this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

A shower thought about the original experiment:

It may have only measured how effective "waiting for future gains" was, as a strategy, for each child, in their circumstance.

So the real discovery may be only that the children already had a pretty good idea how promising their own futures were. :(

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Or hungrier kids (aka poorer kids) get the marshmallow first. Or those in greater need of serotonin (at least I think it's serotonin) you get from sugar, etc. There's a variety of issues here, but that's true of most "experiments" that aren't actually randomized controlled trial experiments.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Or it measured how rare it was for them to get candy. The most interesting thing about the experiment is honestly the many ways in which it was flawed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Or they're just natural born addicts like myself and need that instant reward and think to hell with my future self. That's his problem. Present me just got a marshmallow.