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Comment by knallfrosch | Hacker News Reader

"worse impulse control"

or better grabbing-opportunity skills. If you repeat the experiment and the "doubling" of the marshmallow turns into "a teen barging into the room and stealing the marshmallow", who'd be the wiser kid?

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A factor in this study that I don't know was mentioned in 'trust'. Did the kids trust the adult to deliver on the promise of the extra mashmallows. If the kids had low trust in adults, its very rational to take the marshmallow you see rather the ones you don't.

This is very insightful.

Great insight. This also correlates with household income, as promises are more frequently broken with lower income.

Are you sure? Why? And with what statistics?

>In 2008–12, the rate of violent victimization was highest for persons in poor households (39.8 per 1,000) and lowest for persons in high-income households (16.9 per 1,000) (table 1). This pattern was consistent across all types of violent crime.

It makes me think of the scenario where mom gives the kids each a marshmallow. You decide to keep yours for later, the other kid eats theirs.

Later you decide to eat your marshmallow, but the other kid sees this and demands half. He goes to mom and she makes you share.

Lesson learned: either hide what you have or don't delay gratification.

I feel like this scenario is becoming more common in (US) politics these days (eg student loan forgiveness, housing bubble in 2008). Or it could've anyways been happening and I just didn't notice.

The teenager is a good metaphor for what your creditors will do when they find out you have enough money to make a payment.

I also wonder, I think there probably a continuum between patient academic strategist and like driven tactical disruptor. I would say I deploy lots of tactical impatience to get shit done.

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