Can a Cookie Predict Your Kid’s Future?
Hi everyone, this is Angela and I’m going to impersonate Sandy since she’s left the state. It’s pretty easy for me since I’m Chinese and live in Massachusetts and also have a daughter that says the darnedest things. But I can’t live up to being totally skinny and gorgeous (trust me, I’ve met Sandy in person, and she is way too hard on herself!).
So allow me to let you in on a secret. If you have a kid that is four years old or later, you can find out his or her destiny in life from a simple experiment with cookies. Things like being well or badly behaved, to SAT scores, to their BMI index as an adult. And it has nothing to do with whether the cookies are chocolate chip or raisin (stupid raisins, stay out of my cookie!). It has to do with willpower.
I heard about this from a special podcast by WNYC’s Radio Lab called Mischel’s Marshmallows. Radio Lab is a fascinating show that explores science in creative and engaging way. I would highly recommend it if you are a podcast listener, and you could also catch it on NPR on the weekends. The gist of this particular podcast talks about an experiment conducted by Walter Mischel in the 1960’s. He had three daughters from ages two to five, and noticed that around age four, they started to exhibit to ability to delay gratification through willpower. He then conducted an experiment on 500 preschool kids where he would have one marshmallow or cookie on a table in an isolated room. He told each child that they could either have one cookie now, or wait and have two cookies later. Then he left the room and video taped them through a one-way mirror. As you can imagine, this is pure torture for kids and there are many funny videos on YouTube recreating this experiment. Some kids caved after a minute, and some kids made it to the end at twenty minutes. The average was around 7 or 8 minutes. Five or six years later, many of the kids attended the same school as his daughters, so completely informally, he asked his daughters how these kids were doing. He found out amazingly that the kids that could hold out the longest were doing better in school. When the kids were 14 to 17 years old, he did a follow up study. The differences were remarkable, there was a 210 point difference in SAT scores between the kids who could wait 1 minute and ones that could wait 20 minutes. That is a huge difference that can’t possibly be chance! The kids that waited the longest went to better colleges, had better GPAs and the parents reported that they were better behaved. The other kids more likely to be classified as problem kids and bullies, and be suspended from school. Mischel extended and expanded the study to when the original kids reached their forties. The kids who could wait 20 minutes, went further in their education, had better jobs, and were even skinnier.
So does this mean that this seemingly innocuous experiment with cookies at the age of four can predict how successful you are in life? There is a debate on whether this is a hard-wired trait or a product of upbringing. Can you teach your child techniques to distract themselves from the temptation, or are they forever doomed if they fail the cookie test? Either way, it is pretty scary to think that I could just pull my 5-year-old daughter aside right now, and have a pretty good idea how she will turn out. Should I do it? Or should I just wait to see how her life unfolds? I’m so tempted but yet don’t want to bias my view of her.
Should Momisodes torture Babisodes with the cookie test next year? Of course, this would make for an awesome time lapse video for a blog post, so maybe I will try it. Stop by to visit me at mommy bytes to see more adventures with our daughter and her big brother.
So that’s what’s wrong with me. Not only did I not have any willpower as a four-year-old, but I ate waaaay too many cookies.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Hey, who is that cute girl?? Thank so much for letting me guest post!
May 8th, 2009 at 12:13 am
i would LOVE to see a time lapse of babisodes and the cookie! lol
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May 8th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Of course she should. We need something to read.
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May 8th, 2009 at 8:25 am
I would wait the 20 minutes and get the two cookies – but then go back and take the cookie that had tortured me for twenty minutes.
lceel’s last blog post..Friday Haiku – Coming Attractions
May 8th, 2009 at 8:39 am
I’ve seen that study too. An interesting thought. I may have to try that with my 4 year old grandson.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Hi Angela, Thanks for the great post! The only thing I would have expected that test to predict is skinnyness!
I’d guess it would be better not to test your child (or for Momisodes to test Babisodes), even if it would make a great series, because parental expectations have so much to do with how children develop. If your expectation became that your child would fail, that wouldn’t be fair to her.
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May 8th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Why would anyone want to wait to have a cookie?! I love cookies!
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May 8th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Welcome Angela! I will have to remember this torture–oops, test, for my now 2 year old.
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May 8th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
That’s very interesting…what a cool study! I really would like to know if it’s a nature vs. nurture thing…
May 8th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Wow that is interesting! I’ve always had a lot of patience, so I know I would have gone for the two cookies…but I’m not sure if having a lot of patience for something like a cookie is indication that I’d go get a Master degree at this point. I am not a fan of going through school again and facing finals. LOL! But I’m sure the test has some validity. At least I remember the bullies back in my elementary school had no patience for anything!
May 8th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
This is fascinating. I wonder what my kids would do. I think I will try it with the five-year-old today. The three-year-old gets to wait until next year.
MommyTime’s last blog post..Weed-Whacking. Again.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Now that’s a different take on speculating about where you child will go in the future, productive member of society or not. I’m not sure what mine would do either…
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May 8th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
great post, what a sweet pic!
yeah, I don’t even HAVE to do the cookie experiment, I know exactly what my 4 yr old son would do, which is why I believe God gave us the hardest job of parenting these little beings into grown ppl and His guidance is what keeps me positive (and sane)
May 9th, 2009 at 12:46 am
My daughter would flunk hands down. But she’s only 2. so I’ve got a few years to train her so she’ll pass that test and therefore have a terrifically rewarding life! Thanks for the heads up on what to focus on for the next 2 years…
Loved your post.
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May 9th, 2009 at 2:51 am
How funny! My daughters wouldn’t even make it to one minute!
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May 9th, 2009 at 11:45 am
I am so tempted to try this out on my nephews!! I wonder what they’d do… *hmm*
(But I would LOVE to see this with Babisode! *lol* )
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May 9th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I am so tempted to try this, but my 4 yo daughter has a raging sweet tooth!
Interesting study, I love stuff like this. Reminds me of the film series that Michael Apted did of kids in Britain (7-up series, I think the kids are probably in their 50s now…)
Your little girl is precious
.
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May 10th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Fascinating!! I am going to try this on my TWO year old. If she can withstand temptation at two, does that mean that she will be the next Marilyn Vos Savant?
Rachel @ Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life’s last blog post..Happy Mother’s Day! And Stuff.
May 10th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
So I blogged about this and tried it with my two year old (video in blog). Two year olds definitely DO NOT have willpower.
http://www.graspingforobjectivity.com/2009/05/grand-chocolate-willpower-experiment.html
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May 11th, 2009 at 10:44 pm