Revolutionary Psychology Experiments That Are As Crazy As Their Results

1. Marshmallow Test of Patience

This is a simple test of patience that has, time and again, proved that people who wait for better mostly end up with better results.

Walter Mischel of Stanford University decided to find out how instant gratification helped in shaping a person’s future. He placed a marshmallow on the table and made kids choose to have them right then or wait for 15 minutes after which they can have two.

While few of the 600 children ate the marshmallow immediately about one-third of them waited and got two marshmallow treats. Follow up studies on all the children in their later years showed that children who waited and deferred gratification scored better in their SATs, meaning they held onto their behavior as they grew up.