ABSTRACT
Terms such as self-control, impulse control, and willpower have figured a good deal in recent scientific descriptions of human development, in large part stimulated by a surprising set of findings about how children learn to resist temptation. In the early 1970s Professor Walter Mischel, heading a team at Stanford University in California, conducted a series of projects in which preschool children were assessed on their ability to delay gratification. This test involved waiting, in a room, for 15 minutes to obtain a desirable reward, for example, two marshmallows. Children were free to terminate the waiting period at any point and accept a lesser value reward, possibly just one marshmallow.
