The Marshmallow Test

In the 1970s, a psychologist named Walter Mischel did an experiment at Stanford coined the Marshmallow test that demonstrated the human tendencies of self control. Mischel sat a four year old at a table and he made them a deal that they could eat a marshmallow now or wait to get another marshmallow as a reward. This test was supervised and in most cases the subject decided to wait.

Then Mischel leaves the room for 20 minutes. In these series of tests few of the kids were able to hold out for 15 minutes and most could not last 1 minute. The most successful at resisting temptation used many extreme means such as covering ones eyes or looking somewhere else.

Basically people's will power suck unless they are held accountable by someone else.
Also it is noteworthy to point out the fact that it was completely logical to wait so you would be rewarded with 2 instead of just 1 marshmallow. When we all understand the benefits of compounding interest how can we expect people to resist temptation of spending?

Here is a link of a recreation of the experiment

And I am not condoling doing this test on anyone's child.