Ted Talk 7 Joachim de Posada says, Don't eat the marshmallow yet

This video displayed the importance of good things come to those who wait. I thought the experiment in this Ted talk was very interesting. The man took three, four year old children and gave them a marshmallow. He told the children you can eat the marshmallow now, or you can wait 15 minutes (not eat the marshmallow) and then you will get a second marshmallow to eat. In these tests, 2 out of 3 children ate the first marshmallow. Posada followed up this experiment many years later and found that the child who did not eat the marshmallow right away ended up at a university with good grades. The children who ate the first marshmallow right away ended up with bad grades and were unsuccessful throughout their late teen years.


The speaker uses video to show the second time this experiment was carried out. In the video, you got to see the children contemplating if they would actually eat the marshmallow. The same results occurred, 2 out of 3 ate the marshmallow. The video showed the child who waited was trying not to focus on the marshmallow. This technique allowed the audience to understand what the mind goes through while making this decision.


Posada's style in this talk is not overly expressive. He gives out the information and facts without really adding anything else to this topic. He tells about his experiments with the marshmallow and children and how the children ended up later in their lifetime.


Personally, this video made me wonder if I was put in the same situation, would I wait for a larger-scale reward? Would I take what was just given to me? I hope I would wait since waiting for something has a better personal "feeling" reward that you earned the extra reward. Education should interpret this Ted talk as an affective way of seeing how many children take what's given to them. Over 50% of the children were making irrational decisions so teachers should see how this may affect the learning environment. Some students may not try their best just to get an average grade. The "others" who wait and try hard for the optimal reward will earn their above-average grade. The world should take into account that over half of the population will not amount to their fullest potential since they will "take whats given to them".