Is Steem an Adult Version of the Marshmellow Test?
Have you heard of the experiment Stanford conducted on The Power of Delayed Gratification?
If so you can skip ahead ..
For those of you who aren't familiar with the study, here is a condensed explanation. It's quite interesting and I tend to notice whether people have long term goals or short term goals.
The Marshmallow Experiment
The experiment began by bringing each child into a private room, sitting them down in a chair, and placing a marshmallow on the table in front of them.
The researcher told the child that he was going to leave the room and that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. However, if the child decided to eat the first one before the researcher came back, then they would not get a second marshmallow.
So the choice was simple: one treat right now or two treats later.
The researcher left the room for 15 minutes.
As you can imagine, the footage of the children waiting alone in the room was rather entertaining. Some kids jumped up and ate the first marshmallow as soon as the researcher closed the door. Others wiggled and bounced and scooted in their chairs as they tried to restrain themselves, but eventually gave in to temptation a few minutes later. And finally, a few of the children did manage to wait the entire time.
Published in 1972, this popular study became known as The Marshmallow Experiment, but it wasn't the treat that made it famous. The interesting part came years later.
The Power of Delayed Gratification
As the years rolled on and the children grew up, the researchers conducted follow up studies and tracked each child's progress in a number of areas. What they found was surprising.
The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and generally better scores in a range of other life measures. (You can see the followup studies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2658056)
The researchers followed each child for more than 40 years and over and over again, the group who waited patiently for the second marshmallow succeed in whatever capacity they were measuring. In other words, this series of experiments proved that the ability to delay gratification was critical for success in life.
And if you look around, you’ll see this playing out everywhere…
If you delay the gratification of watching television and get your homework done now, then you’ll learn more and get better grades.
If you delay the gratification of buying desserts and chips at the store, then you’ll eat healthier when you get home.
If you delay the gratification of finishing your workout early and put in a few more reps, then you’ll be stronger.
Source and additional information https://jamesclear.com/delayed-gratification
I often think of this experiment when I look around Steem, can you build an audience or do you just want quick rewards?
Will we build a strong community and allow a Steem Economy to develop? Or will we self vote ourselves into the Ponzi Scheme that Tone Vays predicts?
Can you hold your Steem in order to make more? Or do you send everything out as quickly as you get it?
I realize there are other explanations for various behaviors such as financial needs and goals, but I think there are many who obviously suffer from impulse control and just want to shove all the MarshMellows in their mouth as fast as they can.
More information on the study and a couple of cute videos of the kids! :)
This one is just cute:
Informative:
How to work on delayed gratification
Let me know your thoughts, as a side note: I literally got interested in the topic of self control when I was in my early 20s, making bad choices and suffering all the results that come along with that behavior.
I actually worked on delayed gratification and other impulse control issues for years. I am still not fixed, but at least I have different challenges now. :)
Delayed gratification? No such thing anymore, thank you Amazon.
They touch on the "nature vs. nurture" debate. For example, what if the kids who made the bad choices live in a households where bad choses are negated by parents who have no follow-through.
"Clean your room or else you won't get a treat."
"Oh, you didn't clean your room, but you just love this treat. You can have it anyway."
While I'm certain most kids benefit from parents who maintain consequences, I'm also certain you can't get through to some kids no matter how consistent the parents are. So as always, it's not explained strictly by "nature or nurture."
If Steem is just a scaled up version of the marshmellow test, what is the antecedent for those of us who want to protect our investment? I think the way to protect ourselves is to limit exposure and let the market price-in this behavior. It's been doing this very efficiently, so far.
Yes, this is how my parents parented.
Excellent point, I've been wondering for a long time.. "What will we do with those we can not control"... probably terrible language
I get your point about "Pricing it in". I hadn't thought about it in those terms before.
Thanks!
"Pricing it in" is a more specific implementation of "it's self-correcting." Where "it's self-correcting" could imply, among other things, that people will change their behavior. I'm not expecting people to change their behavior, but I am expecting that, over time, they filter out and shoot themselves in the foot, so to speak.
In the meantime, I am aware of the need to use external pressure to speed the process up. I'm not sure I buy the methods being proposed so far, but I understand the need.
Really good comments @inertia!
Cg
I highly recommend checking out the Marshmellow challenge.
At first, I thought this was what you were talking about.
https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower/transcript?language=en
It's a team-building exercise that is a fantastic experience with kids and teams.
The Steemit team actually did the the Marshmallow 'build a tower, build a team' excercise at our last 'all hands' meeting (prior to getting to the actual 'business' stuff of course). It was quite interesting and a great team building exercise suggested by @elipowell
It really is a good experience, the best part is seeing the difference between how kids do it and adults.
Just watched it. Fascinating stuff. Thanks for posting :-)
Cg
Eating one marshmellow will make you happy i think. Also eating it while still fresh is better. May be they will give you more when they see you that much happy with marshmellow. May be they look for that you really love marshmellows.
Hope you are happy with and without marshmellows. 😊😅🙂🙃
Posted using Partiko iOS
Yes, let's be happy.
watching these videos now i want to eat marshmallows. and i am trying to not eat sugar, so if i now go to look for a chocolate i blame you :D
i suck in all of these things, but i somehow managed to not sell any steem.
now my brain somehow connected this to another experiment done with heroin and rats (think it was heroin), more kids would probably not eat the marshmallow if they did not have to stare at it for 15 minutes.
maybe if steem was made more fun for all people would not sell right away.
short version of the experiment:
I just got around to watching that and I've read about that study before. While I dislike the wording of "It's important they have access to..."
It is a great message to all of us to build a lush cage, with friends family and fun!
this was just a quick search of the experiment. if i remember it correctly it was based on hospital medication and also on people in vietnam war. but in essence "good" environment less chance of drug abuse.
@whatsup,
Whoops, with that example (the experimental story) you gave us a great lesson! Honestly I decided to hold everything and planning things long-term now! All short-term plans of mine already collapsed lol :D So better long-term and wish if I was at that room, I will eat that marshmellow just before the researcher entering to the room! This is how exactly I did at this crypto world before lol :D
$trdo
Cheers~
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That's actually a brilliant comparison. As soon as I read the title it clicked. The question is who has the patience to wait for their second marshmallow. Right now we are looking around the room waiting to see what's happening and when the bull run is coming. Some are fidgeting and jumping up and down. Some dumped since Christmas at the low prices and no more for them.
:)
we see this on all the time on Steem. The people who join, try a couple of posts and when they are not an instant success, off they go. Or the ones who join... post like crazy and interact with no one and then throw up their hands.
As @enginewitty has often said.. this is a marathon, not a sprint
Haha I so would have eaten the marshmallow.
I never saw Steemit as a short term kind of gig. It takes time to build a following and to network with others. I am sure that a few people have made fast money here but I am banking on this paying off down the road after I have established myself and earned enough Steem to have some influence around here.
I don't know what to think of it anymore.
I now consider it my crypto education. :)