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Godot, and other tricks with delayed marshmallows

I suppose everybody has heard of the famous 1972 Stanford University marshmallow test about delayed gratification by now, eh? You simply leave a child alone in a room in front of a marshmallow with the promise of a second marshmallow (or other reward) if the one they have in front of them is still uneaten by the time you return. It’s a measure of the ability to deny immediate pleasure in return for greater rewards in the future. Those who succeed in waiting are apparently the ones who will ultimately fare better in later life; it was felt to be a reliable indicator of an ability to think ahead and plan for the future consequences of an action. There was a time when this seemed irrefutable.

I’m pretty sure that, even as a child, I would have waited for the second marshmallow to arrive, but now that I’m in my yellow leaf, I can’t say that I have reaped the promised rewards, however. Perhaps Age has taught me the wisdom that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush: quite disparate conclusions that constantly vie with each other as perceived wisdom. Call me cynical, but how do we know the promised, but delayed, reward is a sure thing? I mean I wouldn’t want the single marshmallow to go rotten if I left it to lie fallow on my plate as I continued to wait for Godot.

Far from an inability to project my needs into the future, I think that rather a good case could be made that the decision to eat the marshmallow as soon as the white coat left the room, might often be an example of sensible long-term thinking, rather than merely an inability to resist immediate gratification. The future is by no means accurately predictable; regret, if it doesn’t go as promised, certainly is. In fact, what I am describing is a form of metacognition: thinking about thinking.

As an example, let’s say I am deciding whether to spend some money on a dream trip to New Zealand instead of saving it for a future retirement, say, or mortgage payments, or even a new car. By the time I realized that those future things might never happen (or even if some of them did) I’d still have other needs for which I would again need to save; could I really say that the delayed gratification was worth it? When I’m old, if I never got to live my dream, and yet still have a large unpaid mortgage and a once-new car that is now elderly like me, am I really better off for saving the marshmallow? It seems to me that it doesn’t make as much sense to delay gratification for something which, like a new car, will not stay new, or in the case of the mortgage, for something which I cannot possibly pay off no matter how much I save before I die. Some things demand more proximate action… Thinking ahead -meta-thinking- can often be the wiser choice.

But, what does delayed gratification really mean anyway? What does it involve? Is it always a reward of some kind, or could it be simply the absence of regret: relief that things actually did go as planned? I often wonder about that.  

I suppose what I’m asking is, given the uncertainty that trails the future like a shadow, why should delayed gratification count as a plus on your curriculum vitae?

My friend John told me the story of finding a $5.00 bill on the sidewalk the other day. After looking around for a few moments hoping the owner would return, he finally decided to put it in his pocket and continue his walk. When he stopped at the crosswalk light at a busy intersection he noticed our usual coffee shop across the street and realized he was looking forward to meeting me for breakfast.

Once he’d crossed the street and was about to head for the café however, he saw a dishevelled young man sitting against a nearby lamp post with his dog; he was holding a handmade sign saying he was hungry. The two of them seemed desperate: the dog was lean and looked as if it hadn’t eaten in days, and the kid was dressed in what were once decent clothes that were now torn and dirty.

John walked over to the two of them and the dog, a black lab, wagged its tail at his approach. The boy looked up, his eyes full of hope, but he only smiled, and merely reached out and patted his dog.

“Must be tough feeding the two of you,” John said, returning the smile.

“She’s all I’ve got,” the kid said. “Street’s kinda lonely if you’re on your own though, eh?”

John nodded. “Why do…?” he started to ask, then thought better of it. It was really none of his business.

“Ran away,” the kid explained, “But I’m kinda new at this, eh?”

He seemed so forthcoming that John reached in his pocket for the $5.00. “Well, I just found this on the sidewalk a few minutes ago” he said, pulling out, instead, a $20 bill, and only realizing it after he’d given it to the kid.

The boy’s eyes widened as did his smile. “Wow! Thank you mister,” he said and proffered his dirty hand to shake.

“John’s my name,” my friend said, shaking the boy’s hand.

“Mine’s Eric, eh?” he said getting to his feet, and limping away with the dog.

John watched as the two of them headed for a MacDonald’s outlet nearby. Eric did seem hungry, and looked back over his shoulder and waved at him as he patted his dog before tying it to a pole out front then disappearing into the restaurant.

“I felt good about that,” John said as the two of us enjoyed coffee and doughnuts in the nearby cafe where we’d agreed to meet.

“But you gave him $20, not the $5 you’d found,” I teased him.

He shrugged and blushed a little. “But I still had enough money for my coffee and doughnut this morning with you, eh? I figure it’s win-win, don’t you?”

We’d just been talking about the Marshmallow test, and I could see his eyes twinkling under the fluorescent ceiling lights as he glanced at me. “Do you think I ate the marshmallow…?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Win-win, as you said,” and smiled at how happy he looked.

https://psyche.co/ideas/far-sighted-impulsivity-and-the-new-psychology-of-self-control

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