Kids are pretty used to calculations related to stuff to eat.

I think anyone who grew up with siblings has an extremely developed sense of how much they're willing to risk vs how much reward. Like would I eat my brother's pudding knowing we'll be fighting to death when he's also back from school ? Yes, of course. That's risk/reward that made sense back in the days.

Exactly, it's nonsense to talk about "executive function" as if it's some internal liquid that some kids have and others don't. Kids adapt to the realities of their situation, if they feel - on an intellectual level, or maybe on a more instinctive level - that things are precarious and options you have today won't be there tomorrow, and promises made to you won't necessarily be kept, of course you eat the goddamn marshmallow.

> it's nonsense to talk about "executive function" as if it's some internal liquid that some kids have.

That's actually how people with executive function disorders (like ADHD) describe it. There's a finite amount of gas/fuel/internal liquid they have in a day, which gets consumed as demands are made of them and it runs out a lot sooner for them than it does for others. Once it's gone even simple tasks can be overwhelming. Taking that one step further is the "spoon theory" (https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/the-neurodivergent-s...) which divides that finite resource into categories like mental, emotional, physical, social, etc.

As somebody with ADHD going on, the metaphor I've seen that I like best is to imagine that you have to do absolutely everything while bringing along a giant husky on a leash. Even when it's cooperative it's a source of friction; when it isn't, you're trying to drag it along just to be in a place to complete basic tasks.

Whenever my sister and I had to share a single food item, like a brownie. Our mom would have one of us cut the item in half, and the other would get to pick their half first. Deciding which half was never a casual assessment.

Speak for yourself. The kids I know are modeling the future interest rates on marshmallows.

Toddler scribbles are in fact marshmallow yield curves.

You have a lot of people that take that last fact and then assume the converse.

But in a poor household, taking the marshmallow now is likely the optimal choice since there might not be any later — even if your parents tell you to wait. That’s not necessarily a sign of anything but having adapted to a particular environment: times you listened led to a negative outcome, so you stopped.

> But in a poor household, taking the marshmallow now is likely the optimal choice since there might not be any later — even if your parents tell you to wait. That’s not necessarily a sign of anything but having adapted to a particular environment: times you listened led to a negative outcome, so you stopped.

You've repeated the whole thesis from the article: people are conditioned for delayed gratification if that is possible/predictable, and then asserts that parents have the influence to develop that trait in kids by fostering predictability.

To further complicate things, kids in poor households tend to have more behavioral/executive function/developmental issues. It's still worth pointing out that just failing the marshmallow test shouldn't cause someone to assume anything.

You're right. Although it can hint at the possibility of those types of problems, the marshmallow test shouldn't be used to make those kinds of assumptions, especially in isolation. Like I said, it can signal a lot of very different things (even hunger).

"Poor" isn't needed here. If the kid has siblings, or the family has an "opportunistic" dog, or the kid has spent time in a daycare where treats are sometimes grabbed, or ...

Or the kid is getting bored by the stupid researcher and her stupid test, and is trying to get it over with as fast as he can.

> kids with trust issues would tend to do worse

They don't do worse in the household they live in. They do better because if they waited for the 2nd marshmallow at home then they would end up with nothing.

Better with one bird in the hand right now than waiting for two empty promises.

So many of these psychological tests are based on values in upper-middle-class families. They are not always valid when the parents are drug users or alcoholic.

Kids of alcoholic parents know that most promises are empty promises. You are a fool if you take a "we will go to Disneyland on saturday" promise seriously.

Yeah. Just the wording "trust issues" makes it sound like the issue is with the kid. When in reality it is possible that they have a well grounded, rational, and evidence based belief that adults tend to not fulfil their promises. Exactly as you say.