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The issue is that it's patience at age 4, so kids have had maybe two years to learn even very basic expectation-and-outcome patterns. The effect people often de
by Bartweiss 7y ago
The issue is that it's patience at age 4, so kids have had maybe two years to learn even very basic expectation-and-outcome patterns. The effect people often describe where adult poverty teaches you to spend now before you lose your money isn't going to have kicked in yet.
That doesn't rule out food insecurity or other unfulfilled commitments teaching kids this result, but it has to be something earlier and more subtle than the established patterns of wealth in adults.
- zepto 7y agoKids learn a lot by imitation, and 4 years is plenty long enough for them to pick up on their parents patterns. Nothing supports your assumption that the effect hasn’t had time to kick in.
- Bartweiss 7y ago"Pick up on their parents' patterns" isn't the same thing, though. At the very least, it's an extra remove away, and probably modified by other control variables in the study like 'parental responsiveness'. I'm not claiming that family wealth doesn't affect patience, but I see lots of people giving the specific rationale that being poor teaches people to spend their money immediately because it won't be available later. That doesn't make much sense to me, partly because people learn that pattern first-hand in late childhood or later, and more importantly because the original marshmallow test study stayed predictive within an entirely above-middle-class population. In general, I don't think the current data actually offers much evidence for any specific narrative about how wealth causes this effect. Assessing that would call for information like the effect of relative versus absolute wealth, or at the very least a breakdown of what income levels this correlation happens over.
- zepto 7y ago”people learn that pattern first-hand in late childhood or later” Is this a fact? If so do you have any evidence or references in support of it?