Self-control – Part 1

The marshmallow test.

In a previous series of essays, we explored the benefits to children of stable, two-parent families.  Keeping a marriage together requires self-control along many dimensions, including emotions, finances, and time allocation.  Self-control is crucial to success in a wide variety of other endeavors as well, and what we know about the importance of self-control generally is the subject of this series of essays.

One of the most influential researchers on the subject of self-control is Walter Mischel, author of the book The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control.  As Mischel introduces the topic:

The basic idea that drove my work and motivated me to write this book was my belief, and the findings, that the ability to delay immediate gratification for the sake of future consequences is an acquirable cognitive skill. In studies initiated half a century ago, and still ongoing today, we’ve shown that this skill set is visible and measurable early in life and has profound long-term consequences for people’s welfare and mental and physical health over the life span … It began in the 1960s with preschoolers at Stanford University’s Bing Nursery School, in a simple study that challenged them with a tough dilemma. My students and I gave the children a choice between one reward (for example, a marshmallow) that they could have immediately, and a larger reward (two marshmallows) for which they would have to wait, alone, for up to 20 minutes. We let the children select the rewards they wanted most from an assortment that included marshmallows, cookies, little pretzels, mints, and so on. “Amy,” for example, chose marshmallows. She sat alone at a table facing the one marshmallow that she could have immediately, as well as the two marshmallows that she could have if she waited. Next to the treats was a desk bell she could ring at any time to call back the researcher and eat the one marshmallow. Or she could wait for the researcher to return, and if Amy hadn’t left her chair or started to eat the marshmallow, she could have both. What the preschoolers did as they tried to keep waiting, and how they did or didn’t manage to delay gratification, unexpectedly turned out to predict much about their future lives. The more seconds they waited at age four or five, the higher their SAT scores and the better their rated social and cognitive functioning in adolescence. At age 27–32, those who had waited longer during the Marshmallow Test in preschool had a lower body mass index and a better sense of self-worth, pursued their goals more effectively, and coped more adaptively with frustration and stress. At midlife, those who could consistently wait (“high delay”), versus those who couldn’t (“low delay”), were characterized by distinctively different brain scans in areas linked to addictions and obesity … In order to understand self-control and the ability to delay gratification, we need to grasp not only what enables it but also what undoes it.

Mischel then describes how he and his team went about developing what’s become known as “the marshmallow test,” and its results:

We started with experiments to observe when and how preschoolers became able to exert sufficient self-restraint to wait for two marshmallows they eagerly wanted rather than settle for just one right away … My students and I designed the procedure not to test children to see how well they did, but rather to examine what enabled them to delay gratification if and when they wanted to. I had no reason to expect that how long a preschooler waited for marshmallows or cookies would predict anything worth knowing about their later years, especially since attempts to predict long-term consequential life outcomes from psychological tests very early in life had been spectacularly unsuccessful. However, several years after the marshmallow experiments began I started to suspect some connection between children’s behavior in our experiments and how they fared later in life … More than 550 children who were enrolled in Stanford University’s Bing preschool between 1968 and 1974 were given the Marshmallow Test. We followed a sample of these participants and assessed them on diverse measures about once every decade after the original testing. In 2010, they reached their early to midforties, and in 2014, we are continuing to collect information from them, such as their occupational, marital, physical, financial, and mental health status. The findings surprised us from the start, and they still do. In the first follow-up study, we mailed small bundles of questionnaires to their parents and asked them to “think about your child in comparison to his or her peers, such as classmates and other same-age friends. We would like to get your impression of how your son or daughter compares to those peers.” They were to rate their children on a scale of 1 to 9 (from “Not at all” to “Moderately” to “Extremely”). We also obtained similar ratings from their teachers about the children’s cognitive and social skills at school. Preschoolers who delayed longer on the Marshmallow Test were rated a dozen years later as adolescents who exhibited more self- control in frustrating situations; yielded less to temptation; were less distractible when trying to concentrate; were more intelligent, self- reliant, and confident; and trusted their own judgment. When under stress they did not go to pieces as much as the low delayers did, and they were less likely to become rattled and disorganized or revert to immature behavior. Likewise, they thought ahead and planned more, and when motivated they were more able to pursue their goals. They were also more attentive and able to use and respond to reason, and they were less likely to be sidetracked by setbacks. In short, they managed to defy the widespread stereotype of the problematic, difficult adolescent, at least in the eyes and reports of their parents and teachers. To measure the children’s actual academic achievement, we asked parents to provide their children’s SAT verbal and quantitative scores, when available. Preschoolers who delayed longer on the whole earned much better SAT scores. When the SAT scores of children with the shortest delay times (bottom third) were compared with those of children with longer delay times (top third), the overall difference in their scores was 210 points. Around age twenty-five to thirty, those who had delayed longer in preschool self-reported that they were more able to pursue and reach long-term goals, used risky drugs less, had reached higher educational levels, and had a significantly lower body mass index. They were also more resilient and adaptive in coping with interpersonal problems and better at maintaining close relationships … my students and I launched a number of other studies with very different cohorts—not from the privileged Stanford campus community, but from very different populations and eras, including the public schools of the South Bronx in New York City decades after the Stanford studies had begun. And we found that things played out in similar ways with children living in extremely different settings and circumstances …

Mischel then asks, “What were the critical skills that enabled such self-control?” and “Could they be taught?”  He writes:

The brain images of these alumni [that is, people who had previously taken the marshmallow test] revealed that those who had been more able to resist the marshmallow temptation in preschool and remained consistently high in self-control over the years displayed distinctively different activity in their frontostriatal brain circuitries—which integrate motivational and control processes—than those who hadn’t. In the high delayers, the prefrontal cortex area, which is used for effective problem solving, creative thinking, and control of impulsive behavior, was more active. In contrast, in the low delayers, the ventral striatum was more active, especially when they were trying to control their reactions to emotionally hot, alluring stimuli. This area, located in the deeper, more primitive part of the brain, is linked to desire, pleasure, and addictions … If the conditions that facilitate self-control, and those that undermine it, could be identified, perhaps they could be harnessed to teach people who have trouble waiting to be better at it.

Mental exercises helped many of the subjects of the marshmallow test to choose delayed gratification:

The emotions the preschoolers experienced also affected how soon they rang the bell. If we suggested before leaving them alone with their temptations that while waiting they might think of some things that made them sad (like crying with no one to help them), they stopped waiting as fast as if we had suggested thinking about the treats. If they thought about fun things, they waited almost three times longer: close to 14 minutes on average. Give nine- year- old children compliments (for example, on their drawings), and they will choose delayed rather than immediate rewards much more often than when given negative feedback on their work. And what holds for children applies to adults. In short, we are less likely to delay gratification when we feel sad or bad. Compared with happier people, those who are chronically prone to negative emotions and depression also tend to prefer immediate but less desirable rewards over delayed, more valued rewards.

These successful strategies are related to basic evolutionary brain functions:

The limbic system consists of primitive brain structures located under the cortex on top of the brain stem, which developed early in our evolution. These structures regulate basic drives and emotions essential for survival, from fear and anger to hunger and sex. This system helped our ancestors cope with the hyenas, lions, and other wild beasts that were both their food supply and their daily mortal danger. Within the limbic system, the amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure (amygdala means “almond” in Latin), is especially important. It plays a key role in fear responses and in sexual and appetitive behavior. The amygdala rapidly mobilizes the body for action. It does not pause to think and reflect or worry about long-term consequences. We still have a limbic system that works much as it did for our evolutionary ancestors. It remains our emotionally hot Go! system, specialized for quick reactions to strong, emotion-arousing stimuli that automatically trigger pleasure, pain, and fear. At birth it is already fully functional, making the infant cry when hungry or in pain. Although these days we rarely need it later in life for dealing with angry lions, it’s still invaluable for avoiding menacing strangers in dark alleys or a swerving vehicle on an icy road. The hot system gives life its emotional zest. It motivates preschoolers to want two marshmallows, but it also makes it hard for them to endure the wait. Activation of the hot system triggers instantaneous action: hunger for food and desire for other alluring stimuli elicit rapid hot Go! behaviors; threats and danger signals elicit fear and automatic defensive and flight reactions … Even the sight or thought of the candy bar, or the whiskey, or the cigarette can elicit the action automatically. And the more often that happens, the more difficult it becomes to change the mental representation and avert the automatic Go! response. Learning and practicing some strategies for enabling self-control early in life is a lot easier than changing hot, self-destructive, automatic-response patterns established and ingrained over a lifetime.

It would follow from this that teaching children to control their emotions early in life (see the previous essay series on Stoicism) is one of the best ways to inculcate responsibility, and the rewards that go with delayed gratification, in adults later in life.  Mischel continues:

High stress activates the hot system. This response was adaptive in evolutionary history for dealing with oncoming lions because it produces amazingly rapid (in milliseconds), automatic, self-protective reactions, and it is still useful in many emergencies in which survival requires instant action. But this hot response is not useful when success in a given situation depends on staying cool, planning ahead, and problem-solving rationally. And the hot system is predominant in the first few years of life, which makes it especially difficult for the young preschooler to exert self-control.

Mischel stresses “the importance of helping children learn early on that they have choices, and that each choice has consequences.”  (Sadly, as we’ve explored in previous essays, too many education officials are preoccupied with lowering standards and weakening consequences for students.)

Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, in their book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, write about practical ways to administer effective child discipline:

[C]hildren react well when reprimands are delivered briefly, calmly, and consistently, according to Susan O’Leary, a psychologist who has spent long hours observing toddlers and parents. When parents are inconsistent, when they let an infraction slide, they sometimes try to compensate with an extra-strict punishment for the next one. This requires less self-control on the parents’ part: They can be nice when they feel like it, and then punish severely if they’re feeling angry or the misbehavior is egregious. But imagine how this looks from the child’s point of view. Some days you make a smart remark and the grown-ups all laugh. Other days a similar remark brings a smack or the loss of treasured privileges. Seemingly tiny or even random differences in your own behavior or in the situation seem to spell the difference between no punishment at all and a highly upsetting one. Besides resenting the unfairness, you learn that the most important thing is not how you behave but whether or not you get caught, and whether your parents are in the mood to punish. You might learn, for instance, that table manners can be dispensed with at restaurants, because the grown-ups are too embarrassed to discipline you in public. “Parents find it hard to administer discipline in public because they feel judged,” Carroll says. “They’re afraid people will think they’re a bad mother. But you have to get that out of your head. I’ve had people stare at me when I take a child out of a restaurant for being rude, but you can’t worry about that. You have to do what’s right for the child, and it really is all about being consistent. They have to grow up knowing what’s appropriate and inappropriate behavior.” Nearly all experts agree that children need and want clear rules, and that being held accountable for obeying the rules is a vital feature of healthy development. But rules are helpful only if children know them and understand them, so the brighter the line, the better. To keep the rules consistent, parents need to coordinate with each other and with caretakers so that everyone knows what’s expected … The rules and the rewards will change as the child gets older, but it’s important to keep a disciplined system in place, no matter how difficult that seems when the dreaded teenage years arrive.

Along with a “hot system,” the brain has a “cool system.”  As Mischel writes:

Closely interconnected with the brain’s hot system is its cool system, which is cognitive, complex, reflective, and slower to activate. It is centered primarily in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). This cool, controlled system is crucial for future-oriented decisions and self-control efforts of the kind identified in the Marshmallow Test. The PFC is the most evolved region of the brain. It enables and supports the highest-order cognitive abilities that make us distinctively human. It regulates our thoughts, actions, and emotions, is the source of creativity and imagination, and is crucial for inhibiting inappropriate actions that interfere with the pursuit of goals. It allows us to redirect our attention and to change strategies flexibly as the requirements of the situation shift. Self-control ability is rooted in the PFC. The cool system develops slowly and becomes gradually more active in the preschool years and the first few years of elementary school. It does not fully mature until the early twenties, leaving the young child as well as the adolescent greatly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the hot system. Unlike the hot system, the cool system is attuned to the informational aspects of stimuli and enables rational, reflective, and strategic behavior. The experience of short-term stress can be adaptive, mobilizing you into action. Stress can become harmful, however, even toxic if it is intense and persists—for example, in people who become enraged at every frustration, from traffic jams to checkout lines, or who feel overwhelmed under extreme and enduring conditions of danger, turbulence, or poverty. Prolonged stress impairs the PFC, which is essential not only for waiting for marshmallows but also for things like surviving high school, holding down a job, pursuing an advanced degree, navigating office politics, avoiding depression, preserving relationships, and refraining from decisions that seem intuitively right but on closer examination are really stupid … To begin with, the hot system [discussed in the previous essay] deserves to be appreciated, listened to, and learned from. It gives us the emotions and zest that make life worth living and allows automatic judgments and decisions that work well some of the time. But the hot system has its costs: it effortlessly makes quick judgments that feel right intuitively but are often dead wrong. It can save your life by getting you to hit the car brakes in time to avoid a collision or to duck for cover when you hear a gunshot nearby, but it can also get you into trouble … [I]ts excesses—the temptations it dangles that one can’t resist, the fears it too vividly creates, the stereotypes it triggers from minimal information, and the conclusions and decisions it pushes us to make too quickly—can be hazardous to health, wealth, and well-being.

Mary Ainsworth further developed studies examining strategies that encourage delayed gratification:

Mary Ainsworth designed the “Strange Situation” … Ainsworth was a student of John Bowlby, the highly influential British psychologist who, beginning in the 1930s, studied the effects of children’s early-life attachment experiences, especially the impact of separation from their primary caregivers (an all-too-common, stressful experience in wartime). The Strange Situation simulates a brief maternal disappearance and reunion under controlled, benign conditions … Specifically, the toddlers who spent those last 30 seconds of separation [from their caregivers] in the Strange Situation distracting themselves from Mom’s absence became the ones who at age five waited longer for their treats and distracted themselves more effectively during the Marshmallow Test. In contrast, the toddlers who had been unable to activate the necessary distraction strategies were also unable to do so when waiting for their treats three years later and rang the bell sooner … These results underscore the importance of regulating attention to control and cool down stress, beginning early in life … Within a few months of birth, caregivers can begin to switch their infants’ attention away from feelings of distress and toward activities that interest them, and in time this helps their babies learn to self-distract to calm themselves … By the time they reach their fifth birthday, [children’s] minds have become wonderfully sophisticated. There are large individual differences, of course, but many five-year-olds can understand and follow complex rules, like “If it’s the color game, put the red square here, but if it’s the shape game, put the red square there.” While these skills are still in the early stages in the preschooler, by age seven, children’s attention-control skills and the underlying neural circuits are surprisingly similar to those of adults. The child’s experiences in the first half dozen years of life become roots for the ability to regulate impulses, exercise self-restraint, control the expression of emotions, and develop empathy, mindfulness, and conscience.

Different parenting styles can encourage or discourage delayed gratification in children:

[P]arents who overcontrol their toddlers risk undermining the development of their children’s self-control skills, while those who support and encourage autonomy in problem-solving efforts are likely to maximize their children’s chances of coming home from preschool eager to tell them how they got their two marshmallows.

In the next essay in this series, we’ll examine what cultural differences might influence self-control.