WEBVTT

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[school bell rings]

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-If I eat 100 marshmallows,
I would be filled up!

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(Richard Aslin)
Everybody knows that young children,

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particularly toddlers--
two to four-year-olds--

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are subject to impulsivity,

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and it has been thought that
that is a characteristic

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that children are born with.

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-Do you know what?
It is snack time now.

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-And so, what we wanted to know
is whether or not

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some of these differences
between children

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can be influenced by their own
rational thought processes.

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-We wanted to manipulate
children's beliefs

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about how reliable the environment
that they were in was.

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We assign kids to one of two conditions:

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either the reliable condition
or the unreliable condition.

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-So, for the art supplies
that you get to use,

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you actually have a choice.

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You can either use these crayons
right now,

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or if you can wait for me to go get some
from the other room,

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you can use our big set of art supplies
instead.

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(Celeste Kidd)
The kids in the reliable condition,

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when the team member came back
into the room,

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had the better thing,
and for the kids

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in the unreliable condition,
the experimenter apologized,

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and said she made a mistake,
we didn't have that available,

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and then helped them use
the first option.

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-I'm so sorry, but I actually don't have
that big set of art supplies

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I told you about.
Sorry about that.

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But you can still use these ones
to make your project.

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(Aslin)
A classic example of a task

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in which children show impulsivity

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is what's called
the "marshmallow task".

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-For your snack, you have a choice.
Look what I've got.

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-[gasp] A marshmallow!

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-Yeah! So, wait, just a second;
let me explain.

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So, you can either eat
this one marshmallow right now,

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or if you can wait for me to go get it
from the other room,

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you can have two marshmallows instead.

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-I want two marshmallows!

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(Aslin)
And what we found,

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which was an incredibly large effect,

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the children who were in
the unreliable group

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were more likely to fairly quickly

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pick up the marshmallow
and eat it.

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So, on average,
they waited about three minutes.

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-And did you know,
I did not eat this marshmallow yet?

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(Aslin) The children
who were in the reliable group

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waited four times longer,
so they waited about 12 minutes,

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which is an incredibly long time

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for young children to wait
before they get a reward.

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(Kidd) The difference
is maybe due to differing expectations

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about what's likely to happen
in the world.

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That's what this experiment
was designed to address.

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-For any three year old,
self-control is not necessarily

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at the top of their skill base.
[laughs]

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But, in general,
when she sets her mind

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that she's going to do something,
she's going to do it.

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(Kidd) In the marshmallow task,
what you want to do

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is you want to get
the most amount of marshmallow possible,

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but there may be other considerations.

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Given that I have this one marshmallow
now that's guaranteed,

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what are the chances that if I wait,

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there's going to be a second marshmallow
later?

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-If it was a teacher he had
all the time, that if--

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they would have that trust bond
a little bit longer,

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then he'd probably wait longer.

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(Aslin)
One of the lines of work

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that evolved as a result
of the marshmallow task

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was to look at the outcomes

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of children's behavior
later in life,

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but something that's been missing
from the equation

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is this rational process
by which children

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are accessing information
in their environment

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and making decisions about
whether they should behave

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in the short term
or behave in the long term.

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So, if they're in an environment

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in which long term gain
is very rare,

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well then, it makes perfect sense
for them to behave impulsively

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because that's going to maximize
their reward.

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-How's it taste?
-Mmmm!

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(narrator) A production
of the University of Rochester.

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Please visit us online
and subscribe to our channel

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for more videos.

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[school bell rings]