This week, I’m taking you not to stock exchanges, banks or mutual fund houses, but to a different corner of the earth: war-torn streets. Imagine a child crying near a place where her home once stood. The roof is gone. The walls are gone. Her parents are gone. Only she remains. Now, place a marshmallow in front of the child. Tell her that if she waits for 15 more minutes, she would get one more. Ask yourself: will she wait?

Walk into a crumbling classroom in Sudan. Meet a girl who hasn’t seen her home for more than two years. Will she wait to grab the second marshmallow?

Enter a ravaged shelter home in Syria, where millions of people still need humanitarian aid. You see a bony boy with torn clothes. Will he wait? Now, ask the same question to a refugee child at a camp in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Afghanistan or elsewhere on this earth where children wait not only for a morsel of food, but also for safety, security and a breath of peace.

Now walk into a school in Washington DC. The hallways smell of fresh paint. The heater hums in the classroom. Crayons lie scattered on the floor. Toys spill from shelves. You see a boy with a lunch box in his hands. Inside it, a sandwich, an apple, a chocolate bar, wafers and berries. Now, hold the marshmallow in front of him. It has now become the poorest thing of all that’s inside his lunchbox. Will he wait? Not at all. He doesn’t care a damn about your marshmallow.

Same marshmallow but two reactions. The children in war-ravaged areas grab it immediately. Not because they lack self-control. But because in their world, it is the only thing that is real. For them, the promises of tomorrow were shattered several times. They were genuinely starving and so grabbed the marshmallow. The boy with berries in lunchbox does not even care to look.

But there is a third category of children. In this, the child is neither the Gaza nor the Washington type. It is in the middle of us. Who is the child?

The Marshmallow Test

In the U.S., in the late 1960s, Stanford University Professor Walter Mischel set out to study one of the most fundamental questions of human behaviour: Can a child’s ability to control impulses predict its future success? He placed a marshmallow in front of almost 600 children aged 4-6. One simple offer: wait for 15 minutes to get two. His follow-up research into the same children showed those who waited grew up with better grades, careers and financial habits. From a classroom in Stanford, tumbled out an entire philosophy of wealth creation. Delay gratification. Control impulses. And over a period, every money guru found a financial sermon — Save. Wait. Resist.

‘Sermon’ cracked

Not everyone appreciated the sermon. In 2013, Psychology professor Celeste Kidd made a startling discovery. She found children’s wait-times reflected not only self-control but also reasoned beliefs about whether waiting would ultimately pay off.

Children who lived with reliable parents viz. those who kept up promises, waited longer. Children from unstable, unpredictable environments grabbed the marshmallow immediately. Not because they lacked self-control. But because their world had taught them that waiting rarely pays off. Five years later in 2018, researchers Tyler Watts, Greg Duncan and Haonan Quan ran the same test on a broader sample of children from diverse backgrounds. When they took into account family background, early cognitive ability and the environment at home, the advantage of waiting reduced significantly.

The child who waited wasn’t more disciplined. She simply came from a more stable home with caring parents.

Recent study

And in 2024, a study published in Child Development followed 702 children from the age of four all the way to age 26. The conclusion was simple: Grabbing the marshmallow instantly or waiting for the second one made no reliable difference to how successful the children became in their adult life.

Three studies. One quiet verdict. It was never about self-control, but was about circumstances. The first child’s circumstances forced it to grab. The marshmallow itself became irrelevant for the Washington types.

But the third child is eagerly waiting. Faithfully. Patiently. Believing every word of the sermon. Who is the child? To know the answer, and to understand what it means for your money and your future, you will have to wait for your second marshmallow.

(The writer is an NISM & CRISIL-certified Wealth Manager and certified in NISM’s Research Analyst module)

Published on May 4, 2026