It’s worth waiting for the second cookie
Here is a simple
puzzle. Do not try to solve it but listen to your intuition. A bat and a ball
cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball
cost? The answer that comes to mind is 10 cents. Intuitive, appealing, and
wrong. The correct answer is 5 cents. Many thousands of university students
have answered this puzzle and the results are surprising. More than 50% of
students at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton gave the intuitive wrong answer! And at
less selective universities the wrong answer was in excess of 80%. Many place
too much faith in their intuitions and avoid cognitive effort
Now let’s move from
university students to four-year-olds. In one of the most famous experiments in
the history of psychology, Walter Mischel and his students gave these children
a choice between one cookie which they could have at any time or two cookies
for which they had to wait 15 minutes. They were to remain alone in a room facing
a desk with only two objects: a single cookie and a bell that the child could
ring at any time to call in the experimenter and receive the one cookie. The
children’s behavior observed through a one way mirror had the audience roaring
with laughter. About half the children managed waiting for 15 minutes and
picked up two cookies. Ten or fifteen years later a large gap had opened up
between those who had resisted temptation and those who had not. The resisters were
better at cognitive tasks, less likely to take drugs and scored higher on tests
of intelligence.
Genes, parenting or
other influences could possible explain the differential cognitive effort in
these students and children. Both are
examples of the better outcomes from delayed gratification, avoiding impulsive
decisions. A college freshman’s choice of more difficult courses (science,
technology, engineering or math) could land a better job after graduation. A
more secure retirement results from the discipline of savings taken out of
every pay check
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