Waxman

There is a marshmallow in front of you. Can you wait for twenty minutes, starring intently at the white, soft, cylindrical shaped sweet, to get another marshmallow? Or do you devour it right away, forgoing the opportunity to have two sweets?

I’d probably wait. But that’s only because I don’t like marshmallows, and would be in no rush to consume either one or two of them. What about you?

That’s the famous experiment that’s shown to many first year psychology undergrads (I, too, watched videos of little kids anxious waiting for 20 minutes, or not, in my first year psych class). It was designed to measure delayed gratification, in other words, are you able to wait, to get a reward, to delay gratification?

Leah recently asked whether studies have looked at delayed gratification in eating disorder patients. What I loved about her comment is that she included a hypothesis: “I … Continue reading →