Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way? The Key to Success in Life

The Marshmallow Test of Strong Will

In 1960, American psychologist Walter Mischel conducted the marshmallow test. It was supposed to examine the correlations between preschoolers’ self-control and their later successes or failures in learning and relationships with peers. The child under examination had a difficult task ahead of them: Either eat the marshmallow lying in front of them or wait a few minutes to receive two. Some kids ate sweets at once, and others fought bravely: They talked to each other, wobbled in a chair, tried to fall asleep, pick their noses and ears to distract their attention. The record holder was able to postpone the gratification for 15 minutes.

After a few years, Mischel met these children again. It turned out that those who had a stronger will and resisted the temptation to immediately satisfy their desires had greater achievements in education, deeper relationships, and a very good health state.

It seems that the strong will of some of the children predestined them for greater success in life. But is this quality present in man to an unchanging degree and given from birth?

Success in Life and Self-Control

The scientists Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Vohs and Diane Tice have undertaken to investigate the phenomenon of self-control. They tested how the effort involved in refraining from one activity affects effectiveness in another. In one of the tests, participants were asked to abstain from eating sweets and instead eat healthier but unpalatable radishes. Later they had to solve logical tasks. It’s proven that people who struggled with the desire to eat something sweet gave up a frustrating task much faster than those in the control group. Baumeister, Vohs and Tice conducted similar tests that required participants to suppress different emotions while watching videos and then doing muscle strength exercises. Also, in this case, the subjects who had to refrain from doing one task by force of will achieved worse results in the other.

Ego Depletion

The researchers concluded that there is a certain psychological resource in a man, which undergoes exhaustion. Their findings also suggest an analogy to a muscle that gets tired when it is used, but can also be exercised. Other tests have shown that exercising self-control in one area (for example, in spending money) increases it in another (for example, in following a diet).

However, when willpower becomes exhausted in a human, what Baumeister, Vohs and Tice called ego depletion occurs. When a person’s ability to control themselves is drained, they will not be able to make any effort to change, and it can lead to alcohol abuse, overeating, or problems with reasoning. To restore willpower, rest is necessary, and to increase it, exercise.

It seems that the equation is simple: To succeed in life, one needs to have a strong will, and what is more, it can be practiced. It turns out that man is a much more complicated creature.

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New Marshmallows

Tylor Watts, a professor of psychology at New York University, decided to verify the marshmallow test after many years. Along with his team, he discovered that Mischel’s experiment was repeated in the 1990s. Watts reached the four-year-olds surveyed at the time and found that their lives were not going as they should have according to the results of the first marshmallow test.

The 1960 experiment proved that those children who were able to delay eating marshmallows longer had greater success in learning at the age of 15. In the new study, this correlation was half as big and almost disappeared when other factors such as origin and the level of intelligence were checked. The first test involved children of Stanford University graduates or academics at this university. In the experiment of the 1990s, the group of subjects was much more diverse.

It turns out that a child who is strong-willed enough or able to use such techniques to delay gratification is not guaranteed success in the fields of learning and relationship building. What is more, the researchers observed another interesting fact. What the child did in the first 20 seconds of waiting was more important than what happened in the next few minutes. Scientists are not yet able to understand what four-year-olds do to endure waiting, whether it is so-called strong will, intelligence, or a combination of other traits.

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Depletion of Ego in the Heat of Criticism

The hypothesis of the depletion of ego and the willpower associated with it as a kind of psychological muscle has also come under the heat of scientific criticism. Research carried out by Evan Carter, Lilly Kofler, Daniel Forester, and Michael McCollough in 2015 shows that this depletion occurs to a low degree, and self-control training in no way affects the later results in tasks requiring it.

On the other hand, Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto and Elliot Berkam of the University of Oregon argue that the meta-analysis of Carter and his colleagues was based on new and largely untested research techniques, which makes it impossible to treat results as reliable.

It remains for us to await further findings. But what about strong will and success in life? Are there any other ways to ensure a bright future for one’s child? The answer may be quite unromantic.

Success in Life: 333 Bucks

Greg Duncan of the University of California, Irvine, began an interesting experiment involving 1000 newborn babies mothers. The ladies’ incomes were low. Some women started receiving an additional US$ 333 each month as part of the research, while others – US$ 20.

The study found that infants whose mothers received $333/month had more high-frequency brain activity compared with infants whose mothers received $20/month

– confirm the first results of the experiment.

Perhaps the key to success in the future is to ensure the financial safety of families. The mere lack of concern for tomorrow can be the best stimulus for development and the catalyst for building future success.

However, as Brian Resnick, editor of the Vox website, wrote:

But if the recent history of social science has taught us anything, it’s that experiments that find quick, easy, and optimistic findings about improving people’s lives tend to fail under scrutiny. Harder work remains. Studies that find exciting correlations need to be followed up with long-term experimental research. This research is expensive and hard to conduct. But without rigorous studies, we’re going to remain prone to research hype.

For now, perhaps it is best to apply what we intuitively feel is appropriate for us.

Translation: Marcin Brański

Polish version: Chcieć to móc? Badania nad kluczem do sukcesu w życiu