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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Book Club

Long-term rewards of self-control

by

20150201

Self-con­trol is one of the biggest chal­lenges we face in life. Im­pul­siv­i­ty, im­pa­tience and the abil­i­ty to de­lay grat­i­fi­ca­tion pre­vail in most of our lives in one way or the oth­er. Ba­bies and young chil­dren want what they want right now and they cry or throw fits if they don't get it.

Teenagers want in­stant re­sults with the push of a but­ton or they rebel. Tune in; tune out. In­stant grat­i­fi­ca­tion is the name of the game.

Psy­chol­o­gists say if we don't fig­ure out how to con­trol our im­puls­es, we will face many chal­lenges in life: drug ad­dic­tion, obe­si­ty, poor self es­teem, failed re­la­tion­ships and more. Stu­dents drop out of school. Crime ris­es. Many of the prob­lems we face per­son­al­ly or in so­ci­ety can be traced back to im­pul­siv­i­ty and a lack of self-con­trol.

Self-con­trol is the hot top­ic for our Feb­ru­ary Sun­day Arts Sec­tion (SAS) Book Club choice, The Marsh­mal­low Test: Mas­ter­ing Self Con­trol by Wal­ter Mis­chel. Mo­ti­vat­ed by his own prob­lems with self-con­trol, Mis­chel has spent his life study­ing this is­sue or chal­lenge–how­ev­er you want to look at it.

Mis­chel con­duct­ed re­search in the US and right here in Trinidad. Mis­chel tells read­ers, "The abil­i­ty to de­lay grat­i­fi­ca­tion for the sake of fu­ture con­se­quences is an ac­quirable cog­ni­tive skill."

That's cer­tain­ly good news.

In The Marsh­mal­low Test, read­ers learn that re­search about im­pul­siv­i­ty has been go­ing on since the 1960s, which means re­searchers have a clear in­di­ca­tion of where this strug­gle leads in life.

"We have shown that this skill set is vis­i­ble and mea­sur­able ear­ly in life," says Mis­chel, "and has pro­found long-term con­se­quences for peo­ple's wel­fare, men­tal and phys­i­cal health."

De­lay­ing grat­i­fi­ca­tion is im­por­tant for both aca­d­e­m­ic and child-rear­ing pur­pos­es. It is an ac­quired skill that can be en­hanced through spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive strate­gies.

In the 1960s, Mis­chel con­duct­ed stud­ies with preschool­ers in the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty nurs­ery school. Preschool­ers could choose be­tween hav­ing an im­me­di­ate re­ward like a marsh­mal­low or a re­ward of two marsh­mal­lows that they would have to wait up to 20 min­utes to col­lect. Chil­dren got to choose the re­ward they want­ed from among marsh­mal­lows, cook­ies, pret­zels or oth­er treats.

Mis­chel doc­u­ment­ed how the chil­dren strug­gled to re­sist temp­ta­tion and fought to de­lay grat­i­fi­ca­tion. He found their choic­es at a pre-school lev­el af­fect­ed their choic­es lat­er on in life. The longer preschool­ers wait­ed for their re­ward, the bet­ter their SAT scores (US col­lege en­trance ex­ams) were lat­er in life.

At age 27-32 those who had wait­ed longer in that nurs­ery school ex­per­i­ment, had few­er prob­lems with their weight, and they felt more con­fi­dent. They pur­sued their goals more ef­fec­tive­ly and coped with stress bet­ter. Their brain scans looked dif­fer­ent in ar­eas that had been linked to obe­si­ty and ad­dic­tions.

The Marsh­mal­low Test: Mas­ter­ing Self Con­trol is a book that teach­es read­ers about willpow­er and how to con­trol emo­tion­al re­spons­es. For those who think willpow­er is some­thing you ei­ther have or don't have, this is a book for you. The lo­cal con­tent in this book is bound to spark in­ter­est­ing book club dis­cus­sions.

Dis­cus­sion ques­tions

1. How does im­pul­siv­i­ty de­fine your life?

2. Do you feel that you are good at man­ag­ing im­pul­siv­i­ty? If so, what strate­gies do you use?

3. What im­puls­es can you con­trol and what im­puls­es do you find dif­fi­cult to con­trol?

4. Do you be­lieve that self-con­trol is a skill that can be learned?


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