The Waiting Game: A Review of the Marshmallow Task and its Impact on Society

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The marshmallow task is a psychological test used for many decades to test young children’s capability to delay gratification. The basic procedure task consisted of four aspects: an activity, a reward, a choice, and a period of delayed gratification. Through diving into the classic and modern experiments of the marshmallow task and synthesizing the findings, this paper reviewed the topic of self-control as the primary driving force of influence behind the subject’s performance. This review considered the various influences that impact performance and consequentially the results and conclusions, including self-control, the experimenter’s perceived reliability, culture, power of habit, and reputation management. The period of the experiments covered in this review ranges from the studies from 1962, including the classic Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, to the modern findings, with the most recent one performed in 2023. By taking into account different investigative points, this review could help readers better understand the findings that stem from the marshmallow task and how they translate into society, in addition to new perspectives and testing variables for future research. Suggested changes for the task include expanding the age limit and changing the reward type.