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How Successful Was The Marshmallow Experiment Dbq

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Do you believe that willpower influences success? The marshmallow experiment test kids on their willpower by offering a marshmallow to a four-year old and telling them that they could eat right away or wait 15 minutes. After they have made their decision, the kids will be looked at later on twelve years later on how they are performing on their behavior and test scores. The willpower that influenced these four year old's decision, did impact their success later in life.

The marshmallow experiment was first conducted by Walter Mischel in 1968. Most of the kid’s in this experiment struggled to wait the 15 minutes for the second marshmallow but for others, “To extend their limited self-control, the little kids spontaneously invented a variety of mental strategies.”(Source 1). This worked for about twenty-five percent of four-year olds. After twelve years, …show more content…

The University of Rochester had revisited the marshmallow experiment with a different approach by having the kids first have an encounter with an adult, one reliable and another unreliable. For this had influenced the kids decision for waiting 15 minutes on the second marshmallow. In Source 2, it says “Only one of the 14 children in the unreliable condition held out for the full 15-minute wait.” and “More than half of the kids who had just had a reliable encounter, however, made it through the 15-minute wait.”. The difference from this experiment and the first one was the encounter with the adults and it had a huge effect the kids choice. “Being able to delay gratification - in this case to wait 15 difficult minutes to earn a second marshmallow - not only reflects a child’s capacity for self-control, it also reflects their belief about the practicality of waiting…” (Source

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