So kids improve at delayed gratification. Mischel’s next step made his studies iconic—he tracked the kids afterward, seeing if marshmallow wait time predicted anything about their adulthoods. Did it ever. Five-year-old champs at marshmallow patience averaged higher SAT scores in high school (compared with those who couldn’t wait), with more social success and resilience and less aggressivefn9 and oppositional behavior. Forty years postmarshmallow, they excelled at frontal function, had more PFC activation during a frontal task, and had lower BMIs.21 A gazillion-dollar brain scanner doesn’t
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