Value of a single marshmallow

[Bohandas]

I'm trying to figure out if a psychological experiment I remember reading about is valid and to do that I need to know the monetary value of a single marshmallow, and some of the info I've found online seems a little suspect and all the stores are closed at this time of night.

If anybody happens to have a bag of marshmallows on hand could someone verify that a 10 oz bag of normal marshmallows has about 40 marshmallows in it and costs around three dollars?

The experiment in question involved giving a kid a marshmallow and testing their self control by giving them a second marshmallow if they can wait a full minite without eating it. But I realized that an argument could be made that this is more properly a test of if the kid is a sucker. If we estimate that a minute of a person's time is worth at least 12 cents (based on the current minimum wage) then it's becomes difficult to justify wasting the minute waiting around for less than 12 cents worth of candy; however my preliminary calculations indicate that a marshmallow is in fact only worth about 8 cents.

Also, does anybody have any idea how much a bag of jombo marshmallows costs and how many are in a bag? I suppose that might make a difference if they weren;t standard marshmallows.

[theNater]

A couple of things to note:

Firstly, the typical structure of this experiment is that researcher presents the first marshmallow, leaves the room, and returns a minute later to observe the state of the marshmallow(and reward the child, if the marshmallow remains). So the child is going to be sitting in the room for 60 seconds, regardless.

Secondly, the children involved in this experiment are generally of an age where it is illegal to employ them. The amount of money they would earn at a job they cannot have is not a good measure of how valuable their time is.

So no, this is not accidentally a test of a child's economic savvy.

It is, however, accidentally a test of a child's trust in adults. A child who does not believe the promised second marshmallow will be forthcoming has no reason to wait; a child who fears the first marshmallow may be taken away at any moment has a reason to eat immediately.

[NichG]

What is the expected utility curve vs number of marshmellows obtained anyhow? Certainly there should be diminishing returns, and at some point it should be non-monotonic as you begin to be crushed under the marshmellows you receive.

[Lord Torath]

What's interesting is that the results of the marshmallow test appear to be culturally dependent (https://phys.org/news/2022-07-marshmallow-resisting-temptation-child-cultural.html). In the US, kids have a hard time resisting the marshmallow, while in Japan, they can easily wait the 15 minutes to get a second one. But in the US, kids are quite good about waiting to open a present, since we've been trained to wait until Birthday/Christmas. But given the same 'marshmallow test' with a small wrapped gift replacing the marshmallow, Japanese kids 'failed' much more often than US kids.

[Tyndmyr]

I'm trying to figure out if a psychological experiment I remember reading about is valid and to do that I need to know the monetary value of a single marshmallow, and some of the info I've found online seems a little suspect and all the stores are closed at this time of night.

Cost isn't relevant, the kid has to spend the time regardless.

It measures time preference for rewards. However, it doesn't measure the reason for that time preference. Perhaps the child distrusts authority. Perhaps they lack self control. As pointed out, culture also can be a complicating factor. These are different reasons, and thus, the resulting actions may differ, and the test doesn't discriminate against them and arguably wasn't meant to.

However, time preference is strongly correlated to all sorts of positive outcomes, and some branches of philosophy, most notably Hans Herman Hoppe's books, have extrapolated a great deal from this.

One could speculate that perhaps the cultural training to resist the marshmallow in Japan compared to the US is related to the probability for obesity in those countries. The correlation exists, at a minimum, and the mechanism of "kids trained for a thing are better at it later in life" is at least very plausible and well accepted in other aspects.

I suspect that time preference is indeed very important to track, but relying overly on marshmallows might be a methodological weakness.

[gbaji]

Outside of children and marshmallows, I have observed that there absolutely are cultural differences in different geographical regions even in fairlly high level work environments. I maintain a set of global configuration standards for a number of worksites/labs around the world. I actually have to apply slightly different proceedures/policies due the different tolerances by engineering groups of different types of delays in their workflow.

Some will happily wait while initiating software for a series of updates to run in the background before their application starts up. Some will not. Some will wait patiently for a series of patches to occur while booting up a computer. Some will not. Some will accept scheduled downtimes that impact their overall useage time on a system. Some will not. Some will accept slower performance while operating in exchange for "starting now" (versus "wait until all the updates are done, then start" mentioned previously).

It's very very noticable. I will receive very different engineering requirements for my work based on where it is in the world. Which makes for some "Interesting" automation challenges.

So yeah. I would assume that children raised in environments with these different behaviors by adults will presumably also exhibit similar behavior as well. Everything else being the same, of course.

Oh. And I'd also second the point that the children used in these kinds of studies are almost certainly not making any sort of monetary calculation here. First off, if you don't know the cost of a marshmallow, it's a good bet the child doesn't either. Secondly, the opportunity cost for the child isn't money. They would not otherwise be earning money if they weren't waiting, and have (presuambly) never worked for a wage before, so would not even have the concept of how much "my time is worth".

[gomipile]

At Wal-Mart here, a 12 oz. bag of Jet-Puffed marshmallows costs $1.78 and contains about 48 marshmallows. There's no sales tax on food here.

[gbaji]

At Wal-Mart here, a 12 oz. bag of Jet-Puffed marshmallows costs $1.78 and contains about 48 marshmallows. There's no sales tax on food here.

And yes. Somehow, marshmallows count as "food".

[OracleofWuffing]

At Wal-Mart here, a 12 oz. bag of Jet-Puffed marshmallows costs $1.78 and contains about 48 marshmallows. There's no sales tax on food here.
And just to complicate matters, one could go store-brand and get a 10oz pack for $1.18 on my end. Going off the nutrition facts, there are about 10 servings per container and a serving size is 4 pieces, so approximately 40 marshmallows. So, yeah, back of my napkin says that a single marshmallow- before buy-in-bulk economy of scale shenanigans take place- is about three cents.

Is that against the spirit of the marshmallow experiment? Well, there are so many marshmallow experiments and so many interpretations of the results that I'm convinced there isn't a spirit in the experiment by now.

Also weren't we supposed to call them marshmelons? :smalltongue:

[warty goblin]

And what if the kid just doesn't like raw marshmallows? Cause in terms of candy, that's really bottom of the barrel. The real test of the savvy kid isn't whether they eat the marshmallow, it's whether they threaten to scream nonstop for 60 seconds unless they get some decent candy for their time.

[Eldan]

Well, they aren't much of a thing here, but at least in Germany, a bit of googling shows that a 300g bag, which is just about 10.5 ounces, is 1 euro, 79 cents or a 1.94 US dollar.

[Tyndmyr]

And what if the kid just doesn't like raw marshmallows? Cause in terms of candy, that's really bottom of the barrel. The real test of the savvy kid isn't whether they eat the marshmallow, it's whether they threaten to scream nonstop for 60 seconds unless they get some decent candy for their time.

Sure, that's possible, but with a large enough sample size, that should come out in the wash. At least, so long as one is considering a single culture. If it's an experiment comparing cultures, I could easily imagine that food preferences would vary between them. The US has notably sweeter food than many other cultures.

As for manipulation, that's a different trait entirely than time-preference. Probably also interesting to measure, but I would not imagine that the two traits are generally correlated. Skillful manipulators are not always patient....but even among manipulators, patience is likely still a virtue.

[NichG]

My response so far was tongue in cheek, but more seriously I'd argue that its less patience and more obedience and perception of 'what I'm supposed to do' that's being detected, which could correlate to the ability to survive and operate in hierarchies. Which most people will find themselves within and not at the top of, so in some sense this would also correlate with 'success' to a degree.

[Mastikator]

According to my google-fu skills the most universally preferred candy is chocolate of some kind. So a more accurate test would be to have two pieces of chocolate candies, present both to the kid, tell it that it is allowed to have one now, or both later. A child's understanding of monetary value is too much of a cultural test, so it's better to motivate it with future rewards of more candy.

It would also be extremely valuable to ask the kid why it chose what it chose.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I feel like most adults would fail the test. Not so much because it's economically silly, but because they figure "I need to eat less junk anyway, one piece of candy is just the right amount."

[Vahnavoi]

No, you don't need to know monetary value of a marshmallow, because it is almost a given four-year-olds (the age bracket for the original marshmallow test) do not know the monetary value of marshmallows either and the calculation presented cannot have any impact on their decision-making.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Now I’m curious, will it change the statistical outcome if the marshmellow is flavored, colored, or has a funny shape?

BRB, going to make myself some hot chocolate now. :smalltongue:

[Tyndmyr]

Now I’m curious, will it change the statistical outcome if the marshmellow is flavored, colored, or has a funny shape?

BRB, going to make myself some hot chocolate now. :smalltongue:

It shouldn't, at least, from a value perspective it doesn't. Whatever the value of 1 marshmallow, 2 marshmallows are exactly double that.

It might for cultural, etc reasons, though. Value is ultimately subjective, and if time preferences changes based on perceived value, that'd be interesting research.

[Vahnavoi]

Now I’m curious, will it change the statistical outcome if the marshmellow is flavored, colored, or has a funny shape?

Yes, because those influence subjective desirability of the object, and thus the level of temptation experienced. Additionally, if a test subject focuses on abstract traits of an object such as size and shape, as opposed to things like how good it tastes, it can make them better able to resist temptation. All of this can be found, with references, on Wikipedia's article for delayed gratification.