Are marshmallows the key to happiness?
They might be—but not in the way that you think.
In the classic “Marshmallow Experiment” on delayed gratification, researchers brought hundreds of children—mostly around 4 and 5 years old—into a room and offered them a deal. The researcher said that the child could eat a marshmallow now. Or, they could wait, and if they did not eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they would be given a second marshmallow.
It was a simple choice: eat one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows later.
The researcher’s left the room, and video footage of the children struggling to not eat the marshmallow has become famously entertaining. Some children ate the marshmallow right away. Others waited and got a second marshmallow later….