In Chapter 18, "Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning Theory," you read about Walter Mischel's "marshmallow test," in which he researched self-regulation and delayed gratification. Review the description of the "marshmallow test" and its results on pages 561-563 of your textbook.

Respond :

• Imagine that you were invited to take the test as a child. Predict how you would have responded to the test. Would you have been able to exercise willpower and self-regulation? Why or why not? What techniques might you have used to delay gratification?
• Refer to Skinner's Behaviorist theory. Based on your response to the marshmallow test, what might Skinner have to say about your personality? Incorporate two or more of the following terms in your response:
• Reinforcement (positive, negative, continuous, intermittent)
• Punishment (not to be confused with negative reinforcement)
• Social control
• Self-control

asked to predict how warmly the student would behave in several different situations. The single trait descriptor each participant received was determined randomly from the following list: friendly, a kiss-up, flirtatious, shy, or unfriendly. With just one of these traits in mind, participants then had to predict how the fictional student would behave with peers, with professors, with women, with men, with familiar people, and with unfamiliar people.What the researchers found perfectly supported the if-then framework of person-situation interactions. For example, when the trait descriptor for the fictional student was kiss-up, participants predicted that she would act very warmly toward professors but not exceptionally warmly toward peers. In other words, if the target of the interaction was of a high status (professor), then the student was very warm; but if the target was not of high status, then the student was not warm. Similarly, when the student was described as unfriendly, participants predicted she would be rather warm toward people she knew well but not at all warm toward unfamiliar people. These findings clearly demonstrate the average person understands that people do not behave in the same manner in all situationsdepending on their personality, people adjust behavior to match the situation.Mischel and colleagues concluded that the social-cognitive interactionist conceptualization of the person-situation environment is a more appropriate way of understanding human behavior than the traditional "decontextualized" views of personality in which people behave in a given way regardless of the context.Marshmallows and Self-Regulation Across the LifespanAs mentioned earlier in this chapter, Walter Mischel's earliest research in personality psychology was on delay of gratification. Recall that in his early studies with Ebbesen (1970), Mischel found that children who were able to resist temptation (in this case, not eating one marshmallow but rather waiting to receive two marshmallows later) did so with the use of a variety of cognitive and behavioral strategies. Since that early work, decades of longitudinal research has followed those preschoolers across their lifespan to explore the mechanisms that enable effective self-regulation.In a recent review of these follow-up studies, Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, and colleagues (2012) provide evidence for surprisingly significant predictive validity of the "marshmallow test" for important social, cognitive, and mental health outcomes across the lifespan. The list of remarkable consequences is long. For example, the number of seconds preschoolers were able to wait to obtain the preferred two marshmallows predicted significantly higher SAT scores when they were in high school, and, later, higher educational achievement overall, greater self-worth, and a better ability to cope with stress (Ayduk et al., 2000; Shoda et al., 1990). Further, those preschoolers who gave in to the temptation of one marshmallow were 30% more likely to be overweight by the age of 11 (Seeyave et al., 2009), and more likely to develop features of borderline personality in adulthood (Ayduk et al., 2008) than those who were able to wait for the delayed reward.What enables this amazing willpower in some, but not all, of us? Mischel and colleagues have published extensively on this question, and have concluded that those who can resist temptation in favor of long-term goals do so with the use of Page 562two broad strategies: redirection of attention or cognitive reframing (Mischel et al., 2010). Looking away or attending to something besides the tempting object helps delayers. Reframing a situation away from what Mischel and colleagues call the "hot" features (the marshmallow's yumminess, for example) and toward "cooler" representations (the marshmallow's shape) also boosts ability to delay.Nearly all readers have heard of the now-famous marshmallow test, and many of us have seen YouTube videos of little kids sitting alone at tables in agony, bending themselves into pretzels to not eat that marshmallow. Sesame Street even featured the Cookie Monster learning to delay gratification so he can later join the "Cookie Connoisseurs Club." Unfortunately, when the popular press gets hold of research like this, both the details and the fundamentals of the message often get lost. Many nave readers have assumed that the longitudinal research findings that some kids had the "grit" back in the 1960s to delay their gratification, and that grit later predicted a lifetime of success, meant this trait of self-control was highly genetic; one either has it or does not have it. But Mischel's cognitive-affective personality theory was and remains always about the dynamic interaction of the cognitive, affective and behavioral actions people make in given situations. As such, self-control involves skills and these skills can be exercised in some situations and not others, and they can be taught and enhanced.Walter Mischel (2014a) recently published a book reviewing his research over the decades on willpower and self-regulation, and setting the record straight, in a conversational style, regarding the takeaways from this work entitled The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control. In it, he argues that self-control and the ability to delay gratification is like a muscle that we can strengthen by training, and that we can choose to flex or not. He and his colleagues discovered two important strategies that enable us to resist temptation in favor of long-term goals: redirection of attention and cognitive reframing (Mischel et al., 2010). The kids in the original marshmallow studies who succeeded in delaying employed these strategies, and all of us can learn to do so. Looking away or attending to something besides the tempting object helps delayers, whether we are facing a sweet treat like a marshmallow or a pack Page 563of cigarettes at the store checkout when we are trying to quit smoking. Reframing a situation away from what Mischel and his colleagues call the "hot" features that our emotional, limbic system encodes (the marshmallow's delicious chewiness or nicotine's calming effect) and toward "cooler" representations that our prefrontal cortex is in charge of ("the marshmallow's shape resembles a cloud" or "what else could I buy instead with the money a pack of cigarettes costs?") boosts our capacity to delay or even overcome unhealthy immediate gratifications. The ultimate goal is to get the cool cognitive system, through practice, to take over what typically is activated in the hot system. In a recent interview, Mischel said, "The cool system allows us to regulate the emotional thermostat so that in 'hot' situations our response is cooler and reflective rather than hot and reflexive. It helps to have 'if-then' implementation plans so that when, say, the dessert arrives, I choose the fruit rather than fill myself with sugar" (Mischel, 2014b, p. 943). The marshmallow test is a classic measure of self-regulation in children and predicts many long-term outcomes such as academic performance in high school and college. Bill Aron/PhotoEditAll rights reserved.These simple strategies can be taught to dramatically improve people's capacity to delay gratification and improve self-regulation and hence our lives. Walter Mischel's seemingly simple demonstrations of early life self-regulatory competencies have proven to be powerful predictors of healthy, flexible personality well into midlife.Critique of Cognitive Social Learning TheoryCognitive social learning theory is attractive to those who value the rigors of learning theory and the speculative assumption that people are forward-looking, cognitive beings. Rotter and Mischel have both evolved learning theories for thinking, valuing, goal-directed humans rather than for laboratory animals. Like that of other theories, cognitive social learning theory's value rests on how it rates on the six criteria for a useful theory.First, have the theories of Rotter and Mischel sparked a significant body of research? On this criterion, cognitive social learning theories have generated both quantity and quality of research. For example, Rotter's concept of locus of control has been, and continues to be, one of the most widely researched topics in psychological literature. Locus of control, however, is not the core of Rotter's personality theory, and the theory itself has not generated a comparable level of research. In contrast to Rotter's concept of locus of control, Mischel's theory has generated somewhat less research, but that research is more relevant to his core ideas.Second, are cognitive social learning theories falsifiable? The empirical nature of both Rotter's and Mischel's work exposes these theories to possible falsification and verification. However, Rotter's basic prediction formula and general prediction formula are completely hypothetical and cannot be accurately tested.By comparison, Mischel's theory lends itself somewhat more adequately to falsification. Indeed, research on delay of gratification drove Mischel to place greater emphasis on situation variables and less on the inconsistency of behavior. This de-emphasis on delay of gratification has allowed Mischel to avoid the narrow methodological approaches used in his early research.Page 564On the criterion of organizing knowledge, cognitive social theory rates a little above average. Theoretically at least, Rotter's general prediction formula and its components of need potential, freedom