Abstract
I would like to dedicate this issue to the memory of Walter Mischel, whose work on delay of gratification is among its inspirations. Walter died September 12, 2018, after a long and creative career. His marshmallow test reminds us that psychological science can be both rigorous and relevant. A true scientist, he entertained many alternative hypotheses over the years, including effects of reward and of trust in the experimenter to give up the two marshmallows on the table, once the child waited. He studied children in different economic circumstances and cultures, as recounted during his active participation in the Cornell University meeting on the Neuroscience of Risky Decision Making (see Reyna & Zayas, 2014; https://vod.video.cornell.edu/channel/Third+Biennial+Urie+Bronfenbrenner+Conference/107471841).
His work, and that of his many collaborators, demonstrated the counterintuitive effect of mental representation on the ability to defer gratification. Moving beyond motivating people with rewards, the simple idea was that how people thought about reality shaped how they felt about it and how they behaved. Surprisingly, telling children to think of the marshmallows as something inedible (e.g., cotton balls) dramatically improved impulse control. The denouement is that, although impulse control was related to personality and later work linked it to the brain, that did not mean that impulsivity could not be changed. The target article and commentary in this issue move substantially beyond Mischel’s findings, and they raise questions about the reality and practicality of fundamental psychological principles for policy. Building on these superb articles in this issue of PSPI, and on Walter’s work, it is my fervent hope that all of the scientifically rigorous perspectives can be integrated to reduce massive social and economic problems that have their roots in human behavior.