The Marshmallow Test

Mastering Self-Control

By: Walter Mischel

Narrated by: Alan Alda

Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

Renowned psychologist Walter Mischel, designer of the famous Marshmallow Test, explains what self-control is and how to master it.

A child is presented with a marshmallow and given a choice: Eat this one now, or wait and enjoy two later. What will she do? And what are the implications for her behavior later in life?

The world's leading expert on self-control, Walter Mischel has proven that the ability to delay gratification is critical for a successful life, predicting higher SAT scores, better social and cognitive functioning, a healthier lifestyle and a greater sense of self-worth. But is willpower prewired, or can it be taught?

In The Marshmallow Test, Mischel explains how self-control can be mastered and applied to challenges in everyday life - from weight control to quitting smoking, overcoming heartbreak, making major decisions, and planning for retirement. With profound implications for the choices we make in parenting, education, public policy and self-care, The Marshmallow Test will change the way you think about who we are and what we can be.

©2014 Walter Mischel (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Excerpts from David G. Myers, “Self-Serving Bias,” in This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking edited by John Brockman (New York: Doubleday, 2012), 37–38. Used with permission. Quotes from George Ramirez are printed with permission. Excerpts from Sesame Street script for episode 4412 are reprinted with permission. “Sesame Workshop”®, “Sesame Street”®, and associated characters, trademarks, and design elements are owned and licensed by Sesame Workshop. © 2014 Sesame Workshop. All Rights Reserved.

Not a sweet solution pill, but still can be swallowed.

If you could sum up The Marshmallow Test in three words, what would they be?

Academic, through, long.

What other book might you compare The Marshmallow Test to and why?

I first started with "The Willpower Instinct" by Kelly McGonigal and wanted to learn more about the academic research behind it. The Marshmallow Test is a longer, more detailed version of it and to me it sounded more academic. I found the subject fascinating.

Would you be willing to try another one of Alan Alda’s performances?

Not the ones on non-fiction.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Small town boy holds on to his marshmallows, uses them to bribe the class bully and gets rich and famous later in life.

Any additional comments?

I am a fan of Alan Alda, however, I felt like this audio performance has been rushed a little. Most of the time, it gave me the impression that he got the gig and started reading it, without properly emphasizing the sentences. Yes, it was a long book and a lot to read, oh well, nobody can be perfect all the time.

Great performance, but lacking in content

Any additional comments?

I did enjoy the listen, but it was over before it really told me any more than what was in Joachim de Posada's TED talk on the marshmallow experiments.
So, lovely and enjoyable, but does not really add anything to a 9 min TED talk.
Alan Alda narrates beautifully.

Self-control is a skill we CAN develop!

It is a bit ironic and telling that while reading The Marshmallow Test I wanted Dr. Mischel to just give me the tips and tricks that would enable me to gain more self-control. Even if I lack patience now and probably would have been one of the children that wanted one marshmallow right now, he has written a book that gives me hope along with plenty of scientific explanation that self-control is a skill that I can develop, nurture and practice. I think he does an excellent job of explaining what self-control is, where it is warranted, instances where it may be more appropriate not to delay gratification, and what we might gain in our lives if we are able to better hone our willpower. As every science and statistics student has learned, correlation does not imply causation, and Dr. Mischel gives a well-reasoned explanation of what the ability to delay gratification may be correlated with. The reader is left with a clear understanding that waiting to get two marshmallows later instead of gobbling one immediately does not cause an easy and worry-free life! As other reviewers have stated, this is not a self-help book with a series of steps to be followed, but it is thoughtful and thought-provoking writing from the man who has spent his life researching self-control and provided us with the tools he has discovered.

Great insights into our minds and motivations

The first half of the book would have done well with further editing. The second half of the book was far more interesting and engaging. Alan Alda is a wonderful narrator and that helped with getting through some of the more technical and repetitive aspects of the book.

It was worth it to stay closely focused to the very end. This research is critically important to the future of our educational system, providing preschoolers with a better skill set for success and helping adults understand that change for themselves is still possible.

I would highly recommend this.

Great Info But Redundant

Great performance by Alan Alda. The research and antidotes are wonderful. Only criticism is it often felt redundant and that a good 25% of the book was continuously repeated and could have easily been edited down. Otherwise, very eye-opening and a motivating listen.

What will you do with this knowledge?

My motivation for listening to this book changed as I listened to it. I first started reading it because I heard how predictive the marshmallow test is for future happiness and success. However by the end of it I realized that the best reason for choosing this book is because our ability to delay gratification and practice self-awareness can be learned and developed.

In a very meta way this is hard to listen to

Listening to this book seemed painfully like finishing my broccoli. Lots of abbreviations like EF that you have to remember. That's great when you can flip back a page. Not so good on audio.

Well written, easy to read and effective

Walter Mischel is one of the popes from the recent psychology. He designed the well known Mashmallow Test that proved that kids who waited for the researcher to come back and earned the second treat (instead of ringing the bell early to get only one marshmallow) did better in life than their peers. He found out that this was because of self control and executive function, and that it could be learned and enhanced. Ok, that is common knowledge, and I thought that the book was only about that test, but Walter Mischel goes way beyond that, creating links between the research and the current knowledge to write a great book.
Go ahead! Listen to it. You will enjoy it.

Great book

This was a fun book to listen to. I probably would have gotten more out of it had I read it, but it was nonetheless fascists sting research on how self control is developed, and the benefits of delayed gratification. The author also pointed out that too much delayed gratification is just as bad as too little delayed gratification. This book reminded me of the Power of Habit in the sense that it was all about reframing how you viewed the world and changing the way you think. As a new dad, it was interesting for me to learn that helping your kids to distract themselves and learn how to wait is extremely valuable and can help them learn self control and develop executive function. I would certainly recommend this book.

kind of wordy and drawn out

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I respect Alan Alda as an actor but I was distracted by his voice in this reading. Due to his celebrity I found it hard to disconnect from Alan's voice and stay connected only with the actual authors content. I much prefer books read By The Author.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

I have so many other books I want to read that this one just couldn't hold my attention. It felt like they were stretching out what should be a Life Magazine article into a book, so as to sell it. Feel overly clinical and I don't mean hard to understand but I mean excessive in repetitive details that didn't support my intake of the main ideas.

What three words best describe Alan Alda’s voice?

celebrity, familiar, distracting

Was The Marshmallow Test worth the listening time?

no, I felt it was drawn out, overly wordy, not to the point.

Any additional comments?

there maybe some real Gold in this book but the presentation made it too hard to wait for or find. Alan's voice is very clear, strong, measured easy to understand, mostly authoritative, but still too familiar, I couldn't stop thinking M*A*S*H during the reading. Sorry.

Fascinating

Like Thinking Fast and Slow, this book examines how the two layers of the brain - system 1 and system 2, or the limbic system and pre-frontal cortex, or as Mishel generally prefers to say, the 'hot' system and the 'cool' one - muddle along together to run our lives for better or worse. Despite discussing largely the same topic, Mishel manages to take a completely fresh view from Kahneman (i.e. practically no direct overlap). Michel is also a more pithy writer, respecting the reader's intelligence, whereas Kahneman tends to be bit longwinded, a bit of an old woman, spelling out his ideas when you've already got the point.

I came across the Marshmallow Test originally in research for my own book about controlling obesity, through the (surprising) finding that the BMI of 40 year olds (in the US) correlated significantly with their ability to defer rewards at age 4, as measured by the Marshmallow Test in the 1960’s. This finding is mentioned, but Mishel ranges far wider - try this:

Brain imaging established that the same areas of the brain lit up when people felt physical pain (in fact, heat on forearm) as when they suffered the pain of emotional rejection (in fact, playing a video game and getting left out by the other two players). So this raised the question, ‘Could you take paracetamol to numb the pain of rejection?' And it turns out (at least under experimental conditions and for video games) that paracetamol does indeed protect people to some extent from emotional upset. (Which may shed some light on why people get addicted to painkillers.)

Mishel offers lots of implications for education, and even explains why people tend to boast so much - I'm always getting sat next self aggrandising idiots at parties - look out for the episode about Jake. The explanation is more subtle than you might guess.

Narration: good and natural, by which I mean totally unobtrusive - it was the voice I would imagine for Walter Mishel, but a professional performer.

"I think therefore I can change what I am"

The book goes way beyond what the title and 'byline' indicates. An educational look into the basis of human behaviors. It caused me to take a look at my up bringing and childhood and pin point the causal factors for all of my negative behaviors. It's helped me form new foundations to change my thinking and work ethics as well any destructive behaviors I might have.

This is a cliché but it really is a must read.

'Homeric' but not in a good way!

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

There's a strange, almost oral tradition-like template that academic writers often seem to use, in which they try to liven up scientific text with mental imagery. This book massively overuses that; and it became too much for me. Expect to have every child, the tray, the texture of the marshmallows, the hardness of the table and so on, endlessly over-explained:

'in walked a 4 year old called Toby; he was lively and cheerful with a bright smile, nut brown hair and a long fringe, wearing a brightly coloured t-shirt. We presented 2 delicious chewy chocolate cookies, on an opaque tray and with a small brass bell. It was myself and my then student; Alan Palmer, who is now a vice-professor of behaviour psychology at Princeton' etc etc.

What three words best describe Alan Alda’s performance?

Calm, measured, clear

A Scientific Study - not a practical listen

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

If you have an interest (in a dry sense) in the subject of willpower then you will enjoy this but I spent the whole book waiting for the aha moment but it never ever came. If you want to get something practical from this then you simply won't. The author has marketed this in such a way that it would seem to appeal to popular consumption but it is simply a thesis; clever perhaps but dry and lacking in any way that the reader can interpret and put into practice.

What could Walter Mischel have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Get to the point.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The narrator was fine.

Do you think The Marshmallow Test needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

God no.

not really a 'self help' book

I thought this book was a 'self help' book about self control, but it is more focused on the actual test itself (going into the minutiae of its set up and kids responses to it). Whilst interesting it's not what I was expecting.

Information Packed!

Excellently written book. The information was not too technical and not overly simplistic. Hard evidence backed up by solid research showed how to use the Power of your mind to gain control of your behaviour and that how you think can really influence how you feel. In particular, the idea about hot and cool systems and the concept of a future self made a quite abstract concept more tangible: loved it!

Every teacher and parent should read this!

I really liked this book. It went into the depths of "the marshmallow test!" It is a must read for teachers and parents.

Nothing new here

Lots of academic rambling unfortunately - much more biographical and less practical than the cover or description would have you believe.

Interesting and Boring!

The basic stuff about behaviour tests in young children and the effects the results have in later life is fascinating. However, the talk goes on - and on - and on in a boring and repetitive way. I feel the author needs to get a specialist editor to revise the book and make it shorter and more to the point.

The reader sounds as though he was bored - which made the finished audio book REALLY boring. It is such a shame that an interesting topic ends up in - yawn, yawn. I can't finish this write-up and I don' t think I can finish listening to the book.

This is just my opinion - we are all different!

A really facinating book.

A book which challenges the view that nature and not nuture defines who we are and who we become.