Marshmallows and Breast-Feeding - Busting Some Myths

If you have read or heard of Walter Mischel's experiment involving schoolchildren and their likelihood of succeeding in life, it goes like this. The psychologist did an experiment in which he offered marshmallows to a group of schoolchildren to see how long they could resist eating them. 

They were asked to resist, on the promise of getting an extra marshmallow if they waited long enough.

The majority of kids ate the first marshmallow and were not interested in deferring their gratification. In psychology this is called Hyperbolic Discounting. I'd estimate that 95% of folks always often fall foul of this - willing to take the lesser prize on offer, rather than the greater long-term prize. 

Because the kids who deferred did better in their subsequent careers. So this proves that those kids had some kind of innate unlearned, superior attribute. The triumphant (and in my view) inaccurate view gained from Walter Mischel's experiment was  'If you can defer gratification at seven, you will succeed in your career'.

On this basis, subsequent generations of parents have watched their kids wolfing down sweet things thinking "Oh my Gosh! My kid is going to be a failure!". 

Years ago, I remember seeing an article which posited that children who were breast-fed had 'higher IQ's'.

What is the possible common hidden issue here?  What is the link between marshmallows and breast-feeding? How can access to breast milk be considered the reason for high IQ, just as reluctance to refuse marshmallows be an indicator of career failure?

It's because we are provided with nothing about the environment in which the marshmallow kids were raised, nor of the breast-fed babies. 

Consider the Walter Mischel experiment.

If Child A was raised in a household in which she was denied access to marshmallows because her parents were budget-conscious; and,

Child B was raised in a household in which sweets are readily available because budget is not a problem for her parents,

which child would be more likely to wolf down the first marshmallow?

Who do you predict is more likely to grow up in an environment that promotes higher education, good grades, and the expectation they will advance to university, resulting in a career in the 'higher end' of the salary scale?

Marshmallow-wolfing Child A who considers her career progress as school, early leaving, and a low-paying job because that is her background, or 

Marshmallow - 'I can wait' Child B who considers her career progress as school, university, and a higher paying job like her parents have?

Child B's subsequent career success had nothing to do with the marshmallow. She just didn't see the novelty or luxury appeal of something she had access to more often than Child A might.  

The marshmallow was not an indicator of innate 'superior' attributes, but could indicate she was from a background with certain advantages that Child A didn't.

What's the takeaway here?  Don't fall for a false belief that success is an innate quality. It isn't innate. It's a learning, and can be acquired by exposure to enabling types of environment. 

You can learn at any age. So, if you feel like it, help yourself to a marshmallow once in a while.

And so to breasts. Years ago I read an article which suggested that 'Breast-fed babies' had 'higher IQs' than babies who were not breast-fed.  Another misleading 'proof' of something that says nothing about the environment of the circumstance described.

Child C's  mother has support, comfort, time and prior education to research  the advantages of breast-feeding and how it helps mother-child bonding, makes the effort, perseveres and breast-feeds.

Child D's  mother is rushing to get back to work and make enough money to live on, has not engaged in much research, or reading and uses powdered milk based on the advertising and not the least because 'all her friends do it'?

Which child will be likely to grow up in an environment in which literacy, study, career-expectation and subsequent better educational outcomes - and later on be able to answer questions in a test which measure having having a 'Higher IQ'?

That's right. The environment of the participant is one of the major defining characteristics of their success in life. The breast-feeding is not the cause of the child's 'higher IQ'  but it may signal that the child is reared in an environment which may result in better IQ scores later in life.

So don't listen to weird 'advice' which promotes a bias linking remotely related factors to prove a point. 

Instead, file this kind of nonsense away and understand that the support systems you can invest in your child or yourself is the major factor defining success.  So go out there and get your environment fixed, raise your expectations, and learn to see through the nay-sayers!