Children more likely to delay gratification if peer promises to wait as well

A team of psychologists at the University of Manchester, in the U.K., working with a colleague from Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, in Morocco, has found that children tend to behave differently during the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment if they have a partner who is willing to wait for a better option. In their study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group conducted variations on the famous children’s experiments.

In the 1970s, psychologists at the University of Stanford famously conducted experiments based on delayed gratification. In those experiments, children were offered a choice between a small but immediate reward or a delayed but promised double reward. The child was able to make the choice on their own as the researchers left them alone with the initial reward. When the researcher returned, if the child had not eaten the reward, they were given a second reward, as promised, such as a second marshmallow or a pretzel.

Data from the study was then used later to show that as the children grew older, those who had been able to wait for the better reward tended to have better life outcomes. Later studies suggested that many of the children in the original experiments who chose to eat the first marshmallow came from challenging homes where they had grown to distrust adults and their promises, explaining their outcomes compared with children who chose to wait for the larger reward.

In this new effort, the research team expanded on the Stanford experiments by changing some of the parameters—it was conducted online, and it involved one child paired with another child.

A child in their own home, working with a parent, was shown a known treat. They were then told they would get an even better treat if both they and an online partner (another child not known to the original child) did not eat the original treat. The child was then shown the partner child, who either had promised not to eat the first treat, or who did not appear sure if they could wait; the children could not communicate.

The researchers found that the first child was willing to wait longer before eating the original treat if their online partner promised not to eat theirs—but not so much if they appeared unsure. For younger children, they also found such a pledge made the original child more likely to hold out for the whole time to get a better treat.

The research team suggests that cooperative support between children can lead to changes in behavior, such as gratification delay, even when communication between them is one-sided.

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