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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • The original marshmallow experiment is so popular to cite because it is a “just so story” – that is, as typically explained, it presents a moral lesson that seems intuitively obvious. That’s one reason the result stood for so long without attempts to reproduce it.

    Such attempts have now been made, and no one can reproduce the reported clarity of the original. One interpretation of this is related to the wealth of the families involved: the original subjects were, after all, children of Stanford University students, and as such came from families of relative wealth.

    There are studies which reach the conclusion you’re reporting (likely popularized by this Atlantic article but it’s paywalled so I can’t check), but the way you present this as a “fun fact” is turning the test into a different “just so story”.

    The reality is that, while there are some stats gathered from the marshmallow test and followups that could be interpreted that way, the actual data gathered is too messy and inconclusive to draw any definitive conclusions.