Monitor on Psychology - December 2011 - (Page 10)

Upfront Willpower pioneer wins $100,000 Grawemeyer prize of drug abuse, divorce and Thanks to Walter Mischel’s separation than their more “marshmallow test,” now there’s impatient peers. scientific proof that patience is And, in research published a virtue. in August in the Proceedings The University of of the National Academy of Louisville in Kentucky has Sciences, Mischel and colleagues awarded Mischel, a professor found differences in the brain of psychology at Columbia activity of his high- and lowUniversity, with this year’s delay groups during a variation $100,000 Grawemeyer of the marshmallow task. Brain Award for Psychology for his scans revealed that those in the groundbreaking research on low-delay group showed more delayed gratification, which activity in the ventral striatum, he expanded using fMRI to an area of the brain linked to pinpoint brain regions linked to addiction and pleasure-seeking, willpower. than those in the high-delay Mischel’s foray into group. willpower began in the 1960s Economists have used his at Stanford University when he findings to guide financial gave 500 4-year-old children decision-making models, and two options: Once he left education researchers have used the room, they could eat one them to design interventions marshmallow right away, aimed at improving children’s or they could wait until he self-control. “It’s become almost returned 15 minutes later and Delayed gratification pays off: researchers have used a growth industry,” says Mischel. have two marshmallows. Dr. Walter Mischel’s findings on willpower to design He is still studying his At the time, Mischel was interventions aimed at boosting children’s self-control. Stanford sample, most recently only trying to determine how working with economists to some are able to wait and compare the financial management and decision-making control themselves in this situation, such as by distracting abilities of his low- and high-delay groups. He and researchers themselves from the treat. Ten years later, he inquired how at Cornell Weill Medical Center in New York are also working some of the children from his sample were faring in school and with a new sample of children to study the connection between took a second look at his original data. emotion regulation and gratification delay. “It was only as an afterthought that I looked at differences Following a group of children for 40 years has been between these kids as time passed,” Mischel recalls. “But the fascinating, says Mischel, 81. more I looked, the more I saw how dramatic some of these “It’s also a longevity study,” he adds. “You have to live a long differences turned out to be.” time to do it.” He found that the children’s ability to resist temptation The University of Louisville presents annual Grawemeyer helped them over the long term. The children who were able to Awards in five categories: music composition, ideas improving distract themselves from the marshmallow as 4-year-olds (the world order, psychology, education and religion. For more high-delay group) earned higher SAT scores and had better information, go to www.grawemeyer.org. social-cognitive and emotional coping skills as teenagers than the children who gobbled their single marshmallow (low-delay —J. ChAMbERliN group). Mischel has since followed his original participants into adulthood — his sample is now in their forties. He has Click here to watch a BBC recreation of Mischel’s found that the high-delay group also had higher levels of marshmallow test. academic achievement, lower body mass index and lower rates 10 Monitor on psychology • DeceMber 2011 http://www.grawemeyer.org http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7945801.stm

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - December 2011

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
From the CEO
Willpower Pioneer Wins $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize
Single-Sex Schooling Called Into Question by Prominent Researchers
Maternal Depression Stunts Childhood Growth, Research Suggests
For Boys, Sharing May Seem Like a Waste of Time
Good News for Postdoc Applicants
In Brief
Treatment Guideline Development Now Under Way
Government Relations Update
Psychologist Named Va Mental Health Chief
The Limits of Eyewitness Testimony
Judicial Notebook
Random Sample
Time Capsule
Deconstructing Suicide
Questionnaire
A Focus on Interdisciplinarity
A Time of ‘Enormous Change’
The Science Behind Team Science
Good Science Requires Good Conflict
A New Paradigm of Care
Speaking of Education
Science Directions
New Labels, New Attitudes?
Psychologist Profile
Early Career Psychology
Unintended Consequences
Better Options for Troubled Teens
Saving Lives, One Organ at a Time
New Journal Editors
APA News
Division Spotlight
Guidelines for the Conduct of President-Elect Nominations and Elections
American Psychological Foundation
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011