Don T Eat The Marshmallow Essay

The film I decided to watch for this analysis is called “Don’t Eat The Marshmallow”, from Joachim de Posada. The short film goes over the idea of what is the most important factor for success. Joachim believes that with a simple test, using 4 year old kids, has given us the answer of what makes us successful. The experiment was done by a Stanford Psychology professor using marshmallows and 4 year old children. He would take one kid at a time and test them individually in a room. He gave each kid a simple but daunting task of leaving them in the room by themselves, with a marshmallow sitting in front of them, without eating the marshmallow for 15 minutes. If you complete the task at hand, of not eating the marshmallow, you were rewarded with

From this short experiment the Stanford professor gained valuable information. That children, as a early as four years of age, understand the most important principle for success is the ability to delay gratification. The ability to delay gratification is as simple as being self disciplined, which Joachim and the Stanford professor believes is the most important factor for success. The study didn’t finish there with just a marshmallow and a four year old kid. The Stanford professor took the data he gained from the experiment and correlated it with a follow up study with the same kids 15 years later. What he found out was that 100 percent of the children that had not eaten the marshmallow, when they were tested years back, were truly successful. They excelled in academics, were happy, goal oriented, good relationships with their peers, and were overall doing awesome. As for the kids that ate the marshmallow when they were tested, were in a complete opposite path in comparison. The kids were mostly in trouble, didn’t really excel academically, and didn’t have a bright future as those who didn’t eat the