The Adult Marshmallow Test

There’s a famous test that was once administered to children, that was predictive of how their lives would go.

The idea was you could sit a child in a room, and place a marshmallow in front of them. You inform them that they can either:
a) eat the marshmallow now

or

b) wait 5 minutes and get to eat 2 marshmallows instead

supposedly (no, I will not verify this), the kids who waited 5 minutes to eat 2 marshmallows had better outcomes across all areas of their lives as they aged.

it feels very rare as an adult to be presented with such an explicit test, where simply being willing to wait is enough to have a large reward.

Yet, I’ve recently found that if you look closely, there are some profound marshmallow tests that adults face all the time.

I’m really writing this because of a particular thing that happened to me recently.

I saw someone mention these magnetic nasal strips. The idea is they come with a bowed form that wraps around the bridge of your nose. You stick some magnets that adhere each side of your nose, and the form pulls up on them, pulling your nose open while you sleep.

People had good things to say about them. On amazon, they were $50.

then I noticed someone post a link to the same thing on AliExpress.

the funny thing about AliExpress is you’re ordering whatever it is almost straight from the chinese manufacturer.

and the fact is, all this stuff on amazon is coming from the same place anyway.

the only difference is that on amazon, they offer 2-day shipping, and sometimes the amazon seller has less goofy looking package branding.

Anyway, back to the magnetic nose strips. Remember, these things were $50 on Amazon.

On AliExpress. They were $1. Including shipping.

Yes. That was the price, freight, tax, and tip. But the real difference is it would take 30 days to finish shipping.

So there was the crux. I can either have something in 30 days, or 2 days. 2 days is 1 /15th of 30 days. Therefore, if I used Amazon, I’d be paying 50x the price to make something arrive 15x sooner.

Was that anywhere near worth it? fuck no. besides, it’s not like I absolutely had to have it right that second.

but, again, it feels rare that we are presented with such an outright gain in life by simply opting to wait a little longer.

one more example. this is the one that has been percolating in my head for over a year, long preceding the magnet nose strip incident.

if you have ever received a payment on a money transfer app like venmo or paypal, they always try to marshmallow test you now every time you transfer the balance to your real bank. look at this screenshot:

let’s see, what are our options here? highlighted in red, we can transfer $680 to our bank in minutes for a $12 fee.

OR, if we wait 1 to 3 days, the transfer is completely free.

unless you are on the verge of zeroing out your account and immediately need the money, the instant transfer almost never makes sense. this kind of thing is taking advantage of the anxious and impatient.

the academic name for the characteristic opting for instant gratification even when it’s not prudent is called “High Time Preference”

this is a term I really hate, because it’s the kind of high-brow language that communicates nothing unless you go out of your way to look up what it means, even though simpler language for it exists. what it really boils down to is short-sighted thinking.

amazon and instant payment transfers serve as the perfect examples of marshmallow tests, because you can be given all the information you need to know for just how badly you are being ripped off, but you still need to think through all the benefits of patience from that information to recognize just how bad of a deal instant gratification is.

Still, what I listed above are two very obvious marshmallow tests, and I’m sure most people who encounter them fail them every day.

the rest of adult life’s marshmallow tests are not so obvious. everything follows an escalation ladder of effort among many other tradeoffs:

for instance, cook at home, or eat out at a restaurant?

and: scroll on social media in the evening, or study a book that could advance your career?

Most other little tests in adult life have many more variables on effort, energy, and discipline at play. So, when a test comes along that only requires your patience, plus your recognition that there is very little additional benefit to an instantly gratified desire in that circumstance, try to take the easy wins you can get.