by the grown-up: The child can eat the marshmallow at any time. Or, the grown-up says, “I’m leaving the room. When I return, if you haven’t eaten the marshmallow, I’ll give you another one.”

The adult then departs for about twenty minutes.

So, if the child can delay eating the first marshmallow for twenty minutes, he’ll end up with two.

In a Boston Globe article on October 22, 2008 describing the experiment, Carey Goldberg wrote, “The longer the child can hold back, the better the outlook in later life for everything from SAT scores to social skills to academic achievement.”

The implication is clear: The ability to defer gratification leads to success. What scientists are now trying to determine is how some people are able to control themselves better than others.


Most recently, Yale University researcher found that delaying gratification involved an area of the brain, the anterior prefrontal cortex, that is known to be involved in abstract problem-solving and keeping track of goals. For example: You want to drive across town, so you find your keys, start your car, and navigate the route, all while the critical brain region keeps the overarching trip goal in your mind.”

The other way scientists think about the issue is in terms of “hot” and “cool” centers of the brain, with hot being the more primitive responses and cool being those responses that are rational and integrative and nuanced. A person who can defer gratification is able to exercise the “cool” segments of his brain more effectively, or shut down the hot impulses, or both.

I remember having this explained to us once by Jonathan Vehar of New and Improved, just before we were about to go into a brainstorming session. He likened our “hot” brain parts to the primitive responses of a “gator”; when something new enters a gator’s territory, Jon said, the gator has four primitive responses: fight it, run from it, eat it or mate with it.

That’s it; that’s all you’ve got going for you if you can’t get past the “gator” response. And that, said Jon, is why many brainstorming sessions fail. Most of the ideas offered represent a significant breach of somebody’s territory. And, since cookies are usually provided to ease the “eat it” sensation, and mating is strictly forbidden at all the brainstorming sessions I’ve attended, that leaves only the ability to attack or ignore the idea. Which is what often happens.

The trick to brainstorming, Jon says, is to let the new idea slip by the lower brain functions and get caught up in the higher-thinking gearworks which we all possess.

Like our four-year-old facing the marshmallow, it’s all about short-circuiting the hot responses to allow the cooler responses to prevail.

There is another way to think of this, though, and it brings to mind the work of Marcus Buckingham. The seminars I’ve taken on the Buckingham material emphasize finding your inherent strengths—which are thought to be largely immutable--and, by implication, spending the rest of your working life putting yourself in the best position to put those skills to work.

It’s like the person who has a drinking problem. He has two ways to get home from work, both equally good, except one way goes by a tavern and one doesn’t. Our smart friend always chooses the way home that avoids the tavern. It doesn’t solve the drinking problem; it just puts him in a position to be successful.

If you buy this, it tends to change the way you might think about the marshmallow test. Folks who find themselves thinking and acting “hot” might find jobs that reward heat. High-powered Sales comes to mind immediately. Some of the great Account Executives I have known seem to visualize a marshmallow sitting squarely on the desk of the target, ah, customer. Or, in some cases, flush on the customer’s nose. The goal, and the only meaningful goal in the universe at that moment, is to get that marshmallow, and to get as many as possible by the end of the month.

That doesn’t mean great Sales folk can’t think cool; in fact, some are pretty good at it. It just means they’re driven by heat in the area where they can have the most success.

That’s “'hot' as strength,” and that’s a wonder to behold.

Conversely, CFOs who act hot can be menaces. But, CFOs who think cool in meetings with COOs who think hot—well, that can also be a wonder to behold.

So, I’m thinking of that four-year-old, sitting and staring at the marshmallow. And, I’m thinking of all the scientists who are trying to learn, and then teach people how to circumvent their hot processes and get to the cool stuff.

Here’s my take:

The child who grabs the marshmallow and eats it the moment the adult’s back is turned might have a lifetime of struggle coming. Or, he or she could marry a cool spouse and work for a cool boss as off-sets, and still become a world-class, meat-eating Sales Executive (Entrepreneur, Athlete, Musician, etc.).

The four-year-old who delays gratification, maybe by conjugating Greek verbs or working up the Fibonacci Series for 20 minutes, has a lifetime of success ahead of him or her. So, I want that person on my Engineering Team, or doing Strategy, or running Finance. I want that person working out the details of the government bailout, and negotiating a long-term peace in Afghanistan.

Yet, at the same time, I want some heat applied to that person when there are ten marshmallows on the table and they’re still delaying gratification.

And finally, how about the child that says to the adult: “Tell you what. When you come back, bring a bag of marshmallows, a box of Graham crackers, six Hershey chocolate bars and a Coleman stove. And a quart of milk. You do that, and we’ve got a deal, cause this one, pitiful marshmallow you’ve left me isn’t worth the sugar it’s made out of.”

That’s hot. That’s cool. That’s the child I want running my company.

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

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