In the late 1960's psychologist Walter Mischel was doing some experiments on delayed gratification of young children. The test was simple: The kids were placed one by one in a room free of distractions and offered either a single Oreo cookie immediately, or if they could wait, two Oreo cookies. The delay was around 15 minutes, but critically, the single cookie was left with the children in the room.
Mischel discovered that the average waiting time was around 7 minutes after which most children gave up and ate the single cookie, but there was a range from those who ate it immediately to those who lasted the full 15 minutes. The study confirmed the hypothesis he was working on at the time, but the real twist come some 5 years later.
Mischel was questioning his children about how some of their friends were getting on at school. This was the same school the test subjects had been drawn from for his original research, and he noted an apparent correlation between success at school and time waited for the cookies. He formalised a follow up process and published the results in 1988.
The initial results showed a distinct relationship between longer waiting time and better all round life performance including SAT scores, body mass index and academic performance.
There are many varying interpretations of these results, but it would appear as though those who are able to control their impulses will do better in life.
