In the late 1960's, a psychologist named Walter Mischel conducted an experiment on a group of four-year olds. He gave each child a marsmallow and told them that if they don't eat it and wait for him to return in the room after 20 minutes, he would give them another one as a reward for being patient. Some children ate the marsmallow right away while a number of them were able to resist the temptation and waited.
Fourteen years later, Mischel followed up on the children. Those who couldn't wait suffered from low self-esteem and was regarded by their teachers and parents as stubborn, prone to envy and easily frustrated. Meanwhile, those who did not eat their marsmallows were more self-motivated, educationally successful and emotionally intelligent.
This study proved that people who believe in delayed gratification for better returns lead more positive lives.
"Deferred gratification or delayed gratification is the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants. This is known by many names, including impulse control, will power, and self control. In formal terms, and individual should calculate present value of future rewards and defer near-term rewards of lesser value. Research has shown that animals do not do this, so this problem is fundamental to human nature.
Conventional wisdom considered good impulse control to be personality trait important for life success. Daniel Goleman has suggested it is an important element of emotional intelligence. People who lack this trait are said to need instant gratification and may suffer from poor impulse control.
Almost everyone, every day, practices delay of gratification-whether deciding to skip dessert in order to lose weight or give up smoking in order to live longer. The ability to delay gratification is often a sign of emotional and social maturity. Young children, for example, find it more difficult to delay gratification than older children. When kindergartners in one study were offered a choice between getting a small candy bar immediately or a larger one later, 72% chose the smaller candy bar. This number decreased to 67% among first and second garders and 49% for third and fourth graders. By the fifth and sixth grades it had fallen to 38%, nearly half the rate for kindergartners"
to be continued...