Self Regulation

Self Regulation is the latest buzzword being bandied about in educational seminars. Self regulation is best understood through a study that began over 30 years ago. Children (age 4)were given a marshmallow and told that if they could wait 20 minutes without eating the marshmallow they would be given a second marshmallow. Apparently 30 % of the children were able to withstand the urge to munch the tasty treat and were rewarded with a second marshmallow. What did thirty years of tracking these students provide the researchers? They discovered that the students who showed self regulation (or did not like marshmallows) had better grades, higher academic achievement, greater job satisfaction and lower rates of obesity. Self regulation, impulse control, deferred gratification, call it what you will, is a uniquely human behavior that apparently only some humans possess. The study, conducted by Walther Mischel in 1972 at Stanford University, determined that those who self regulate will fare better academically later in life. Self regulation, when appropriately measured, can predict, with a degree of certainty, future successes. The challenge for teachers now is to attempt to teach self regulation. It is apparently a learned rather than a natural trait. See a clip of a recent rendition of the Marshmallow Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EjJsPylEOY

Write a response to the "self Regulation" experiment after reading some reviews of the experiment.