The Stanford marshmallow experiment was as basic and fundamental as you could get with regard to child development. The idea, cooked up in the 1970s, was that a child would be offered the immediate gratification of a marshmallow. However, if they could wait for fifteen minutes without eating the marshmallow, they would be rewarded with a second. The study had found significant correlations between those who could delay their gratification and their success later in life. Simply put, the kids who couldn’t resist the immediate gratification of the first marshmallow trended lower in several categories than those who waited.
As the research fellows went through their research, with Dr. Grind serving as a mentor, they were now publishing articles in scholarly journals, developing data to support the foundational beliefs of The Infinite Family Project. Dr. Grind also wrote summarized examinations of these studies for publications like the New York Times and Time magazine and Parents magazine. In almost every study, the children were charting higher in many significant aspects than their peers outside the project, sometimes to such a degree that it wasn’t entirely clear that the project itself was responsible. So when the children were finally of the age to undertake the marshmallow experiment, none of the researchers had thought much of it with regard to the outcome. They had talked of which children would excel and which children might find it more difficult. The fellows had even set up a rather complicated chart on which they bet on the children, which Dr. Grind discouraged but did not abolish. Dr. Grind himself had pegged certain children to be more likely to excel at the experiment. So, it was very disorienting to realize, now having tested all of the ten children, that not a single one of them had resisted the impulse to eat the marshmallow immediately.
The first child, Gilberto, had said, when questioned later by Dr. Grind, that he really only wanted the one marshmallow and he didn’t think it would make sense to wait fifteen minutes for a marshmallow that he didn’t want. And so, even if the outcome had not been what they had suspected, the researchers all seemed to justify Gilberto’s actions as falling in line with mature, responsible logic. The experiment, they believed, was still sound.
However, Ally, the next child, had told him that she did not actually believe Dr. Grind would withhold the second marshmallow from her, even if she ate the first one before the time limit was up. She seemed genuinely mystified as to why he hadn’t already given her the second one, and Dr. Grind had to work hard to not go ahead and give it to her anyway. Jackie had said that, if she wanted another marshmallow later, she would just ask one of her parents and they would probably give it to her. The other children had said much the same thing, that if they truly wanted another marshmallow, no matter what they did, they would not be denied.
After the fifteen minutes had passed, Dr. Grind returned to the room and Cap smiled and said, “It was a good marshmallow!” Dr. Grind nodded, trying to keep the grimness out of his demeanor, and then asked Cap why he hadn’t waited for the second one.
“Because I really love marshmallows, and I really wanted to eat it,” he said, almost laughing.
“But, Cap, because you didn’t wait for the fifteen minutes, you won’t get a second one.”
Cap frowned. “What?” he said.
“You could have had two delicious marshmallows, but, because you didn’t wait, you only got one.”
“Could I try it again?” he asked.
Dr. Grind thought for a second. “Cap, if I put another marshmallow on the table and said you could have another one if you only waited, what would you do?”
“I would eat the marshmallow.”
“Right away?” Dr. Grind asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” Cap said, smiling.
“Why?” Dr. Grind asked.
“Would I be able to try the test again after that?”
Dr. Grind shook his head, shrugged, and then sent Cap back to the classroom with his friends. He turned to the mirror, unable to see the fellows, and again shrugged, genuinely mystified.
“So what do we do now?” Jeffrey asked.
“It’s clear that they don’t entirely adhere to the parameters of the experiment because they don’t believe the parameters will hold up against their own desires,” Dr. Grind said.
“They’re spoiled?” Jill asked. “They’re delusional? They’re so used to living in a utopian ideal that they don’t understand the concept of working for something?”
“No,” Dr. Grind said. “All of our other testing shows that they are quite patient and have more than enough willpower under normal circumstances. They’re able to share. They do chores in return for points, so they understand the value between work and reward.”
“So, what’s the explanation?” Kalina asked. “Have you simply found an experiment that the children are immune to? Did they break the experiment?”
“It broke us,” Jeffrey admitted.
“I don’t know,” Dr. Grind said. “I don’t think we have enough information to say.”
“But to an outside observer, this does not look good for our work, for the children,” Jill said. “They aren’t capable of delaying their gratification for even two seconds. And they believe that the rules don’t apply to them. That’s bad.”
“Under those limited circumstances, yes, it doesn’t look good,” Dr. Grind allowed.