Marshmallow Study

The study of emotional intelligence began with a small study conducted at Stanford University over 40 years ago. The study has become known as the marshmallow study. The study began with the recruitment of 40, 4 year old boys and girls.

Each participant was taken into a small room and sat at a table. The facilitator would then place a marshmallow in front of the child and state “this is your marshmallow you can eat it at any time, but if you wait 10 minutes until I return you will get two marshmallows”. Approximately 1/3 of the participants ate the marshmallow immediately. 1/3 of them waited and the other 1/3 didn’t participate at all.

Eighteen years later the participants were located and this is what was found.

The eaters, that is, the participants that ate the marshmallow immediately were found to have higher instances of divorce, higher dropout rates, higher instances of substance abuse, lower emotional intelligences.

The waiters, that is, the participants that waited and were rewarded an additional marshmallow had superior emotional intelligence, they were goal oriented, had very little instances of substance abuse, they were all college graduates or about to graduate.

The difference was delay of gratification and the understanding that putting your time in now for something greater was prevalent in the waiters.

I often think that if the children were exposed and primed with the taste of our jerky before the study and then a piece of our jerky was used instead of the marshmallow, it is likely that they would all be addicts – addicted to the great taste of our jerky.

Have superior emotional intelligence and order your jerky today.