Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.

(Carl Jung)

What Jung says is right for many reasons. But mainly because it greatly resonates with our experiential lives. Inevitably, we all are hustling to reach our goals, which come with the pressures of time and survival, as we strive towards them; and that bypasses our real ones! This often brings self-rejection, repression, and unprocessed emotions, leading to extended suffering.

Our ambitions often veil our real need: to have a life full of purpose, love, and meaning. And this makes us run in the wrong direction; we do our best in trying to fulfill the wrong goals! In the rush, we either reject our real desires or postpone them for a future that we can’t predetermine. And to truly listen to our heart and write our stories, we need to discipline ourselves.

Now this is opposite to “being disciplined” in the old way—which pulls us further away from our truth. The way most of us have been (probably) disciplined by our “Do as I say, not as I do” parents. But as so much attention has been given to the importance of our childhoods and the ‘childhood trauma’ (that some of us might be dealing with), it doesn’t discount the fact that it is a reality. Nor does it discount the fact that our parents, like us, are not perfect, are humans—who make mistakes while trying to solve problems!

Dr. Scott’s book describes how the practice of discipline (the right kind) can serve us. Delaying gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to the truth, and balancing are the four tenets of discipline he describes. And to master them will be very self-empowering. We shall explore one of the pillars of discipline that Dr. Scott describes in detail...

Delaying gratification

‘Delaying gratification is the way of scheduling pain and pleasure in life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing pain first and getting it over with.’ A huge deal of attention has been given by psychologists and neuroscientists in this area, and many agree with the role delaying gratification plays in our lives.

The marshmallow matter

The Marshmallow experiment measured kids’ behavior towards rewards, interpreted under the ‘delay-of-gratification paradigm’. Meaning, when kids were promised a better reward (a marshmallow) as an alternative to a less attractive but immediately available one (crackers), they responded in different ways. When none of the rewards were actually kept in front of them, when they waited for 15 minutes, a larger proportion of the kids could wait for a delayed reward than when the rewards were actually kept before their eyes.

“[An] elaborate self-distraction occurred mainly in the rewards-absent condition and almost never in the both-rewards-present condition, since in the latter group the children quickly terminated the delay period.”

In the former case, "internal and overt activity...” helped them cope with the frustration of the delay. And scientists deduced that these “maneuvers” were helpful to them only when the rewards were visually not present to them.

The Marshmallow experiment drew huge attention since the 1960s; it was heavily covered and critiqued by the media and scientific fraternity. But nonetheless, it brought huge attention to the complexity in human behaviors—giving us more nuance, gifting us more insight, and rewarding our curiosity with a sense of direction! It led to a dialogue that was conceived by people from various sectors and industries, including health.

The context of health behavior change

We might realize that our daily decisions guide behaviors toward our health, which will determine the outcomes and how we may feel about what we expected. Like many of us know, daily habits like brushing teeth at night prevent caries, sleeping 7 hours prevents depression, and eating more fruits prevents cancer. But our minds and bodies are complexly and uniquely built. They work against us.

Are we not different than the 5-year-olds who find it very difficult not to eat a cake when faced with it? I believe change is possible only when we deepen our awareness about the complexities of our behaviors and our ability to change them in our favor.

The Marshmallow study done by Walter Mischel and colleagues was a phenomenal development in the understanding of human behavior, reward-seeking, and delay-of-gratification. Although many critiqued it for having limitations, later, at NYU, Watts and colleagues ‘restaged’ the same experiment for a bigger group, more representative of the wider population. They found that children's social and economic background had a greater role in shaping their future.

This was a ‘failed replication’ of the classical Marshmallow Test, ascertaining that the ability to delay gratification of a reward depended more on their overall “life-circumstances.” Further, children of well-educated, higher-earning parents are more resistant to the strain of instant gratification and also tend to do better in their future life—since they tend to more frequently “wait” for bigger rewards.

The correlation of the extent to which children at their preschool age were able to delay gratification with their ability to keep ‘cognitive control’ while performing similar tasks that demanded delaying gratification from a reward in their adolescence is notable. And if cuttlefish can tolerate delaying gratification for the sake of better rewards as much as humans are capable, why can’t we ourselves? (referenced the article postscript).

“Delay of gratification is not a unique lever to pull to positively influence other aspects of a person’s life. It’s a consequence of bigger-picture, harder-to-change components of a person, like their intelligence and the environment they live in.”

The follow-up study on the similar ‘Bing Cohort’ revealed that multiple factors (including cognitive control for delay-of-gratification) correlated with the extent of financial success children were capable of.

Behavior is not just individual

And the Marshmallow experiment became famous for the wrong reasons, as teaching children to delay rewards was taken as a prescription to improve their life success while clearly discrediting other aspects that play a vital role—like the environment and social contexts.

The socio-ecological model (SEM model) explains how behaviors (whether towards health or otherwise) occur in the wider context of environment and socio-economic situations in which people originate and spend their lives. Whether individual, interpersonal, community, or policy level—what behaviors humans follow are dependent on measures taken at all levels.

References

Miller, C. C. (2018, June 7). The marshmallow test, revisited. The Atlantic.
Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. I. (2006). Delay of gratification in children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 940–948.
Schnell, A. K., Boeckle, M., Rivera, M., Clayton, N. S., & Hanlon, R. T. (2021). Cuttlefish exert self-control in a delay of gratification task. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288(1946), 20203161.
Klein, E. (2018, June 6). The marshmallow test: What happens when you can’t wait for a marshmallow? Vox.
Anderson, A. (2020, February 5). New study disavows marshmallow test’s predictive powers. UCLA Anderson Review.
UNICEF. (2020). Global multisectoral operational framework for early childhood development: A call to action.