Dr. Kentaro Fujita

So one of the things that he taught children was, is it better to stare at the one marshmallow or close your eyes?

Cover it up or close your eyes?

Three-year-old children believe that it's better to stare at it because they think that's how I'm going to motivate myself.

Like if I can see what I want, I'm going to be able to wait.

I can see the one.

I can imagine the second.

I can wait longer.

Five-year-olds learn that that's not going to work, and they learn to cover it up or close their eyes.

Interestingly, basically you can create a written test or a verbal test where you can ask children, what do you think you should do in order to wait longer?

And research shows that children who, well, let me be more careful.

Research shows that there are age-related differences.

So at three-year-old, they don't know anything, but at five-year-old, they've learned.

And then later on at 13 years old,

those children who correctly understand the quote-unquote rules of self-control have less problematic behavior.

So Walter Mischel and his team went to a summer camp for children with behavioral problems, and those that understood the rules, the tricks that work and the tricks that don't work, were less likely to have behavioral problems at that camp than those who did not.

Knowledge matters.

Self-control can be learned.

It can be taught.

You can learn by trial and error.

And I think that's really important because it suggests that rather than being something that we're born with, we can get better.