The historic “marshmallow test” has tied young children’s ability to delay gratification to their long-term success, but a new, larger replication study in Psychological Science puts those long-term results in doubt.
Using a significantly larger and more diverse group of children than the original study, researchers compared 4-year-olds’ ability to delay gratification to their academic and behavioral progress in 1st grade and at age 15. They found children’s early ability to delay gratification was linked to their later academic achievement, but not to behavior or attention outcome.
