The Marshmallow Experiment is no child’s play

You have probably heard of it, the test where young children are offered a marshmallow now or the promise of two if they wait. It could be any reward really, and YouTube offers some cute filmed experiments. The original test was created by Walter Mischel at Stanford University in the late 1960s. He wanted to study the extent to which the ability to delay gratification as a child was a predictor of quality of life later. His hypothesis was that it would be – that one’s willingness to forego immediate satisfaction against the promise of greater future satisfaction would lead to better long-term decisions. We study now to land an interesting job later. We save today to buy a house in five years. We go for weekly runs to improve the chances of a long and healthy life.

It is perhaps no surprise that the same phenomenon applies to the business world, and even the business of harvesting nature. Many coastal communities in Zanzibar rely on octopus fishing for their livelihood but overfishing – including catching ever younger and smaller ones - presents a recurring challenge to the viability of their trade. Reef-based octopus are a fast-growing species, so postponing their capture increases the weight and ultimately the price they fetch. The problem of course is that the whole community has to agree to delay the fishing season – otherwise one person’s wait becomes another person’s gain. It’s a fragile balance which depends on establishing trust and arrangements which benefit all participants (we could easily apply game theory to illustrate, but let’s leave that for another time).

Thankfully, however, there’s help to be had. The conservation organisation Blue Ventures recently reported on the support it has provided to coastal communities on Fundo Island to forge alliances and create mechanisms to sustainably manage octopus stock. It recently resulted in what appears to be the successful re-opening of the fishing season after a temporary self-imposed closure which had allowed the stock to grow more optimal sizes. If we look at the Fundo community’s decision to delay gratification through the lens of the Marshmallow Experiment the similarities are easy to see: just like Mischel found that those willing to wait for two marshmallows as children went on to achieve better life outcomes, the patient coastal communities will collect greater harvests from the sea as they wait. But self-control can be challenging and as with most tricky things in life we can all do with a bit of help in the process.

(image credit: Blue Ventures)