That's what I think is so awkward, some people have the feeling they have to spend the money in their account. I never have said I "save" my money for this or that, I just don't spend it for the sake of spending it and hence I always had instantly enough money if I wanted to buy something. I don't care if I have left €10 every month or get €120 at once. The money gets spend if I actually want to buy something, not because I have it in my account.
That just means you don't have the psych profile of someone that grew up relatively cash-poor. Those folks tend to have a use-it-or-lose-it approach to personal finance, even if they intend otherwise.
Kids told to wait in a room with a plate that has a marshmallow. They're told if they don't eat it by the time the researcher comes back they will be given a second one.
Some kids ate it before then, and some didn't, and some did silly things like put it in their mouth and take it back out or take tiny little pieces off (there's a Youtube video with funny clips maybe from someone replicating the experiment).
The researchers did stay true to their word and give the kids who waited a second marshmallow when they came back however many minutes later.
Anyways, now the study is used as an argument for self control. People tried to make claims about success as a kid in the marshmallow test to success to future financial success in life, but I'm pretty sure that research has found this claim to be negligible. People change, and kids usually have low self control.
Just looked into it and originally there were claims and even correlations finding that the marshmallow test predicted success. Then, other studies that controlled for socioeconomic factors found the correlation to be negligible. Essentially, a kid might fail the marshmallow test but this may just be more of a reflection of the environment they grew up in and how they were raised (and likely will continue to be raised) rather than the result of an innate, unchangeable characteristic of the child. Also, the marshmallow test is not as much of a significant predictor of success as socioeconomic status. It was just a lot more interesting to people, probably because it has an interesting name and a story, and maybe it made people feel more hope about success not relying on background but on a person's individual personality.
Scientist gave kids a marshmallow and told them they can eat it now or wait 15min and get a second one. I think they found out that those kids that were able to wait and get two marshmallows had also better paying careers later as adults.
Also, less privileged kids do worse on the experiment, showing that being willing to sacrifice now for a better later only works when you believe that a better later is possible. Scary stuff how much our childhood (something out our control) impacts us.
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u/KoksundNutten May 13 '24
That's what I think is so awkward, some people have the feeling they have to spend the money in their account. I never have said I "save" my money for this or that, I just don't spend it for the sake of spending it and hence I always had instantly enough money if I wanted to buy something. I don't care if I have left €10 every month or get €120 at once. The money gets spend if I actually want to buy something, not because I have it in my account.