marshmallow in water experiment

STEM Experiments: Dissolving Marshmallows

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We love at-home STEM experiments and this dissolving marshmallows one is perfect for rainy days!

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Why Do STEM Experiments?

STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) experiments are great learning experiences for kids because they ask them to create hypotheses about the world around them and then test those out.

While some STEM experiments are complicated and require a lot of preparation, we’re all for quick on-the-fly activities that use things we have around the house.

Take our color changing celery experiment for example.

This dissolving marshmallows experiment was born from a box of Lucky Charms cereal and a bunch of marshmallowy inspiration.

How to Do the Dissolving Marshmallows STEM Experiment

The purpose of the dissolving marshmallows experiment is to see which liquid dissolves marshmallows the quickest.

You will need the following supplies:

• 4 marshmallows (we used marshmallows from a cereal we had on hand)
• 4 clear cups
• 4 different liquids (we used vinegar, cold water, hot water, and milk)
• paper towels
• the tracking sheet (it’s in the freebies library and you can sign up for access below)

Here’s how to do the dissolving marshmallows experiment:

• Place one marshmallow in each of the four cups.
• Pour 1/2 cup of liquid in each cup. One liquid per cup.
• Write down the liquids on the left-hand column of the tracking sheet. Record what you think will happen in the middle column.
• After 5 minutes gently scoop each marshmallow up, one at a time, and examine it, place it back in the cup and jot down what is happening to it in the far-right column of your tracking sheet. Be sure to wipe the spoon off after each liquid so that it doesn’t contaminate the next cup.
• Continue watching each marshmallow.
• After 10 minutes examine each marshmallow again and write down your observations.
• Repeat at the 15-minute mark.
• Record your final observations on the tracking sheet and circle the row that had the quickest dissolving marshmallows.

If you keep a science journal, have kids record their conclusions there and staple or tape their recording sheet inside.

Have fun learning!

You might also like:

• Color Changing Celery Experiment
• Diet Coke & Mentos Nucleation Experiment
• LEGO STEM Activities for Kids

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Marshmallow Experiment for Kids

While at the grocery store, I saw Valentine’s Day inspired peep marshmallows.  They had fun flavored heart ones. I  quickly had 2 ideas for them. None of which included eating them, lol.  Doing a marshmallow science experiment was one of them. We love to see what happens to sugar stuff / candy when we place it in water.  Simple science that is hands on for my young kids is always a hit.  I love that while they think they are playing they are learning too.  What happens to a marshmallow in water? Why does it do that?

 Marshmallow Experiment for Kids

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Supplies for Marshmallow Science Experiment:

How to do a Marshmallow Science Experiment with kids:

Let the kids fill one glass with hot water, one glass with cold water, and one glass with Sprite. Now let them place one marshmallow in each glass.  After they place the marshmallows in the glasses let them watch to see if they notice anything different.  Ask them questions and let them ask questions.  Big brother started making comments on what he saw.  The sugar is melting, the marshmallow is growing…

What can we learn:

The kids observed that the hot water melted the sugar sprinkles off the marshmallow.  The one with the soda puffed up and the cold water one “looked sticky” per big brother.

Why  marshmallows  float:

We often start science experiments with a simple question “Will it sink or float”?  Marshmallows have tiny air bubbles in them making them less dense than water.  Because marshmallows are less dense than water they  float.  The Marshmallow Experiment is a simple way to introduce young kids to density.

 More experiments to try out with the kids:

Amazing Easter Science Experiments

Catapult Science for Kids

Science Experiment Growing Crystal Rainbows

Apple Volcanoes Science for Kids

About The Author

Hi! I am Jaime, mama to three high energy boys. With three boys, life never slows down, but I wouldn't have it any other way! We love creating, learning, and crafting together and we can turn anything into an adventure.

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Marshmallows: The Perfect Media for Demonstrating Principles of Physics

The gooey confections turn out to be a must-have for at-home science experiments

If the Easter Bunny comes to your house this weekend, you may find yourself with a plethora of marshmallows and Peeps. What to do with them all? Aside from simply eating them, cooking with them , or unleashing your artistic side by making dioramas , consider using them….for science!

Marshmallows, it turns out, are must-have pieces of equipment for at-home science experiments. Sure, you can use them test your kids’ self control through the the field of psychology’s notorious marshmallow test and its ever-more complex iterations . But if you’d rather not torture your kids by leaving tantalizingly in reach a marshmallow they’re ordered not to have, consider trying these easy science projects:

Marshmallows in a vacuum

No, not that kind of vacuum , despite the intriguing possibilities conjured by this phrase. You’ll need:

• A glass jar with a lid
• A mechanism to pump some of the air out of the jar
• Marshmallows

The Physics Hypertextbook recommends using a kitchen vacuum pump for this experiment. Cutting a small hole in the jar’s lid and squeezing a wine preserver’s vacuum pump into it also works.

Place a few marshmallows in the jar, seal it, and then pump the air out:

What’s going on? Marshmallows are basically a foam spun out of sugar, water, air, and gelatin. The sugar makes them sweet, the water and sugar combo makes them sticky and the gelatin makes them stretchy. But the air–which actually makes up most of the confection’s volume–makes marshmallows the tastiest way to encapsulate a gas in a solid. As you pump air out of the jar, the air inside the marshmallow expands and the marshmallow puffs up. Release the seal, and the marshmallows return to their normal size.

Congratulations! You’ve just demonstrated Boyle’s Law , which states that when the temperature doesn’t change, that the relationship between pressure (which is decreased by pumping air out of the jar) and volume of any set amount of gas (the marshmallow) is inversely proportional. In other words, decreasing one necessitates an increase of the other.

If you can’t eat ‘em, nuke ‘em!

If you’ve ever roasted a marshmallow over a campfire, you’ll know where this next demonstration is going. You’ll need:

• A microwave
• A microwavable plate
• A standard-sized marshmallow (avoid minis or jumbos; the former will fry and the latter may make an enormous mess!)

Place the marshmallow on one of its flat sides in the center of a plate. Then microwave the marshmallow for, say, 45 seconds on high.

It’s alive! This time, rather than changing the pressure surrounding the marshmallow, you’re changing the temperature . As the microwave bakes the marshmallow, the water in the marshmallow heats up and warms the air. When air becomes hot, it expands, forcing the marshmallow to puff up. The confection’s water also softens the sugars, causing it to ooze, as seen in the video above (created by YouTube user bbbpwns ).

The relationship between temperature and volume is representative of Charles’ Law , which holds that any set amount of gas will expand when heated–increasing the temperature of a gas necessitates an increase in the gas’ volume.

Trying this with Peeps makes for a slightly alarming outcome, showcased by YouTube user UBrocks:

If you flashed back to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man , alas–the monster marshmallow you pulled from your microwave doesn’t last–it will cool and deflate into a glob of ooze. But before it cools completely, the ooze is quite malleable and can be sculpted into shapes. But careful! The marshmallow remnants are like naplam–they’ll stick to you and burn. After it cools a bit, brush some oil on your palms before you mold anything, else your sculpture will stay glued to your hands.

A gooey way to calculate the speed of light

For this demonstration you need a bit of background knowledge as you start out. The speed of a wave can be calculated by multiplying the wavelength (the distance from crest to crest) with the frequency (the number of crest-to-crest cycles that repeat in a stretch of time). Light is a wave, and its speed can be calculated the same way without fancy equipment. You’ll need:

A child measures the distance between melted patches after a layer of marshmallows was microwaved. Photo by Mohi Kumar

• A microwave with the turntable removed
• A glass casserole dish or baking tray
• Mini marshmallows
• A calculator

Take the baking tray and pack one layer of marshmallows along the bottom, lined up like tiny puffy soldiers. Make sure the turntable is removed from the microwave–this allows microwaves to move through the glass and the marshmallows in a standing wave pattern. Cook for a few minutes on low, watching the marshmallows carefully. With the turntable removed, the microwave doesn’t heat evenly–you’ll notice melted patches forming in your marshmallow field.

As soon as you see a few such patches, remove the dish and measure the distance between two that form a line parallel to the microwave’s door–these mark the locations of highest amplitudes within the standing wave. Multiply this by two to get the full wavelength of the microwaves that passed through your marshmallows (if you look at the geometry of a standing wave, your initial measurement only gave you half the wavelength). Convert this into meters .

Multiplying this result by frequency of the microwave, found in the microwave’s manual or in a label inside the device, gives ~299,000,000 meters per second–roughly speed of light! Catch a video of this here .

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Mohi Kumar | | READ MORE

Mohi Kumar is a science writer, editor and essayist based in Houston, Texas, and also a freelance editor for Smithsonian.com.

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Fantastic Fun & Learning

Fun learning activities and things to do with kids

Rainbow Marshmallow Science Experiment

By Shaunna Evans 12 Comments · This content may contain affiliate links.

I mentioned in our first marshmallow science experiment that we didn’t sort the marshmallows by color before adding them to the different liquids. At the end of that experiment the kids noticed that the water looked different, so we decided to try one more marshmallow science experiment during our marshmallow theme activities . In this rainbow marshmallow science experiment we investigated what happens to water after colored marshmallows are dissolved in it.

Rainbow Marshmallow Science Experiment for Kids

See it in Action

Step-by-step tutorial.

I guided the kids in setting up this experiment and encouraged them to tell me how we could find out the answer to our question. They decided how many marshmallows would go in each cup. Then they sorted the marshmallows by color and placed six marshmallows in each cup.

Next we talked about making predictions. I asked them to predict what color they thought the water in each cup would be after the marshmallows dissolved.

Both of the kids remembered from our first experiment that only the warm water made the marshmallows dissolve, so we added warm water to each cup. Like before they stirred and observed in their own styles. Him quiet and focused, her giving a play-by-play account of the process.

Once all of the marshmallows dissolved we sat and watched the water settle. Then we discussed our conclusions. They confirmed their original predictions, and they were proud little scientists!

Extend the learning by following this same science experiment procedure using Skittles . Then compare the results.

What science experiments do you enjoy doing with your kids?

More Fun with Marshmallows

Marshmallow Literacy Activities

Sensory Play with Marshmallows

Marshmallow Activities

Reader Interactions

January 1, 2015 at 9:54 am

Yeah! Found one of marshmallow experiments and can’t wait to try it with my K students when they come back in a few days! Thank you.

Miriam Flores

October 29, 2014 at 3:15 pm

This is such a fun science experiment! Thank you so much for your website. You are so creative! I am so inspired by all your ideas:) Thank you!

Shaunna Evans

November 2, 2014 at 9:15 pm

Aw, thank you so much, Miriam! That’s very kind of you to say, and I”m thrilled you enjoy the ideas.

Kinderscience

August 11, 2013 at 8:02 pm

This looks like fun! I have posted a link to your site from my science blog.

August 11, 2013 at 8:29 pm

It was fun! Thank you for linking to the experiment.

July 7, 2013 at 7:46 am

This is a super experiment Shaunna. We always have a bag of mini-marshmallows kicking around here. We’ll definitely give this a try.

Tammy @ Housing A Forest

January 25, 2013 at 1:58 am

Great idea! I featured it today on the kids co-op at Housing A Forest. Hope you link up again this week!

January 25, 2013 at 5:57 am

Thanks so much for featuring our post! I am loving all of the great science experiments you shared.

Tracey@We-Made-That

January 23, 2013 at 9:33 am

What a cool experiment! My girls would love this. We have done a few science experiments, the girls just love them! I would like to invite you to share this on our Kids Linky http://wemadethat.blogspot.com/2013/01/we-made-that-linky-22.html

January 23, 2013 at 1:20 pm

Thanks so much! We love science experiments around here. I appreciate the invite to your Linky.

Mary Catherine

January 20, 2013 at 11:53 am

Dropping by from I Can Teach My Child’s Saturday link up. I LOVE the science experiments with marshmallows. My kiddo and I will definitely be trying some of these out soon. I’m going to pin them so I don’t forget.

January 20, 2013 at 12:16 pm

Thanks so much for stopping by. We had a lot of fun with the experiments. I hope you and your kiddo do, too!

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Microwave Marshmallow Experiment

• Curiosity , Elementary , Experiment , Kitchen , Pre-School , Science Experiments

20 Comments

Have you heard of the microwave marshmallow experiment? It’s really simple and a fun way to explore how the volume of gas expands a marshmallow as it heats up. My kids also enjoy this experiment because it mixes science (+ fun) with a sugary treat.

Microwave Marshmallow Experiment Supplies

• 4 (or more) Marshmallows
• Paper Towel or Microwave-safe plate
• Paper to jot down observations (I’ll share my 3-year old’s observations in italics below)

Microwave one marshmallow for 10 seconds and remove from the microwave. Compare it to an uncooked marshmallow and describe how it looks. How does it feel?

Microwave the second marshmallow for 30 seconds and remove it. How does it compare with an uncooked marshmallow? What happens to it as it cools?

Observation: It’s a little bit larger than the other one. It got dry as it cooled.

Touching the second marshmallow.

Cool, a little hole showed up in the middle after it cooled down a bit.

Microwave the third marshmallow for 50 seconds and remove from the microwave. Compare to and uncooked marshmallow right away and after it cools. How are they different? How does this marshmallow feel?

Observation: It’s huge and wrinkly and dry. It’s brown. That means it burned. That means it’s good to eat. Crunchy to eat.

The science behind the activity is  explained clearly over here at  The Exploratorium . In essence, the volume of gas in the marshmallow increases when the temperature increases, and then decreases as it cools down. The Exploratorium suggests not microwaving marshmallows for longer than 2 minutes, less you want a dark, stinky, burnt mess on your hands.

This project was inspired by a book we found at the library:  Kitchen Science Experiments: How Does Your Mold Garden Grow?

Have you ever microwaved anything and been surprised by the outcome?

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This will be a perfect activity for Christmas Break! 

It would be a great way to fill in a gap in the day.

this hit home when i saw it — when my sister and i were kids and we couldn’t find something sweet in the house to eat, we would stuff 3 chocolate chips inside of big marshmallows and put about 7 or so on a paper plate. we’d microwave it and watch them fluff up. after, we’d stir it all around with a fork and enjoy the melted chocolate with that “astronaut ice cream texture” you described. my mom was not a huge fan of this snack we “invented” (so we thought) but (shhh) i still make it to this day. 😉

That’s so awesome, Jen. I remember experimenting with food in the kitchen too, but nothing came out all that delicious. Just lots and lots of messy gooey concoctions. That’s funny that you still make it to this day. I can see the chocolate taking it up a notch!

I’ve microwaved colored CDs before to make jewelry (alas, they are now scant).  I also got the surprise of my life when my baked potato caught on fire.  Don’t ask me how….  I’m not safe around most kitchen eqpt!

Hilarious, Lucy. But wait, you put a CD (like the kind you listen to music on?) in the microwave? How does that work?

Microwaving marshmallows has unintentionally become a tradition that the kids do each year at the cabin. They experiment with all sorts of concoctions…rolling marshmallows around nuts and microwaving, trying to stir melted chocolate and marshmallows together, etc.

Isn’t it funny how some traditions begin? This is a good one, Amy, and I like the nuts addition.

Gummy bears – they grow as well. Thanks for all the fun ideas.

Gummy bears — YES! We’ll have to try that soon. Thanks for the suggestion, Karenda.

Loving your blog,  Super cool ideas!

Thanks Meg! I’m so glad you found me.

thanks! we’ll definitely try this one this wknd., One thing I did (which is unrelated 🙂 with my son a while back on a lazy saturday was “sink or float” – we basically collected things around the house and put them in a large jar of water and he would guess which one would, well, sink or float! Then we repeated it again in the bath later that night 🙂

Sink or float is a favorite activity for our 3.5 year old during bath time!

try microwaving Ivory Soap…it’s awesome, comes out like clouds…gues just google to find out time ect. I can’t remember, sry

[…] you have any marshmallows left over from the Microwave Marshmallow Experiment, this is the project for […]

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[…] Let the young learners get involved with this cute expanding marshmallows experiment! And be sure to let them sneak a few as a […]

[…] you have any marshmallows left over from the Microwave Marshmallow Experiment, this is the project for […]

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Stanford Marshmallow Test Experiment

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Angel Navidad is an undergraduate at Harvard University, concentrating in Philosophy. He will graduate in May of 2025, and thereon pursue graduate study in history, or enter the civil service.

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On This Page:

Take-home Messages

• The marshmallow test is an experimental design that measures a child’s ability to delay gratification. The child is given the option of waiting a bit to get their favorite treat, or if not waiting for it, receiving a less-desired treat. The minutes or seconds a child waits measures their ability to delay gratification.
• The original marshmallow test showed that preschoolers’ delay times were significantly affected by the experimental conditions, like the physical presence/absence of expected treats.
• The original test sample was not representative of preschooler population, thereby limiting the study’s predictive ability. (Preschool participants were all recruited from Stanford University’s Bing Nursery School, which was then largely patronized by children of Stanford faculty and alumni.)
• A 2018 study on a large, representative sample of preschoolers sought to replicate the statistically significant correlations between early-age delay times and later-age life outcomes, like SAT scores, which had been previously found using data from the original marshmallow test. The replication study found only weak statistically significant correlations, which disappeared after controlling for socio-economic factors.
• However, the 2018 study did find statistically significant differences between early-age delay times and later-age life outcomes between children from high-SES families and children from low-SES families, implying that socio-economic factors play a more significant role than early-age self-control in important life outcomes.

In a 1970 paper, Walter Mischel, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, and his graduate student, Ebbe Ebbesen, had found that preschoolers waiting 15 minutes to receive their preferred treat (a pretzel or a marshmallow) waited much less time when either treat was within sight than when neither treat was in view.

Children with treats present waited 3.09 ± 5.59 minutes; children with neither treat present waited 8.90 ± 5.26 minutes.

The study suggested that gratification delays in children involved suppressing rather than enhancing attention to expected rewards. For instance, some children who waited with both treats in sight would stare at a mirror, cover their eyes, or talk to themselves, rather than fixate on the pretzel or marshmallow.

Mischel, Ebbesen, and Antonette Zeiss, a visiting faculty member at the time, set out to investigate whether attending to rewards cognitively made it more difficult for children to delay gratification.

The Stanford Marshmallow Experiments

Mischel, Ebbesen and Zeiss (1972) designed three experiments to investigate, respectively, the effect of overt activities, cognitive activities, and the lack of either, in the preschoolers’ gratification delay times.

Experiment 1

Fifty-six children from the Bing Nursery School at Stanford University were recruited. To build rapport with the preschoolers, two experimenters spent a few days playing with them at the nursery.

Children were randomly assigned to one of five groups (A – E).

The children were individually escorted to a room where the test would take place. Each child was taught to ring a bell to signal for the experimenter to return to the room if they ever stepped out.

Treat vs. No Treats Condition

Children in groups A, B, and C were shown two treats (a marshmallow and a pretzel) and asked to choose their favorite.

They were then told that the experimenter would soon have to leave for a while but that they’d get their preferred treat if they waited for the experimenter to come back without signaling for them to do so.

They were also explicitly allowed to signal for the experimenter to come back at any point in time but told that if they did, they’d only get the treat they hadn’t chosen as their favorite. Both treats were left in plain view in the room.

Children in groups D and E were given no such choice or instructions.

Children in groups A, B, or C who waited the full 15 minutes were allowed to eat their favored treat. Those in groups A, B, or C who didn’t wait 15 minutes were allowed to have only their non-favored treat.

Children in groups D and E weren’t given treats. All children got to play with toys with the experiments after waiting the full 15 minutes or after signaling.

Distraction vs. No Entertainment Condition

Children in groups A and D were given a slinky and were told they had permission to play with it.

Children in groups B and E were asked to “think of anything that’s fun to think of” and were told that some fun things to think of included singing songs and playing with toys.

Each child’s comprehension of the instructions was tested. Six children didn’t seem to comprehend and were excluded from the test. The remaining 50 children were included.

All 50 were told that whether or not they rang the bell, the experimenter would return, and when he did, they would play with toys.

Waiting time was scored from the moment the experimenter shut the door. The experimenter returned either as soon as the child signaled or after 15 minutes if the child did not signal.

The results suggested that children were much more willing to wait longer when they were offered a reward for waiting (groups A, B, C) than when they weren’t (groups D, E)

The results also showed that children waited much longer when they were given tasks that distracted or entertained them during their waiting period (playing with a slinky for group A, thinking of fun things for group B) than when they weren’t distracted (group C).

Experiment 2

This test differed from the first only in the following ways :

• Thirty-eight children were recruited, with six lost due to incomplete comprehension of instructions.
• Thirty-two children were randomly assigned to three groups (A, B, C).
• All children were given a choice of treats, and told they could wait without signalling to have their favourite treat, or simply signal to have the other treat but forfeit their favoured one.
• In all cases, both treats were left in plain view.
• Children in group A were asked to think of fun things, as before.
• Those in group B were asked to think of sad things, and likewise given examples of such things.
• Those in group C were asked to think of the treats.

The results suggested that children who were given distracting tasks that were also fun (thinking of fun things for group A) waited much longer for their treats than children who were given tasks that either didn’t distract them from the treats (group C, asked to think of the treats) or didn’t entertain them (group B, asked to think of sad things).

Experiment 3

• Sixteen children were recruited, and none excluded.
• Children were randomly assigned to three groups (A, B, C),
• In all cases, both treats were obscured from the children with a tin cake cover (which children were told would keep the treats fresh).
• Children in group A were asked to think about the treats.
• Those in group B were asked to think of fun things, as before.
• Those in group C were given no task at all.

The results suggested that when treats were obscured (by a cake tin, in this case), children who were given no distracting or fun task (group C) waited just as long for their treats as those who were given a distracting and fun task (group B, asked to think of fun things).

On the other hand, when the children were given a task that didn’t distract them from the treats (group A, asked to think of the treats), having the treats obscured did not increase their delay time as opposed to having them unobscured (as in the second test).

Final Conclusions

The studies convinced Mischel, Ebbesen, and Zeiss that children’s successful delay of gratification significantly depended on their cognitive avoidance or suppression of the expected treats during the waiting period, e.g., by not having the treats within sight or by thinking of fun things.

Children, they reasoned, could wait a relatively long time if they –

Believed they really would get their favoured treat if they waited (eg by trusting the experimenter, by having the treats remain in the room, whether obscured or in plain view). Shifted their attention away from the treats. Occupied themselves with non-frustrating or pleasant internal or external stimuli (eg thinking of fun things, playing with toys).

Critical Evaluation

• Sample size determination was not disclosed.
• The study population (Stanford’s Bind Nursery School) was not characterized and so may differ in relevant respects from the general human population or even the general preschooler population. (In fact, the school was mostly attended by middle-class children of faculty and alumni of Stanford.)
• The findings might also not extend to voluntary delay of gratification (where the option of having either treat immediately is available, in addition to the studied option of having only the non-favored treat immediately).

Longitudinal Studies Using Stanford Data

Delayed gratification and sat scores.

In 1990, Yuichi Shoda, a graduate student at Columbia University, Walter Mischel, now a professor at Columbia University, and Philip Peake, a graduate student at Smith College, examined the relationship between preschoolers’ delay of gratification and their later SAT scores.

Six-hundred and fifty-three preschoolers at the Bing School at Stanford University participated at least once in a series of gratification delay studies between 1968 and 1974.

Four hundred and four of their parents received follow-up questionnaires. One hundred and eighty-five responded. Ninety-four parents supplied their children’s SAT scores.

Children were divided into four groups depending on whether a cognitive activity (e.g., thinking of fun things) had been suggested before the delay period or not and on whether the expected treats had remained within sight throughout the delay period or not.

The difference in the mean waiting time of the children of parents who responded and that of the children of parents who didn’t respond was not statistically significant (p = 0.09, n = 653).

Preschoolers’ delay times correlated positively and significantly with their later SAT scores when no cognitive task had been suggested and the expected treats had remained in plain sight.

Other correlations were not significant.

Limitations

Shoda, Mischel, and Peake (1990) urged caution in extrapolating their findings since their samples were uncomfortably small.

Delayed Gratification and Positive Functioning

In a 2000 paper, Ozlem Ayduk, at the time a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia, and colleagues, explored the role that preschoolers’ ability to delay gratification played in their later self-worth, self-esteem, and ability to cope with stress.

Five-hundred and fifty preschoolers’ ability to delay gratification in Prof. Mischel’s Stanford studies between 1968 and 1974 was scored.

Each preschooler’s delay score was taken as the difference between the mean delay time of the experimental group the child had been assigned to and the child’s individual score in that group.

Between 1993 and 1995, 444 parents of the original preschoolers were mailed with questionnaires for themselves and their now adult-aged children. A hundred and eighty-seven parents and 152 children returned them.

The questionnaires measured, through nine-point Likert-scale items, the children’s self-worth, self-esteem, and ability to cope with stress. The scores on these items were standardized to derive a positive functioning composite.

The positive functioning composite, derived either from self-ratings or parental ratings, was found to correlate positively with delay of gratification scores.

Preschoolers who were better able to delay gratification were more likely to exhibit higher self-worth, higher self-esteem, and a greater ability to cope with stress during adulthood than preschoolers who were less able to delay gratification.

Delayed Gratification and Body Mass Index

In a 2013 paper, Tanya Schlam, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, and colleagues, explored a possible association between preschoolers’ ability to delay gratification and their later Body Mass Index.

Prof. Mischel’s data were again used. Of 653 preschoolers who participated in his studies as preschoolers, the researchers sent mailers to all those for whom they had valid addresses (n = 306) in December 2002 / January 2003 and again in May 2004.

Of these, 146 individuals responded with their weight and height. Individual delay scores were derived as in the 2000 Study.

Preschoolers’ ability to delay gratification accounted for a significant portion of the variance seen in the sample (p < 0.01, n = 146).

Specifically, each additional minute a preschooler delayed gratification predicted a 0.2-point reduction in BMI in adulthood.

Marshmallow Test Replication Study

In a 2018 paper, Tyler Watts, an assistant professor and postdoctoral researcher at New York University, and Greg Duncan and Haonan Quan, both doctoral students at UC, Irvine, set out to replicate longitudinal studies based on Prof. Mischel’s data.

Data on 918 individuals from a longitudinal, multi-center study on children by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (an institute in the NIH) were used for the study.

The sample was split into two groups –

• Data on children of mothers who had not completed university college by the time their child was one month old (n = 552);
• Data on children of mothers who had completed university college by that time (n = 366).

The first group (children of mothers without degrees) was more comparable to a nationally representative sample (from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten by the National Center for Education Statistics). Even so, Hispanic children were underrepresented in the sample.

A variant of the marshmallow test was administered to children when they were 4.5 years old. An interviewer presented each child with treats based on the child’s own preferences.

Children were then told they would play the following game with the interviewer –

• The interviewer would leave the child alone with the treat;
• If the child waited 7 minutes, the interviewer would return, and the child would then be able to eat the treat plus an additional portion as a reward for waiting;
• If the child did not want to wait, they could ring a bell to signal the interviewer to return early, and the child would then be able to eat the treat without an additional portion.

Delay of gratification was recorded as the number of minutes the child waited.

Academic achievement was measured at grade 1 and age 15. Measures included mathematical problem solving, word recognition and vocabulary (only in grade 1), and textual passage comprehension (only at age 15). Scores were normalized to have a mean of 100 ± 15 points.

Behavioral functioning was measured at age 4.5, grade 1, and age 15. Mothers were asked to score their child’s depressive and anti-social behaviors on 3-point Likert-scale items.

For intra-group regression analyses, the following socio-economic variables, measured at or before age 4.5, were controlled for –

• Demographic characteristics like gender, race, birth weight, mother’s age at child’s birth, mother’s level of education, family income, mother’s score in a measure-of-intelligence test;
• Cognitive functioning characteristics like sensory-perceptual abilities, memory, problem-solving, verbal communication skills; and
• Home environment characteristics are known to support positive cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning (the HOME Inventory by Caldwell & Bradley, 1984).

• Watts, Duncan, and Quan (2018) did find statistically significant correlations between early-stage ability to delay gratification and later-stage academic achievement, but the association was weaker than that found by researchers using Prof. Mischel’s data.
• In addition, the significance of these bivariate associations disappeared after controlling for socio-economic and cognitive variables.
• There were no statistically significant associations, even without controlling for confounding variables , between early gratification delay and later behavioral functioning at age 15.

Conclusions

These results further complicated the relationship between early delay ability and later life outcomes.

Prof. Mischel’s findings, from a small, non-representative cohort of mostly middle-class preschoolers at Stanford’s Bing Nursery School, were not replicated in a larger, more representative sample of preschool-aged children.

Increasing Delayed Gratification

The following factor has been found to increase a child’s gratification delay time –

Trust in rewarders:

Children who trust that they will be rewarded for waiting are significantly more likely to wait than those who don’t. Kidd, Palmeri, and Aslin, 2013, replicating Prof. Mischel’s marshmallow study, tested 28 four-year-olds twice.

In the first test, half of the children didn’t receive the treat they’d been promised. In the second test, the children who’d been tricked before were significantly less likely to delay gratification than those who hadn’t been tricked.

The following factors may increase an adult’s gratification delay time –

Knowledge of time-to-reward:

Individuals who know how long they must wait for an expected reward are more likely to continue waiting for said reward than those who don’t.

McGuire and Kable (2012) tested 40 adult participants. One group was given known reward times, while the other was not. The first group was significantly more likely to delay gratification.

Probability of the expected reward materializing:

When the individuals delaying their gratification are the same ones creating their reward.

For example, for someone going on a diet to achieve a desired weight, those who set realistic rewards are more likely to continue waiting for their reward than those who set unrealistic or improbable rewards.

Gelinas et al. (2013) studied the association between unrealistic weight loss expectations and weight gain before a weight-loss surgery in 219 adult participants.

The correlation coefficient r = 0.377 was statistically significant at p < 0.008 for male (n = 53) but not female (n = 166) participants.)

What is the marshmallow test?

The Marshmallow Test is a psychological experiment conducted by Walter Mischel in the 1960s. In this study, a child was offered a choice between one small reward (like a marshmallow) immediately or two small rewards if they waited for a short period, usually 15 minutes, during which the tester left the room.

What does the marshmallow test measure?

The marshmallow test measures a child’s ability to delay gratification by offering them a choice to eat a marshmallow immediately or wait for a reward for an additional marshmallow after a short period.

It assesses self-control, impulse control, and the capacity to delay instant gratification, which is connected to future success and self-regulation skills.

Ayduk, O., Mendoza-Denton, R., Mischel, W., Downey, G., Peake, P. K., & Rodriguez, M. (2000). Regulating the interpersonal self: strategic self-regulation for coping with rejection sensitivity . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79 (5), 776.

Bradley, R. H., & Caldwell, B. M. (1984). The HOME Inventory and family demographics. Developmental psychology, 20 (2), 315.

Gelinas, B. L., Delparte, C. A., Hart, R., & Wright, K. D. (2013). Unrealistic weight loss goals and expectations among bariatric surgery candidates: the impact on pre-and postsurgical weight outcomes. Bariatric Surgical Patient Care, 8 (1), 12-17.

Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., & Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability . Cognition, 126 (1), 109-114.

McGuire, J. T., & Kable, J. W. (2012). Decision makers calibrate behavioral persistence on the basis of time-interval experience . Cognition, 124 (2), 216-226.

Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. B. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16 (2), 329.

Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Raskoff Zeiss, A. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification . Journal of personality and social psychology, 21 (2), 204.

Schlam, T. R., Wilson, N. L., Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Ayduk, O. (2013). Preschoolers” delay of gratification predicts their body mass 30 years later . The Journal of pediatrics, 162 (1), 90-93.

Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions . Developmental psychology, 26 (6), 978.

Watts, T. W., Duncan, G. J., & Quan, H. (2018). Revisiting the marshmallow test: A conceptual replication investigating links between early delay of gratification and later outcomes . Psychological science, 29 (7), 1159-1177.

Keep Learning

• Cohort Effects in Children’s Delay of Gratification
• Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions
• Delay of Gratification as Reputation Management

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Fun with marshmallows

August 9, 2013 By Emma Vanstone 4 Comments

I cannot believe we are halfway through the school holidays and halfway through Spectacular Summer Science.

Last week, we featured Reading Confetti and the fantastic slushy drinks . This week, we have a great marshmallow experiment from Fantastic Fun and Learning .

I loved the process of predicting what would happen and using knowledge from previous activities. My three would think this was great fun.

Have you got any candy experiments to share? Did you try our popping candy activity ?

Have a wonderful weekend, and do pop back next week for more Spectacular Summer Science.

Day 1 –  Density and a bit of science magic.

Day 2 –  Red cabbage indicator

Day 3 – Surface tension

Day 4 – Water Science

You can find the first two weeks of  Spectacular Summer Science  here.

Last Updated on September 19, 2023 by Emma Vanstone

Safety Notice

Science Sparks ( Wild Sparks Enterprises Ltd ) are not liable for the actions of activity of any person who uses the information in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources. Science Sparks assume no liability with regard to injuries or damage to property that may occur as a result of using the information and carrying out the practical activities contained in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources.

These activities are designed to be carried out by children working with a parent, guardian or other appropriate adult. The adult involved is fully responsible for ensuring that the activities are carried out safely.

Reader Interactions

August 09, 2013 at 4:49 pm

Thanks so much for featuring this experiment. It led to a lot of curiosity about other materials and what would happen if they dissolved. The kids loved it!

August 12, 2013 at 8:05 pm

Oooh, I don’t know… Have to go and try now; and the popping candy, I love that stuff! xx

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Science at Home for Kids

Easy and fun science experiments using household items! Follow us on Instagram @scienceathomekids for more cool science!

Massive Marshmallows

I love marshmallows; they taste great in cookies, s’mores, and by themselves. But what’s even better than a normal marshmallow? A massive marshmallow! This experiment takes a normal marshmallow and puffs it up to almost 4 times its original size.

What you need:

• 3 marshmallows

• Place two marshmallows on the plate

• Place the plate in the microwave and watch the marshmallows expand to your desired size (this will only take a few seconds, so make sure to keep a close eye on them)
• Take the marshmallows out of the microwave. Compare their size to the original marshmallow and guess how much they expanded.

• Use your fingers and observe one of the marshmallows. Is it fluffier or harder than the original marshmallow? (It should be fluffier)

• Allow the other marshmallow sit until it is completely cool, about 10 minutes
• Observe its texture (it should be very hard and crumble when you pick it up)

What’s happening in this experiment?

Marshmallows are made of sugar and water wrapped around air bubbles. When the marshmallows cook in the microwave, the water molecules vibrate very quickly, making the water heat up. The hot water warms the air and the sugar, which softens a little. The gas molecules move around faster and push against the walls of the container. Since the sugar walls are warm and soft, the bubbles expand, and the marshmallow puffs up. If it puffs up too much, the air bubbles will burst, causing the marshmallow to deflate.

When the marshmallow cools, the bubbles shrink and the sugar hardens again. When the microwave marshmallow cools, it’s dry and crunchy. It is more dry than the original marshmallow because some of its water evaporates when it is hot.

So cool! I had fun testing this out with my children. Fun way to learn and science.

I’m glad you enjoyed it!

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7 things marshmallows teach us about self-control

by Joseph Stromberg

Nearly 50 years ago, psychologist Walter Mischel sat five-year-old children down at a table and gave them a simple choice: they could eat one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows later.

Mischel and his colleagues, conducting research at a nursery school on Stanford's campus, wanted to explore the nature of self-control. One at a time, each child was seated in front of a plate with one marshmallow (or another treat of their choice). If they could refrain from eating any until an adult returned, they were told, they could have two. Alternately, if they couldn't resist, they could ring a bell and an adult would return, allowing them to have just one (some, of course, just ate the marshmallow instead of ringing the bell).

These experiments generated all sorts of interesting findings, but they became famous because of something remarkable that happened years later: on average, the kids who could wait longer for another marshmallow were found to have higher SAT scores and got along better with others, used drugs at lower rates as young adults, and even had lower body mass indexes 30 years later at the outset of middle age. Waiting for two marshmallows turned out to be really, really important.

Many people have interpreted this to mean that our fate in life is predetermined. But Mischel, out with a new book — The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control — says the real lesson of these experiments is the exact opposite.

"The most important thing we learned is that self-control — and the ability to regulate one's own emotions — involves a set of skills that can be taught, and learned," Mischel says. " They're acquirable. Nothing is predetermined."

What's more, he says, these experiments provide concrete lessons about self-control we can use as adults. He argues that the same strategies a five-year-old uses to avoid eating the marshmallow can help you quit smoking, or stick to a diet, or save for retirement. Mischel recently spoke with me about these strategies.

story,interview

Avoid the temptation

Watch a video of children taking the marshmallow test today and one thing becomes obvious: the more exposure to the marshmallow they let themselves have, the more likely they are to eat it. In other words, picking up and sniffing the marshmallow, or pretending to eat it, is not a strategy for staving off the temptation — it's a recipe for giving in imminently.

Kids who turned away from the marshmallow or pushed it farther away, on the other hand, were more successful. And o ther experiments found that if the marshmallow was covered by by a screen and the kids couldn't see it, they waited ten times longer, on average, before ringing the bell.

The reason, Mischel and other psychologists argue, is that the battle between instant gratification (one marshmallow now) and long-term prudence (two marshmallows later) is really a battle between two different systems of the brain. " There's the limbic system — the lower, more primitive brain, which responds immediately and emotionally, and allowed us as a species to survive a predator-filled environment in ancient times," Mischel says. " Then other parts of the brain, concentrated in the prefrontal cortex , allow us to do things like control our attention, and think about the future, and delay gratification." Neuroscientists often call this the brain's executive function .

In the book, Mischel likens the impulse-driven limbic system to "hot" thinking, and the slower, more rationally-driven executive function to "cool" thinking. These categories may oversimplify — in terms of the underlying brain structures — but they're still a helpful way of understanding our response to different sorts of stimuli. And various experiments have shown that exposure to the sight, smell, or taste of a temptation activate the sort of short-term "hot" thinking that make us most likely to give in to it.

There are all sorts of lessons for adults here, Mischel writes. If you're trying to quit smoking, surrounding yourself with smokers will inevitably drain your willpower and make you more likely to have a cigarette. " This is the reason why, even if you have resolutions about how many potato chips you're going to eat, once you open the bag, it's so hard to not empty it. It's because they taste good," he says. "Once you're focusing on that — rather than the long-term issues of cholesterol and obesity — it's incredibly hard to stop."

Distract yourself

One of the most amusing aspects of watching marshmallow test videos is the things kids do to occupy themselves instead of eating. " They take off their shoes and play with their toes as if they were piano keys. They're inventing little songs, or exploring their nasal cavities," Mischel says. Sometimes, " they engage in Charlie Chaplin-like monologues, reminding themselves, 'If I ring the bell, then I don't get the two marshmallows.'"

These sorts of activities are adorable. But they're also an interesting look at a crucial strategy. In a sense, it's the flip side of avoiding temptation: distracting oneself by doing or thinking about something else entirely.

In experiments, when the researchers suggested that the children conjure a fun memory before leaving them alone, the kids waited about ten times longer before ringing the bell than otherwise. On the other hand, suggesting that the kids think about the delicious taste of the marshmallow pretty much guaranteed they'd ring the bell or eat it immediately.

The lesson is that daydreaming or distracting yourself — instead of directly thinking about the temptation — is a way of quelling the sort of "hot" thinking that leads to giving in. This, too, can be useful to adolescents and adults as well as five-year-olds, regardless of the temptation at hand.

Mentally transform your temptation

One of factors that helped kids most effectively delay gratification was remarkably simple. " If the child looked at the cookie but pretended it weren't real — they were told beforehand to put an imaginary picture frame around it and pretend it was just a picture — the child who would previously ring the bell within 30 seconds could now wait 10 or 15 minutes, on average," Mischel says.

Simply transforming the desired object inside your brain affects your response to it — and how much willpower it will require to abstain. An adult might not be as easily persuaded that a tempting item is simply a picture, but it can be transformed in plenty of other ways. " For instance, instead of a drug being a fantastic high, pretend it's a poison," Mischel says. " How you think about it makes a huge difference in cooling your desire for it."

This sort of mental transformation is often more effective than thinking about long-term consequences. " To cool your desire for a piece of chocolate fudge, instead of thinking about your next blood test, just imagine that a cockroach nibbled on it," Mischel suggests. This is why, in other countries, cigarette packs often come with graphic photos of cancer-scarred lungs, rather than mere text.

A Canadian cigarette label. (Photo by Pierre Roussel/Newsmakers)

Many psychologists argue that our sense of disgust evolved to protect us from unsanitary foods . I f that's the case, triggering a feeling of disgust might be effective because it taps into the power of the impulse-driven "hot" thinking, but instinctively pushes us in the opposite direction.

This sort of thinking can even be leveraged to make long-term priorities seem more like urgent temptations. One recent study , for instance, found that people committed 30 percent more money towards their 401(k) savings accounts if they saw a photo of themselves that had been digitally altered to look about 68 years old. Just being able to see themselves in old age made the need to save for retirement seem much more urgent.

Create an "if-then" plan

"If-then" planning is now a tenet of many productivity coaches, but Mischel observed it way back in the 1970s, as part of an experiment that came shortly after the marshmallow tests.

In the experiment, four- and five-year-olds were put in a room with something called Mr. Clown Box — essentially, a talking, light-up box with toys that invited kids to come play with it. Like the marshmallow test, they were told that if they could ignore the short-term temptation (and complete a more boring task), they'd be rewarded later (by getting to play with both the clown and other toys).

These young children understandably had a tough time completing their boring task. But they were dramatically more successful when the researchers suggested that if the clown talked to them, they should do something specific, like turn away from it, or tell it to shut up. In essence, this is rudimentary "if-then" planning — explicitly creating a plan to follow in the event of a specific stimulus.

" The lesson that comes out of that, and has now been studied by other people in great detail, is that very simple "if-then" plans work," Mischel says. "For instance, ' If the alarm rings at 7:00, then I will get out of bed — I won't hit snooze. If I am working on a homework assignment, then I will turn off my phone.'"

This seems simple, but research has shown it's dramatically more effective than vaguer sorts of resolutions on a consistent basis. One study found that 91 percent of participants who created an if-then exercise plan ( 'If it's a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, then I will go to the gym') stuck with it, compared with just 39 who created a vague plan (' I will go to the gym more often'). "Articulating targeted plans beforehand, based on the areas of our lives in which we want to exert self-control, makes a huge difference," Mischel says.

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Minimize stress

Many different experiments have shown that, both in kids and adults, high levels of stress increase the chance we'll give in to short-term "hot" impulses instead of prioritizing long-term "cool" thinking. fMRI studies have also shown that stress affects the prefrontal cortex — the region most heavily involved in long-term thinking — more detrimentally than any other area of the brain.

Over time, chronic levels of high stress appear to alter the structure of this area , disrupting someone's baseline capacity to engage in long-term thinking even on a non-stressful day. " Kids who are living under chronic stress have to get help in having that reduced to do well in school," Mischel says. In other words, children dealing with a difficult home life can't just suddenly turn on the ability to control themselves and concentrate on a lesson when they enter the schoolhouse door. (Somewhat related is the fact that, as Mischel found and other scientists have since confirmed , kids growing up in unstable home settings are less likely to delay gratification for a good reason: there's no guarantee that an adult is telling the truth about the two marshmallows later.)

This goes for adults as well, and explains why many of us find ourselves giving in to temptation during difficult times — whether it's something as mundane as stress-eating or more destructive long-term decisions.

Self-control is more important than you realize

The marshmallow test is famous not because of the self-control strategies it's taught us, but because of the striking way it has served as an indicator of its subjects long-term success.

" We found that there are correlations between the number of seconds a child delayed the marshmallow for, and outcomes in early adolescence, including early SAT scores, and teacher and parent ratings of how well the children were doing socially and cognitively in their teens," Mischel says. Teens who had waited longer for the marshmallow also reported they were better at dealing with stress and frustration.

Later, the researchers found, adults who had waited longer reported they were better at pursuing long term goals and were found to have lower body mass indexes and were less likely to use drugs . Even more recently, brain scans of the adults who'd waited longest as kids and those who waited least showed differences in prefrontal cortex activity.

In short, being able to choose two marshmallows later instead of one marshmallow now turns out to be crucial in navigating many of life's biggest challenges. "T he stuff needed to delay gratification on the marshmallow test — namely, executive function — is exactly what's needed for school success," Mischel says. Kids who have that are " ready to learn, to focus on the teacher, to concentrate, to not become distracted, to keep the goal in mind."

This also applies to many other areas. " As we grow up, we have to deal with not only not gobbling up every temptation that's in sight, but we have to be able to control our negative emotions," Mischel says. "We won't do well in kindergarten if, every time we become angry, we punch everyone around us. So the ability to recognize and inhibit one's own negative emotions is another part of executive function."

But self-control isn't a fixed trait

This is the thing that many people have gotten wrong about the marshmallow test. It may be true that, on the whole, children who waited longer for the marshmallow did better, by some measures, later in life.

But the test wasn't designed to "pass" or "fail" kids. It was designed to see what circumstances and strategies make delaying easier, and which make it harder. And more than anything, it shows that self-control is a mutable skill that's highly dependent on the choices we make and the conditions we find ourselves in. It's not a fixed trait like height or eye color, but something that we can all constantly work on — like, say, the ability to play the piano.

"For me, the marshmallow test is not an indicator that our futures are already determined when we're four years old, but that our potential for maximizing our lives involves a set of skills that are already visible and teachable at age four," Mischel says. "[It] involves a set of skills that can be taught, and learned. They're acquirable. Nothing is predetermined."

( Shutterstock.com )

Joseph Stromberg: How did you come up with the original marshmallow test?

Walter Mischel: Well previously, in Trinidad, I had done work trying to understand what were the determinants of the choice to go for the little candy now, or wait for the big one later. In economics, this is now called " intertemporal discounting ." It's a fancy way of saying, 'would you rather have $1 today, or $1.10 tomorrow?'

So for about five years, we were trying to understand what determines this choice. And clearly, one of the most important determinants is how strongly the choice maker believes that the delayed outcome will actually come. For instance, kids who live in environments in which promises are regularly broken aren't going to be very likely to wait for a bigger candy later. Other crucial determinants, we found, were the subjective value of the rewards, as well as the actual delay time.

We mapped all that out, and then I got to Stanford. And I myself had three closely-spaced daughters, from age zero to age five. So I wanted to ask a different question about self-control: once you've made the choice that you want two cookies, or two marshmallows, why are the cognitive and emotional skills that make it possible for you to see it through?

It's not about initially choosing. I can choose as I'm walking in to a restaurant, for instance, that I'm not going to have desert. But when the server comes with the dessert cart and starts describing to me how delicious the chocolate fudge cake is, my choice might be forgotten, and all of a sudden I have the cake in my mouth. So the difference between making the choice and actually having the ability to sustain it is what the marshmallow test measures.

Joseph Stromberg: In a nutshell, what did the test teach us?

Walter Mischel: The whole point of the experiment was to identify the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that make it possible for kids to engage in sustained self-control. And l ooking back on it, what makes the marshmallow experiments so interesting is that they tap what neuroscientists now call executive function .

It depends on a few things. You have to have a delayed goal in mind: I want to wait and not eat this marshmallow so I get an extra one. To not eat the marshmallow, you have to start by giving yourself as little chance to eat it as possible. You have to think, ' I can't start sniffing this marshmallow, I need to push this marshmallow as far away as possible so I won't be tempted.' By analogy, if we're talking about kids and homework assignments, they're not going to be able to concentrate if they keep their phone next to them — so to reach the goal, they have to turn off their phone.

And thirdly, you have to use your attention control and imagination to reach the goal too. When we're talking about four-year-old kids, they do things like turn around in the chair, so they can't see the marshmallow. They take off their shoes and play with their toes as if they were piano keys. They're inventing little songs, or exploring their nasal cavities.

When they get a little bit older — say, five — they engage in Charlie Chaplin-like monologues, reminding themselves, "If I ring the bell, then I don't get the two marshmallows." It's adorable, but it's also a fantastic window for seeing how executive function works and develops.

Joseph Stromberg: What other strategies affected whether the kids could wait or not?

Walter Mischel: A big one was imagination. I f the child looked at the cookie but pretended it weren't real — they were told beforehand to put an imaginary picture frame around it and pretend it was just a picture — the child who would previously ring the bell within 30 seconds could now wait 10 or 15 minutes, on average.

What that tells us is that what enables self-control is the ability of the individual to transform the meaning of the stimulus. That's a skill that, if you have it, it's terrific. Rather than being the victim of the chocolate fudge, or the victim of the cigarette or drug, you're the one who's in charge. You can change how you represent it. For instance, instead of a drug being a fantastic high, pretend it's a poison.

Another interesting factor came out of our later experiments with something called " Mr. Clown Box " [a talking box with toys that invited kids to come play with it]. Kids came up with very simple explicit "if-then" plans beforehand — if the clown box is tempting me, I'm not going to look at him, or I'll tell him to shut up. The lesson that comes out of that, and has now been studied by other people in great detail, is that very simple "if-then" plans work. If the alarm rings at 7:00, then I will get out of bed — I won't hit snooze. If I am working on a homework assignment, then I will turn off my phone. Articulating targeted plans beforehand, based on the areas of our lives in which we want to exert self-control, makes a huge difference.

Joseph Stromberg: What were some of the other circumstances beyond kids' control that made a difference?

Walter Mischel: One of the things that make control extremely difficult is when one is experiencing chronic stress levels. One useful way to think about the brain is to divide it into two parts. There's the limbic system — the lower, more primitive brain, which responds immediately and emotionally, and allowed us as a species to survive a predator-filled environment in ancient times. Back then, long-term self-control was less important. There was no need for retirement planning.

Then the other parts of the brain, concentrated in the prefrontal cortex , allow us to do things like control our attention, and think about the future, and delay gratification.

The problem is that, often, the fast, emotional system snaps into place too quickly. When it comes to retirement planning, for instance, I'd rather use my paycheck today and buy something fun, rather than set it aside for the future and have it when I'm old.

If we want to change that, it becomes imperative to make the delayed consequences hot. So in this case, imagine yourself in old age, without any money. That's not an easy thing to do. But the point is, if you want to exert self-control, you need to make the distal consequences hot and control the immediate temptation.

Joseph Stromberg: What are some things that did the opposite — that made it more difficult for kids to wait?

Walter Mischel: All they have to do is start thinking about how delicious it is. They just have to start looking at it, and focusing on the "hot" features — how yummy it is, how chewy it is.

This is the same reason why, even if you have resolutions about how many potato chips you eat, once you open the bag, it's so hard to not empty it. It's because they taste good. Once you're focusing on that — rather than the long-term issues of cholesterol and obesity — it's incredibly hard to stop.

So the key is that we have the freedom to change how we represent our objects of desire. We can think about the potato chip being poison, rather than delicious and crunchy. How you think about it makes a huge difference in cooling your desire for it. To cool your desire for a piece of chocolate fudge, instead of thinking about your next blood test, just imagine that a cockroach nibbled on it.

Joseph Stromberg: One of the really interesting things about this research is how you and colleagues found these long-term correlations between test results and all sorts of measures. Could you tell me a bit about that?

Walter Mischel: Well, essentially, we found that there are correlations between the number of seconds a child delayed the marshmallow for, and outcomes in early adolescence, including early SAT scores, and teacher and parent ratings of how well the children are doing socially and cognitively in their teens.

In the next follow-up, when the kids were young adults between the ages of 27 and 32, we again found correlations between how well they felt they were able to pursue their long-term goals, how well they could deal with frustration, and so on. In one study, we could show there was even a correlation between seconds of delay time when they were four years old and their body mass index at age 32.

Then, in the next wave, which we conducted when they were in their early forties, we saw differences between the consistently high delay kids and the consistently low self-control kids. When we compared those two extreme groups, we saw differences in their fMRIs, in terms of activity in areas of the brain involved in resisting temptation.

What we're doing currently is working with an economist at Harvard and following this sample as they're in their early fifties to look at their economic outcomes — their credit card default rates and so on. Those data will be published sometime early next year.

Joseph Stromberg: Why do you think our ability to exert self-control is so important?

Walter Mischel: I think the stuff needed to delay gratification on the marshmallow test — namely, executive function — is exactly what's needed for school success. So if a kid is already able to control oneself in preschool, they've already got a leg up on academic and social success. With academic, it's clear: they're ready to learn, to focus on the teacher, to concentrate, to not become distracted, to keep the goal in mind. Those fundamentals are in place.

But they also have a much better chance to regulate their negative emotions in general, which is crucial for social success. As we grow up, we have to deal with not only not gobbling up every temptation that's in sight, but we have to be able to control our negative emotions. We won't do well in kindergarten if, every time we become angry, we punch everyone around us. So the ability to recognize and inhibit one's own negative emotions is another part of executive function. These things add up over the course of development.

Joseph Stromberg: What's the relative role of genetics and environment in all this? How much of our ability to exert self-control seems to be predetermined?

Walter Mischel: It's becoming increasingly clear that the nature-nurture question really needs to be rephrased: how do nature and nurture interact to produce who we are?

We're not a genetic text that simply plays out from birth on. We are dealt a genome, but there are also switches that determine which parts of our DNA is turned on, and which parts are turned off. These switches are profoundly influenced by the environment — both the biological environment and the psychological environment, so the food we eat and toxins we inhale, but also the emotional experiences we have, the chronic stress levels we experience.

So in essence, environments are much more influential than we used to think they were, and genetics are much more malleable than we used to think we were. Both are continuously interacting, over the entire course of life. For instance, if we become depressed, our biology actually changes. Our brain structures change. The same thing happens if we have vibrant and joyous experiences.

Joseph Stromberg: What do you think are the public policy implications of this sort of research?

Walter Mischel: We've reached a point where there is a pretty clear consensus about executive function, and how it hinges on the reduction of chronic stress levels. This is essential for education. Kids who are living under chronic stress have to get help in having that reduced to do well in school. And secondly, they need to have learning experiences in which their executive skills are maximized.

This means that school curricula, beginning as early in life as possible, need to include those ingredients. There are a number of programs that have demonstrated — for example, the TK diamond tools of the mind program — that it is possible for very young children to learn strategies, as part of games in nursery school, that will have important consequences and improve their executive function skills.

These ideas have been put into place in a number of school programs. Here's a simple example: the research suggests that it's very important for us to be able to cool down our negative emotions before go violent. So some classrooms are now featuring something called "thinking chairs." If a child feels he or she is about to lose it, they can go sit there. It's not like standing in the corner, it's not a punishment, it's a chance for a kid to withdraw for a few minutes and think cool thoughts — sometimes the kids are suggested they can think about their anger floating off like a balloon, or count backwards from 100.

Joseph Stromberg: What are some of the most common criticisms of the test? How do you respond to them?

Walter Mischel: It's often said that the marshmallow test doesn't take trust into account. This is dead wrong. The work started, in Trinidad, with us showing the tremendously important role of trust in making these choices.

Another is that people think the test means you should delay gratification all the time. That's not it at all. If we did that, life wouldn't be worth living. This isn't about constant, rigid self-control — it's about making decisions on when it's worth waiting, and when it's time to ring the bell.

In terms of the long-term correlations, lots of people misinterpret this to mean it's true in every case. But there are lots and lots of exceptions. The correlations just show that, on average, someone who could delay longer during the marshmallow test had different outcomes than someone who could not. It doesn't necessarily mean anything about your child's destiny.

For me, the the most important thing we learned is that self-control — and the ability to regulate one's own emotions — involves a set of skills that can be taught, and learned. They're acquirable. Nothing is predetermined. For me, the marshmallow test is not an indicator that our futures are already determined when we're four years old, but that our potential for maximizing our lives involves a set of skills that are already visible and teachable at age four.

Joseph Stromberg: Why do you think this research has gained so much cultural currency over the last few decades?

Walter Mischel: I think there's something about "two marshmallows later or one marshmallow now" that's intuitively appealing. Everyone can imagine themselves in those situations. It may not be marshmallows, but we have all experiences those kinds of dilemmas. It feels natural, and feels right.

When we talk about executive function, or the prefrontal cortex, that's less appealing. But there's something really vivid about marshmallows.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Marshmallow Science Experiment – Candy STEAM Activity

Recently we made a marshmallow edible play dough that my youngest loved! My oldest wasn’t as fond of the taste but he was obsessed with watching the process. See while making the play dough the marshmallows do some crazy things. But why? And how could we turn it into something really fun? That was the big question that lead to this science experiment and STEAM activity.

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I always love it when my kids create their own science experiments. They see something and it raises questions. Over time they have learned that they can take those questions and turn them into new activities and studies. That is exactly what happened recently when we made Marshmallow Play Dough .

See while warming the marshmallows in the microwave they got really, REALLY BIG!

My son was fascinated.

With a bit of research we discovered the science behind what was happening.

The Science Behind Marshmallow Science

Marshmallows are a whole lot of sugar, water and air bubbles. When you heat marshmallows in a microwave the water molecules vibrate very quickly which makes the water heat up. This in turn warms the sugar (causing it to soften) and warms the air in the bubbles.

Since the warm air is trapped in side of the marshmallow bubbles (think of those marshmallow bubbles like little balloons), the heated air molecules get excited and move around faster, pushing against the marshmallow walls. Since the warmed sugar is softened the hyperactive air molecules push and stretch the sugar. This makes it puff up.

If it puffs up too much, some air bubbles burst, and the marshmallow ruptures. Once the marshmallow starts to cool it deflates like a popped balloon.

So now we know the science, it was time to conduct an experiment!

Supplies for Marshmallow Science Experiment

To do this experiment you need: Marshmallows (regular or jumbo) Icing Writers (known as Scribblers in Canada) Icing Writers in Sparkle (because it’s AWESOME!) Large plate or bowl Microwave

Marshmallow Science Experiment and STEAM Activity

The first step was a bit like decorating Easter eggs. We used our Icing Writers and decorated our Marshmallows. This can be done with food coloring if you wish but we found that method really messy (and frankly I dread cleaning up food dye!). The Icing Writers did a beautiful job and kept the mess fairly contained.

Once our marshmallow was decorated we placed it on a large plate and set it in the microwave. We then turned on the microwave and watched closely.

Within seconds our marshmallow started growing. Then it tipped over as the ends expanded and started to round.

And it grew some more, and more!

Finally it split!

We developed a bit of a game trying to stop the growing marshmallow just before it split.

If you over cook them they will start to turn brown inside. This the beginning of the caramelizing of the sugars.

Finally we watched the changes that occurred as it cooled and deflated. You can see on the plate how much it shrank back down from it’s largest size.

We also explored how sticky and soft the marshmallows were when first out of the microwave and how they hardened as they cooled. This is caused by the sugars warming and cooling.

Of course, when we were all finished, we ate our science experiment!

  MORE CANDY SCIENCE FROM STEAM POWERED FAMILY

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Remembrance for walter mischel, psychologist who devised the marshmallow test.

Julie Carli

Walter Mischel, a revolutionary psychologist with a specialty in personality theory, died of pancreatic cancer on Sept. 12. He was 88.

Mischel was most famous for the marshmallow test, an experiment that became a pop culture touchstone. But, he said, the thrust of the experiment and its results were often misinterpreted. (You can hear Mischel explain why in the video by Marcie LaCerte at the top of this page).

Born in Vienna in 1930, his family fled to the United States when Mischel was only 8 years old. After graduating from New York University with bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology, he went on to get a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University in 1956.

Mischel's education left him frustrated with the orthodox research models of the time, many of which were influenced by the likes of Freud. Mischel believed these models failed to adequately consider context, both the particular experimental situation and people's internal goals.

So, he set out on different path in 1960, using preschoolers from Stanford University's Bing Nursery School as his study subjects.

His idea, which you've probably heard of, was simple enough. First, you sit a kid in front of a delicious marshmallow. Then, you tell her she will get two marshmallows if she can resist eating the marshmallow while you leave the room.

Invisibilia

The personality myth.

His experiment was a test of delayed gratification and, over the years, the test epitomized the idea that there are specific personality traits that we all have inside of us that are stable and consistent and will determine our lives far into the future.

Despite some follow-up studies that failed to replicate the results , the lesson our society has drawn from the marshmallow test is that children who are able to delay their own gratification are destined to be more successful as adults than those that can't.

There was just one problem with that conclusion, as Mischel himself explained to Alix Spiegel, in an episode of the podcast Invisibilia called "The Personality Myth." He told her: "That iconic story is upside-down wrong — that your future is in a marshmallow — because it isn't."

So why does this myth seem to persist?

Well, it seems one crucial detail was left out of conversation. Some kids were given strategies to help them resist the tempting treat, such as closing their eyes, while others were not. And, it was the kids who were best at deploying these strategies who had greater success in later life.

"People can use their wonderful brains to think differently about situations, to reframe them, to reconstrue them, to even reconstrue themselves," Mischel said.

Nearly fifty years after the publication of his early iconic work , Mischel was still on the forefront of correcting the entrenched orthodoxy of static personalities, as well as the psych myth that his famous study had become. In 2014, he wrote The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control.

"What my life has been about is in showing the potential for human beings, to not be the victims of their biographies — not their biological biographies, not their social biographies," he said. "And to show, in great detail, the many ways in which people can change what they become and how they think."

Julie Carli is an intern with Invisiblia.

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Self-Control

Does the “marshmallow test" really predict success, intriguing surprises upon repeating the original high-impact research..

Posted May 27, 2018

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Last night I dreamt I ate a ten pound marshmallow. When I woke up the pillow was gone. —Tommy Cooper Think of the universe as a benevolent parent. A child may want a tub of ice-cream and marshmallows, but a wise parent will give it fruits and vegetables instead. That is not what the child wants, but it is what the child needs. —Srikumar Rao

Marshmallows across time

The original Marshmallow Experiment (Mischel, 1958) was conducted in Trinidad, comparing the capacity of Creole and South Asian childrens to forgo a 1-cent candy in favor of a much nicer 10-cent candy one week later.

In the original study, Mischel is presented as an American gathering information about children in local schools, made up of Creole and South Asian cultural groups. He shows the children the candy options, and tells them: “I would like to give each of you a piece of candy but I don’t have enough of these [better ones] with me today. So you can either get this one [the smaller] right now, today, or, if you want to, you can wait for this one [the better one], which I will bring back next Wednesday [a week later]”.

He found that the Creole children were significantly more likely to take the candy right away, as contrasted with the South Asian kids. He found two predictors for immediate gratification—having a home without a father, and being younger, both presumed to be related to psychological and emotional maturity. Children from homes with fathers (typically the South Asian families), and older children, were able to wait until the following week, and enjoy more candy. Future research explored the ongoing themes of self-regulation strategies geared to delay gratification for future benefit, ego control, and ego resilience .

In the early 1970s, Mischel and his colleagues (1972) studied children between the ages of 3 and 5 years old to look at how they handled gratification in the face of temptation to better understand voluntary self-control. There were three experiments. In the first one, distraction from the reward (sitting right in front of the children) prolonged the wait time. In the second, cultivating sad thoughts versus happy thoughts made it harder to take the immediate pay-off, and in the final experiment being encouraged to think about the reward (now out of sight) made it harder to wait. Their research continued to tease apart different regulation strategies, identifying what children who were able to wait did to enable them to delay gratification, whether these skills might be teachable, and looking at how those skills could translate into real-world performance later on in life. The marshmallow test came to be considered more or less an indicator of self-control—becoming imbued with an almost magical aura.

In 1988, Mischel and Shoda published a paper entitled The Nature of Adolescent Competencies Predicted by Preschool Delay of Gratification. In this research, the seminal Marshmallow Experiment paper everyone’s heard about, study authors looked at the relationship between the ability to wait longer to take a desired treat—one marshmallow now or two after 10 minutes—and markers of performance and success measured 10 years after, as reported by the participants’ parents and performance measures including verbal fluency, social success, focus, dependability, trustworthiness, standardized test scores for college application, and a host of other admired qualities most desirable in one’s offspring. Every moment longer that a child had been able to wait appeared to be correlated with how much better they did later in life. As the data diffused into the culture, parents and educators snapped to attention , and the Marshmallow Test took on iconic proportions. Pity the child who couldn’t resist temptation, because that might portend dismal future prospects.

Marshmallows, revisited

Fast-forward to 2018, when Watts, Duncan and Quan (a group of researchers from UC Irvine and New York University) published their paper, Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes. Researchers looked at ability to delay gratification at age 5 as related to various benchmarks at age 15. The design was similar to the original experiments in many respects. The children were offered a treat, assigned according to what they said they liked the most, marshmallows, cookie, or chocolate, and so on. If they were able to wait 7 minutes, they got a larger portion of their favorite, but if they could not, they received a scantier offering.

Researchers were surprised to find that a large proportion of children were able to wait the full time, and the proportion varied with the mother’s level of education . Sixty-eight percent of those whose mothers had college degrees and 45 percent for those whose mothers did not complete college were able to wait the full 7 minutes. This limited the data analysis for the group with more highly educated mothers.

Researchers used a battery of assessments to look at a range of factors: the Woodcock-Johnson test for academic achievement; the Child Behavior Checklist, to look for behavioral issues (internalizing e.g. depression vs. externalizing e.g. acting out); and the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME), a highly detailed roster of important factors related to the home environment, along with a variety of demographic variables. HOME looks at the early childhood environment, including factors such as the quality of the learning environment, the approach to languages, the physical environment, responsivity of those around the child, academic resources, the availability of role models, and other crucial influences not previously included in studies of confectionary fortitude.

Surprising results

When all was said and done, their results were very different from those of the original Marshmallow Experiment. First of all, when they controlled for all the additional variables, especially the HOME measures, they did not see a significant correlation with how long kids had been able to wait and future success and performance. They found that for children of less educated parents, waiting only the first 20 seconds accounted for the majority of what was predicted about future academic achievement. Waiting longer than 20 seconds didn’t track with greater gains. For the children of more educated parents, there was no correlation between duration of delaying gratification and future academic or behavioral measures, after controlling for the HOME and related variables.

Notably, the uncontrolled correlations did seem to show a benefit for longer delayed gratification, appearing to mirror the original experiment's findings, but that effect vanished with control of variance. Another notable—it would have been interesting to see if there were any effects observed if the waiting period had been longer than 7 minutes. Maybe if you can wait at least 12 minutes, for example, you would do much better than those who could only wait 10 minutes—but presumably the researchers did not expect that many would be able to wait longer, and so used the shorter time-frame.

Much to ponder

I can’t help but wonder if kids have learned to be able to wait longer because of the Marshmallow Experiment, the broad exposure it has had, and potential effects on education and child-rearing. This “Marshmallow Effect”, one of the propeller blades of helicopter parenting , might very well be stronger for the "Marshmallow Kids" of highly educated parents. Educated parents might be more familiar with parenting research and recommendations, consumers of popular psychology, and highly motivated to provide the most enriched environments for their offspring (thus driving up the HOME scores for positive influences). From this point of view, next time you are frustrated with a Millennial, you might consider whether you are feeling aftershocks from the Marshmallow Experiment.

Most importantly though, this research suggests that basic impulse control, after correcting for environmental factors and given the right context, may turn out to be a big predictor of future success. The more nuanced strategies for self-regulation, tools which presumably take longer than 20 seconds to implement, may not be as clearly implicated in success as earlier research would suggest. Let's see what the next round of research shows, no easy feat given the time spans involved and the foresight to have a good research design.

The Marshmallow Test may not actually reflect self-control, a challenge to the long-held notion it does do just that. Moreover, the study authors note that we need to proceed carefully as we try to better understand how children develop self-control and develop cognitive abilities. It’s a good idea to resist the temptation to over-generalize or even jump to conclusions about what to do to give children a competitive advantage, and look more closely at a variety of developmental influences. In a culture which brainwashes us to "fail fast and fail often", delaying gratification also may not be as adaptive as it once was. Time will tell.

Mischel, W. (1958). Preference for delayed reinforcement: An experimental study of a cultural observation. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 56(1), 57-61.

Mischel, W., Ebbesen, E. B., & Raskoff Zeiss, A. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(2), 204-218.

Mischel W & Shoda Y. The Nature of Adolescent Competencies Predicted by Preschool Delay of Gratification, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988, Vol. 54, No. 4, 687-696.

Watts TW, Duncan GJ & Quan H. Revising the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes. Psychological Science, 1-19, 25 May, 2018.

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The Marshmallow Test: Delayed Gratification in Children

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The marshmallow test, which was created by psychologist Walter Mischel, is one of the most famous psychological experiments ever conducted. The test lets young children decide between an immediate reward, or, if they delay gratification, a larger reward. Studies by Mischel and colleagues found that children’s ability to delay gratification when they were young was correlated with positive future outcomes. More recent research has shed further light on these findings and provided a more nuanced understanding of the future benefits of self-control in childhood.

Key Takeaways: The Marshmallow Test

• The marshmallow test was created by Walter Mischel. He and his colleagues used it to test young children’s ability to delay gratification.
• In the test, a child is presented with the opportunity to receive an immediate reward or to wait to receive a better reward.
• A relationship was found between children’s ability to delay gratification during the marshmallow test and their academic achievement as adolescents.
• More recent research has added nuance to these findings showing that environmental factors, such as the reliability of the environment, play a role in whether or not children delay gratification.
• Contrary to expectations, children’s ability to delay gratification during the marshmallow test has increased over time.

The Original Marshmallow Test

The original version of the marshmallow test used in studies by Mischel and colleagues consisted of a simple scenario. A child was brought into a room and presented with a reward, usually a marshmallow or some other desirable treat. The child was told that the researcher had to leave the room but if they could wait until the researcher returned, the child would get two marshmallows instead of just the one they were presented with. If they couldn’t wait, they wouldn’t get the more desirable reward. The researcher would then leave the room for a specific amount of time (typically 15 minutes but sometimes as long as 20 minutes) or until the child could no longer resist eating the single marshmallow in front of them.

Over six years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mischel and colleagues repeated the marshmallow test with hundreds of children who attended the preschool on the Stanford University campus. The children were between 3 and 5 years old when they participated in the experiments. Variations on the marshmallow test used by the researchers included different ways to help the children delay gratification, such as obscuring the treat in front of the child or giving the child instructions to think about something else in order to get their mind off the treat they were waiting for.

Years later, Mischel and colleagues followed up with some of their original marshmallow test participants. They discovered something surprising. Those individuals who were able to delay gratification during the marshmallow test as young children rated significantly higher on cognitive ability and the ability to cope with stress and frustration in adolescence. They also earned higher SAT scores.

These results led many to conclude that the ability to pass the marshmallow test and delay gratification was the key to a successful future. However, Mischel and his colleagues were always more cautious about their findings . They suggested that the link between delayed gratification in the marshmallow test and future academic success might weaken if a larger number of participants were studied. They also observed that factors like the child’s home environment could be more influential on future achievement than their research could show.

Recent Findings

The relationship Mischel and colleagues found between delayed gratification in childhood and future academic achievement garnered a great deal of attention. As a result, the marshmallow test became one of the most well-known psychological experiments in history. Yet, recent studies have used the basic paradigm of the marshmallow test to determine how Mischel’s findings hold up in different circumstances.

Delayed Gratification and Environmental Reliability

In 2013, Celeste Kidd, Holly Palmeri, and Richard Aslin published a study that added a new wrinkle to the idea that delayed gratification was the result of a child’s level of self-control. In the study, each child was primed to believe the environment was either reliable or unreliable. In both conditions, before doing the marshmallow test, the child participant was given an art project to do. In the unreliable condition, the child was provided with a set of used crayons and told that if they waited, the researcher would get them a bigger, newer set. The researcher would leave and return empty-handed after two and a half minutes. The researcher would then repeat this sequence of events with a set of stickers. The children in the reliable condition experienced the same set up, but in this case the researcher came back with the promised art supplies.

The children were then given the marshmallow test. Researchers found that those in the unreliable condition waited only about three minutes on average to eat the marshmallow, while those in the reliable condition managed to wait for an average of 12 minutes—substantially longer. The findings suggest that children’s ability to delay gratification isn’t solely the result of self-control. It’s also a rational response to what they know about the stability of their environment.

Thus, the results show that nature and nurture play a role in the marshmallow test. A child’s capacity for self-control combined with their knowledge of their environment leads to their decision about whether or not to delay gratification.

Marshmallow Test Replication Study

In 2018, another group of researchers, Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan, and Haonan Quan, performed a conceptual replication of the marshmallow test. The study wasn’t a direct replication because it didn’t recreate Mischel and his colleagues exact methods. The researchers still evaluated the relationship between delayed gratification in childhood and future success, but their approach was different. Watts and his colleagues utilized longitudinal data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a diverse sample of over 900 children.

In particular, the researchers focused their analysis on children whose mothers hadn’t completed college when they were born—a subsample of the data that better represented the racial and economic composition of children in America (although Hispanics were still underrepresented). Each additional minute a child delayed gratification predicted small gains in academic achievement in adolescence, but the increases were much smaller than those reported in Mischel’s studies. Plus, when factors like family background, early cognitive ability, and home environment were controlled for, the association virtually disappeared.

The results of the replication study have led many outlets reporting the news to claim that Mischel’s conclusions had been debunked. However, things aren’t quite so black and white. The new study demonstrated what psychologists already knew: that factors like affluence and poverty will impact one’s ability to delay gratification. The researchers themselves were measured in their interpretation of the results. Lead researcher Watts cautioned , “…these new findings should not be interpreted to suggest that gratification delay is completely unimportant, but rather that focusing only on teaching young children to delay gratification is unlikely to make much of a difference.” Instead, Watts suggested that interventions that focus on the broad cognitive and behavioral capabilities that help a child develop the ability to delay gratification would be more useful in the long term than interventions that only help a child learn to delay gratification.

Marshmallow madness

With help from a marshmallow and syringe (without the needle!), you can create pressure that's stronger than the atmosphere, right in the palm of your hand.

This experiment teaches principles of pressure, properties of foam, and ocean science. Uh, what do marshmallows have to do with the ocean? With this demonstration, you'll be able to basically see the effect of deep-sea pressure on just one marshmallow from the book   Try This! Extreme by Karen Romano Young. 

Draw a face or letter on the marshmallow. (This will help you see how it changes under pressure.)

Pull the plunger of the syringe all the way out, and insert a marshmallow. Replace the plunger.

Suck out the air by pulling the plunger. Observe the results.

Push the plunger back in. Observe the results.

WHAT'S GOING ON

The marshmallow may look solid, but it’s actually full of air pockets—a foam. When you pump air in, you increase the pressure on the marshmallows and the air inside them is compressed. When air rushes back in, the marshmallows may get larger—and if you suck it out they may get smaller.

Science Lab

(ad) try this extreme: 50 fun & safe experiments for the mad scientist in you, (ad) make this: building thinking, and tinkering projects for the amazing maker in you, (ad) try this: 50 fun experiments for the mad scientist in you.

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December 20, 2012

Sweet Science: Making Marshmallows

A cooking chemistry challenge from Science Buddies

By Science Buddies

Key concepts Chemistry Boiling point Food science

Introduction Whether you're gathered around a fire or drinking hot chocolate after a day in the snow, nothing says sweet, squishy fun quite like a marshmallow! Even its name is soft and spongy! Have you ever wondered how marshmallows are made? Long ago people made marshmallows with ingredients from the marshmallow herb, but today we usually make them with other ingredients, namely gelatin, corn syrup and sugar. In this appetizing activity you'll get to explore what ratio of sugar to corn syrup produces the best-tasting and best-textured marshmallows! Background Marshmallows are an unusual type of sweet treat—spongy, sticky and a little bit chewy. They have a melting point that is just above body temperature so that they start to change from a solid to a liquid state as soon as they reach the warmth of your mouth—or the heat of a fire! They're also an ancient creation, originally coming from a tall marshmallow plant ( Althaea officinalis ) that grows in swampy fields and has a soft, spongy root. Its root contains mucilage, a thick, gluey substance produced by some plants and microscopic animals to help with food storage and seed germination. Some cultures used the plant to make candy, whereas others used it to make medicine. The ancient Egyptians, for example, dried the root and mixed it with honey to make marshmallow treats, but the French experimented with using its gummy juice to soothe sore throats. Modern marshmallows no longer contain parts of the marshmallow plant. Instead, the store-bought version is primarily a mix of three ingredients: sugar, corn syrup and gelatin. The gelatin replaces the thick, gluey substance from the marshmallow plant. Varying the ratio of sugar to corn syrup can significantly affect what the resultant marshmallows are like. Materials •     Timer •     Two square foil cake pans or round foil pie pans each eight to nine inches wide •     Masking tape •     Pen or marker •     Vegetable oil, such as canola or safflower oil •     Paper towels •     Powdered or confectioner’s sugar •     Small strainer •     Large mixing bowl •     Measuring cups •     Water •     Two plain, unflavored, quarter-ounce gelatin envelopes; available at grocery stores •     Fork •     One half cup of corn syrup, like light corn syrup; glucose syrup is a possible substitute •     One and one quarter cups of granulated sugar •     Small saucepan with lid •     Candy thermometer (must be able to read up to 240 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 115 degrees Celsius) •     Electric mixer or beater •     Measuring spoons •     Pure vanilla extract •     Spatula •     Pizza wheel or cookie cutter approximately one-by-one inch •     Ruler •     Large airtight containers or gallon-size sealable plastic bags •     Taste-testing volunteers (such as friends and family!) Preparation •     Wash and thoroughly rinse your hands. •     Set out all cooking tools and ingredients so they are ready to go and easy to access. •     Use the masking tape and a pen or marker to label the bottom of one cake pan "1" and the other "2." •     Pour a small amount of vegetable oil on a paper towel and lightly oil the inside of the cake pans. Pour a small amount of powdered sugar in the strainer and lightly dust the inside of the pans. •     Be careful when heating syrup mixtures in the saucepan. An adult should closely supervise these steps. Procedure •     Pour one sixth cup of cold water into the large mixing bowl. (To get one sixth cup, just fill up the one third measuring cup halfway.) Sprinkle a quarter-ounce packet of gelatin over the cold water. Mix the gelatin and water together for about five seconds with a fork and set the bowl aside. This will give the gelatin time to soften, or "bloom." •     Add one quarter cup of cold water, one half cup of sugar, and one third cup of corn syrup to the saucepan. (This is a 3:2 ratio of sugar to corn syrup.) •     Put the lid on the saucepan and turn the stove to medium-high heat. An adult should closely supervise all work from this point on. The syrup solution, which will become very hot, should be handled with extreme care. •     Lift the lid and check the solution in the saucepan about every 30 seconds until it just comes to a boil. Remove the lid. •     Begin to measure the temperature of the syrup in the saucepan using the candy thermometer. Do not let the thermometer touch the bottom or side of the pan, but instead try to put the tip below the surface, near the middle of the pan. Continue heating your syrup until the temperature reaches 240 degrees Fahrenheit (about 115 degrees Celsius). How does the temperature rise? Does it go up quickly at first? What happens as the syrup becomes more concentrated? •     When the temperature reaches 240 degrees F, immediately turn off the stove and move to the next step. How does the syrup mixture seem to change as it gets closer to this temperature? •     Turn the mixer on low and carefully pour the hot syrup into the large mixing bowl with the gelatin. (Some syrup will likely solidify on the saucepan.) •     Set the timer for 11 minutes and start it. •     Gradually increase the speed of the mixer until it is operating at full (high) speed. Continue to beat for approximately 11 minutes, or until the mixture starts to become very thick, glossy and lukewarm. How does the mixture change as you mix it? •     Add one half teaspoon of vanilla extract and then beat for one more minute. Note how long you beat the syrup. •     Quickly use a vegetable oil–coated spatula to scoop out the marshmallow mixture from the mixing bowl and put it into the prepared cake pan labeled 1. If needed and easy to do, use the spatula to gently smooth down the top of the marshmallow so that it is pretty flat. •     Wash and dry all cooking utensils. •     Repeat the entire activity procedure (not including the preparation) but this time add a three quarter cup of sugar and one sixth cup of corn syrup to the saucepan. (This is a 9:2 ratio of sugar to corn syrup.) (Still add the one quarter cup of cold water to the saucepan first.) In the mixing bowl beat this recipe for the same amount of time. When it is ready, scoop this marshmallow mixture from the mixing bowl and into the prepared cake pan labeled 2. •     Allow the marshmallow "pies" to sit out, uncovered, on a counter for at least four hours (or as long as overnight) so they can become firm. •     Once firm, turn the marshmallow pies over, one at a time, onto a cutting board. Use a spatula to help lift the pies out. •     Roll a pizza cutter or cookie cutter into some powdered sugar and then use it to cut up your marshmallows into approximately one-by-one-inch pieces. •     Dust the marshmallows on all sides with a little strained powdered sugar. •     Place the marshmallows in an airtight container or plastic bag, labeling the container with the number of the recipe (1 or 2). •     Within a week of making the marshmallows, take a marshmallow piece from each bag. Try to find pieces that are as similar in shape and size as possible. Drop each marshmallow in a saucepan of hot water, keeping track of which marshmallow was from each recipe. Watch and see how quickly each marshmallow piece melts. Repeat this melting test three times. Which marshmallow piece melted first? •     Within a week of making the marshmallows, gather your taste-testing volunteers (such as family and friends) to evaluate the marshmallows for taste and texture. Which marshmallows do they prefer? Which ones are the chewiest and which ones are the least chewy? Which are the softest and which are the hardest? You may want to save a few pieces to do some of the "Extra" tests below. •     Extra: In this activity you may have noticed that marshmallow pieces were harder from one recipe than the other. You can try to investigate this more quantitatively. To do this, put a marshmallow square from one of the recipes on a cutting board. Arrange a small cookie cutter so that it can sit on top of the square. On top of the cookie cutter balance a small plastic or paper cup. Put 20 pennies in the cup, one at a time. Did the cookie cutter leave a noticeable impression? Try this with a marshmallow square from the other recipe. Did the cookie cutter leave a more or less noticeable impression? Observations and results Were the marshmallow pieces from recipe 1 fluffier, softer and less sweet than the pieces from recipe 2? Did the marshmallows from recipe 1 melt faster than the pieces from recipe 2?

In the sugar and corn syrup solutions you heated, the sugar made the solutions' boiling points higher than that of pure liquid water. The greater the concentration of sugar in the solution, the higher its boiling point. Consequently, marshmallow pieces from recipe 1 should have had a lower boiling point than pieces from recipe 2, making the former melt faster than the latter when placed in hot water. The final concentration of sugar in the syrup determines the structure of the candy that forms. Think about caramels and lollipops—the caramel is softer and chewier whereas the lollipop is hard and cracks when you bite it. The syrup used to make caramels is cooked until it has about an 87 percent concentration of sugar in solution, whereas the syrup used to make lollipops reaches about 99 percent concentration of sugar in solution. (As the syrup boils water evaporates, and the syrup becomes even more concentrated with sugar.) When making marshmallows, the syrup is cooked until an 85 percent concentration of sugar is in the syrup, and the corn syrup is added to help prevent crystals from forming in the cooled syrup. The marshmallow pieces from recipe 1 should have been fluffier, softer, less sweet and more like store-bought marshmallows than the pieces from recipe 2.

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Gelatin is a protein that comes from collagen, the main protein in connective tissue in animals. It has the special quality of being able to coagulate (or come together) when it is beaten or whipped. When the hot concentrated syrup is beaten into gelatin with a mixer, bubbles form in the mixture and the gelatin coagulates around the bubbles, stabilizing their walls so they don't collapse. Cleanup Enjoy your tasty marshmallow treats! If stored in an airtight container, they should be good for a week. To clean up any marshmallow-making messes, try dissolving and washing them away with warm water.

More to explore Monster Mallows from the Exploratorium The Cold Water Candy Test from the Exploratorium Test Recipes: Marshmallows from Michael Chu at Cooking for Engineers. Mixing Your Own Marshmallows: Finding the Right Ratio of Sugar to Corn Syrup from Science Buddies

This activity brought to you in partnership with  Science Buddies

• Teaching & Learning

How marshmallows could make your students more successful

The new school year is a time of establishing routines and getting back to work. For many students, it can be a struggle to settle back down, exercise self-control, and get stuck into tricky topics.

They will need support to follow new routines around their learning. They will need help with self-regulation when they are struggling to think or concentrate.

Equally, when we set them homework or expect them to begin revising and learning independently, they’ll need reliable routines to help them to focus and succeed.

But as every teacher knows, self-regulation, effortful thinking and good habits can sometimes be in short supply. So we must seek out savvy strategies to promote learning and help our classes to fend off distractions.

Is the marshmallow test still relevant?

There is a famous psychological experiment around self-control and delayed gratification called the marshmallow test . This iconic study presented young children with a marshmallow and if they could delay their desire for a single sweet, they would gain two as a reward.

For decades, it was thought that the marshmallow test could actually predict self-control and success in adulthood .

Alas, more recent evidence has indicated that the sweet study does not neatly sum up the power of self-control . It is a bit more complicated than that.

More from Alex Quigley:

• How to stop working memory making learning harder  
• Is TikTok harming pupils’ attention spans?
• Why extrinsic motivation might not be so bad for pupils

But we shouldn’t chuck out this famous experiment. Teachers and students (as well as parents) can still learn a lot from it.

For example, the researchers found that the children who trusted the person offering the marshmallow were more likely to delay - suggesting that if we want to help students build self-regulation and control, they need to trust us.

Also, strategies matter. In the test, the young children who waited successfully would stare at a mirror, cover their eyes or talk to themselves, rather than fixate on the tasty treat.

Self-control strategies for the classroom

So what can we take from this? Let’s start with the strategies used to promote self-regulation and control in the classroom. Teachers may consider how they can reduce classroom noise and consider how much visual stimulation is presented on wall displays .

And if students are taking on an extended task, such as writing a story, teachers can promote regular “editing stops” for when they feel themselves getting distracted or losing focus. They may be encouraged to use some self-talk to remind themselves of key things to remember for their writing.

And when it comes to homework, or any form of independent study, students will need explicit training in an array of practical strategies.

They’ll need to resist technology and have strategies to separate themselves from their phones. They can be encouraged to break down larger periods of time into smaller chunks, by using the Pomodoro method, for example.

And maybe then those fluffy marshmallows can offer us the secret to starting the school year successfully.

Alex Quigley is the author of Why Learning Fails (And What To Do About It)

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