The original Marshmallow Test in Trinidad was a test of racial stereotypes. Walter Mischel wrote:
I spent one summer living near a small village in the southern tip of Trinidad.
The inhabitants in this part of the island were of either African or East Indian descent, their ancestors having arrived as either slaves or indentured servants. Each group lived peacefully in its own enclave, on different sides of the same long dirt road that divided their homes.… I discovered a recurrent theme in how they characterized each other. According to the East Indians, the Africans were just pleasure-bent, impulsive, and eager to have a good time and live in the moment, while never planning or thinking ahead about the future. The Africans saw their East Indian neighbors as always working and slaving for the future, stuffing their money under the mattress without ever enjoying life”
“To check if the perceptions about the differences between the ethnic groups were accurate, I walked down the long dirt road to the local school, which was attended by children from both groups.” “I tested boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 14. I asked the children who lived in their home, gauged their trust that promises made would be promises kept, and assessed their achievement motivation, social responsibility, and intelligence. At the end of each of these sessions, I gave them choices between little treats: either one tiny chocolate that they could have immediately or a much bigger one that they could get the following week”
“The young adolescents in Trinidad who most frequently chose the immediate smaller rewards, in contrast to those who chose the delayed larger ones, were more often in trouble and, in the language of the time, judged to be “juvenile delinquents.” Consistently, they were seen as less socially responsible, and they had often already had serious issues with authorities and the police. They also scored much lower on a standard test of achievement motivation and showed less ambition in the goals they had for themselves for the future.
Consistent with the stereotypes I heard from their parents, the African Trinidadian kids generally preferred the immediate rewards, and those from East Indian families chose the delayed ones much more often. But surely there was more to the story. Perhaps those who came from homes with absent fathers—a common occurrence at that time in the African families in Trinidad, while very rare for the East Indians—had fewer experiences with men who kept their promises. If so, they would have less trust that the stranger—me—would ever really show up later with the promised delayed reward. There’s no good reason for anyone to forgo the “now” unless there is trust that the “later” will materialize. In fact, when I compared the two ethnic groups by looking only at children who had a man living in the household, the differences between the groups disappeared.”
Ironically I've read that stereotype accuracy is one of the best-supported findings in social science (although considering the article, it may just be what right wing scientists WANT me to believe!)
Edit: just realized I'm responding to Steve Sailer, the Notorious Noticer himself! I have your book!
Thank you for describing the original “marshmallow” experiment.
Isn’t there a difference though between the two experiments? In the Trinidad one, Mischel correlates delayed gratification to whether teenagers were in trouble at that time, whereas in the latter experiment he correlates delayed gratification to future outcomes.
I appreciate that the interpretation of Milgram's work can be criticised, but this really is separate from the work itself. His 1974 book on the experiments - done in 17 versions different versions iirc - has a more nuanced discussion of the boundary conditions and driving forces in obedience to authority. Yes, what his studies mean can be contested, but MIlgram himself demonstrated a principled approach to testing hypotheses. Further, subsequent reanalysis of his studies depend on his admirable commitment to archiving his raw data (which would these days be called "open science")
Informative and fascinating. What stands out to me about this article is how the researchers seem to uniformly seek confirmation of beastliness in human nature. A couple of years back, it dawned on me that The Lord of the Flies was bullshit in its depiction of British, Christian boys descending into tribalism and savagery. Maybe it's a narrative that found its way into the worldview of researchers, despite a plenitude of counterexamples involving European, Christian folk who go into savage places and turn them into admirable civilizations. Somehow, they possessed the character to bring order into the wild instead of allowing the wild to overcome their character. Perhaps the social scientists should investigate the interesting phenomena of human fortitude, cooperation, and vision.
It feels like science is at least as politically motivated as it's been in the last few decades, with researchers pushing the efficacy of certain trans therapies and "implicit bias" tests far past what the data might suggest.
Have there been many “people are basically good” studies? Apart from whether they are replicable or what have you: just studies designed to test ordinary altruism. It is a kind of social psychology result in itself how often “people are basically crap” studies end up being widely promulgated.
Great piece, and I recognise that your criticism of Milgram is nuanced, but I still think it's overdone. In the original paper he's clear that he's presenting only the version of the experiment that gave the most extreme results, and that he'll publish other versions to explore what factors lead to obedience (as he ended up doing). And the percentage who were prepared (even by their own account, rationalising their behaviour after the experiment) to take the risk of killing someone remains surprising and shocking, no matter how you slice it.
Your summary does overplay how visceral the original (most extreme) experiment was, though - there was no screaming or shouting during it, just two instances of pounding on the wall by the victim when a new level of shock was administered, and then the answers of the victim ceasing to appear on the screen after a further threshold is reached.
Great paper, well written, thought provoking, easy to understand. Psychology would be in a better state if there were more like it.
Zimbardo (especially) and Milgram deserve the treatment you mete out. But, as regards the Asch Conformity Experiment, I think there's something still left there of value. After all, even 30% or so going along with the group, on a task as simple and obvious as line length is hard to justify as people reasoning to the best explanation: there must be something wrong with their eyes. In fact, doubting your eyes in this kind of situation is precisely what he wanted to show. A simple look around or a blink or two is enough to make any sane person realize their eyes are either working or not. So clinging to the group's judgment, when those tests are natural and probably done as well, proves his point.
Requiring a much more serious knowledge of postcalc statistics to get a degree might simultaneously achieve the effects of unpopularizing the field and attracting a better class of researchers. I've advocated this for many of the social sciences.
Seeking public popularity is probably related to the tendency toward woke theories. We've seen an influx of academics who simply aren't terribly bright, and lacking any real quantitative skill, justifying their careers among peers and the general public by offering themselves as experts in some topic. These experts form echo chambers in periodicals organized to publish their nonsense further bolstering delusional expertise.
One things for sure, the "studies" departments need to go. A heavily opinionated, half-baked knowledge of historiography mixed with trendy social theorizing and zero quantitative capability doesn't make for serious research.
I'm arguing social psychology has suffered from researchers obsessed with popularizing themselves and affirming popular wisdom, so the discipline might benefit from being siloed away from that sort of thing.
The original Marshmallow Test in Trinidad was a test of racial stereotypes. Walter Mischel wrote:
I spent one summer living near a small village in the southern tip of Trinidad.
The inhabitants in this part of the island were of either African or East Indian descent, their ancestors having arrived as either slaves or indentured servants. Each group lived peacefully in its own enclave, on different sides of the same long dirt road that divided their homes.… I discovered a recurrent theme in how they characterized each other. According to the East Indians, the Africans were just pleasure-bent, impulsive, and eager to have a good time and live in the moment, while never planning or thinking ahead about the future. The Africans saw their East Indian neighbors as always working and slaving for the future, stuffing their money under the mattress without ever enjoying life”
“To check if the perceptions about the differences between the ethnic groups were accurate, I walked down the long dirt road to the local school, which was attended by children from both groups.” “I tested boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 14. I asked the children who lived in their home, gauged their trust that promises made would be promises kept, and assessed their achievement motivation, social responsibility, and intelligence. At the end of each of these sessions, I gave them choices between little treats: either one tiny chocolate that they could have immediately or a much bigger one that they could get the following week”
“The young adolescents in Trinidad who most frequently chose the immediate smaller rewards, in contrast to those who chose the delayed larger ones, were more often in trouble and, in the language of the time, judged to be “juvenile delinquents.” Consistently, they were seen as less socially responsible, and they had often already had serious issues with authorities and the police. They also scored much lower on a standard test of achievement motivation and showed less ambition in the goals they had for themselves for the future.
Consistent with the stereotypes I heard from their parents, the African Trinidadian kids generally preferred the immediate rewards, and those from East Indian families chose the delayed ones much more often. But surely there was more to the story. Perhaps those who came from homes with absent fathers—a common occurrence at that time in the African families in Trinidad, while very rare for the East Indians—had fewer experiences with men who kept their promises. If so, they would have less trust that the stranger—me—would ever really show up later with the promised delayed reward. There’s no good reason for anyone to forgo the “now” unless there is trust that the “later” will materialize. In fact, when I compared the two ethnic groups by looking only at children who had a man living in the household, the differences between the groups disappeared.”
https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-origin-of-the-marshmallow-test/
Ironically I've read that stereotype accuracy is one of the best-supported findings in social science (although considering the article, it may just be what right wing scientists WANT me to believe!)
Edit: just realized I'm responding to Steve Sailer, the Notorious Noticer himself! I have your book!
Proud to have noticed "Noticing" and picked up a copy
Thank you for describing the original “marshmallow” experiment.
Isn’t there a difference though between the two experiments? In the Trinidad one, Mischel correlates delayed gratification to whether teenagers were in trouble at that time, whereas in the latter experiment he correlates delayed gratification to future outcomes.
I appreciate that the interpretation of Milgram's work can be criticised, but this really is separate from the work itself. His 1974 book on the experiments - done in 17 versions different versions iirc - has a more nuanced discussion of the boundary conditions and driving forces in obedience to authority. Yes, what his studies mean can be contested, but MIlgram himself demonstrated a principled approach to testing hypotheses. Further, subsequent reanalysis of his studies depend on his admirable commitment to archiving his raw data (which would these days be called "open science")
There is a lot that was admirable about how Milgram did his work, but his popular presentation of the data nevertheless left a lot to be desired.
Informative and fascinating. What stands out to me about this article is how the researchers seem to uniformly seek confirmation of beastliness in human nature. A couple of years back, it dawned on me that The Lord of the Flies was bullshit in its depiction of British, Christian boys descending into tribalism and savagery. Maybe it's a narrative that found its way into the worldview of researchers, despite a plenitude of counterexamples involving European, Christian folk who go into savage places and turn them into admirable civilizations. Somehow, they possessed the character to bring order into the wild instead of allowing the wild to overcome their character. Perhaps the social scientists should investigate the interesting phenomena of human fortitude, cooperation, and vision.
The fabricated studies of the past feel medieval somehow. Hopefully we’re beyond such things now.
It feels like science is at least as politically motivated as it's been in the last few decades, with researchers pushing the efficacy of certain trans therapies and "implicit bias" tests far past what the data might suggest.
"It feels like science is at least as politically motivated as it's been in the last few decades..."
The AGW narrative certainly is.
Have there been many “people are basically good” studies? Apart from whether they are replicable or what have you: just studies designed to test ordinary altruism. It is a kind of social psychology result in itself how often “people are basically crap” studies end up being widely promulgated.
There are studies that fit that conclusion, but I don't think that's usually explicitly their aim.
Great piece, and I recognise that your criticism of Milgram is nuanced, but I still think it's overdone. In the original paper he's clear that he's presenting only the version of the experiment that gave the most extreme results, and that he'll publish other versions to explore what factors lead to obedience (as he ended up doing). And the percentage who were prepared (even by their own account, rationalising their behaviour after the experiment) to take the risk of killing someone remains surprising and shocking, no matter how you slice it.
Your summary does overplay how visceral the original (most extreme) experiment was, though - there was no screaming or shouting during it, just two instances of pounding on the wall by the victim when a new level of shock was administered, and then the answers of the victim ceasing to appear on the screen after a further threshold is reached.
Great paper, well written, thought provoking, easy to understand. Psychology would be in a better state if there were more like it.
Zimbardo (especially) and Milgram deserve the treatment you mete out. But, as regards the Asch Conformity Experiment, I think there's something still left there of value. After all, even 30% or so going along with the group, on a task as simple and obvious as line length is hard to justify as people reasoning to the best explanation: there must be something wrong with their eyes. In fact, doubting your eyes in this kind of situation is precisely what he wanted to show. A simple look around or a blink or two is enough to make any sane person realize their eyes are either working or not. So clinging to the group's judgment, when those tests are natural and probably done as well, proves his point.
Requiring a much more serious knowledge of postcalc statistics to get a degree might simultaneously achieve the effects of unpopularizing the field and attracting a better class of researchers. I've advocated this for many of the social sciences.
Seeking public popularity is probably related to the tendency toward woke theories. We've seen an influx of academics who simply aren't terribly bright, and lacking any real quantitative skill, justifying their careers among peers and the general public by offering themselves as experts in some topic. These experts form echo chambers in periodicals organized to publish their nonsense further bolstering delusional expertise.
One things for sure, the "studies" departments need to go. A heavily opinionated, half-baked knowledge of historiography mixed with trendy social theorizing and zero quantitative capability doesn't make for serious research.
Good and informative, but what about the teaser, "To be good it needs to be unpopular"?
See the last paragraph:
I'm arguing social psychology has suffered from researchers obsessed with popularizing themselves and affirming popular wisdom, so the discipline might benefit from being siloed away from that sort of thing.