Korea's marshmallow society

By Jason Lim

Pamela Druckman of the New York Times recently recounted a legendary experiment run by Columbia University psychology professor Walter Mischel 50 years ago where he offered a group of five-year olds irresistible treats such as marshmallows, cookies, or candies with a catch; they would get two of the treats if they could resist what was in front of them for 15 minutes.

As Druckman writes, "Famously, preschoolers who waited longest for the marshmallow went on to have higher SAT scores than the ones who couldn’t wait. In later years they were thinner, earned more advanced degrees, used less cocaine and coped better with stress.”

So, the basic popular narrative that came out of this was that the self-will and discipline you exhibited as a five-year old will have a lasting impact on how well you do with the rest of your life. Kind of scary.

The obvious caveat in this narrative, as many have pointed out throughout the years, is that even five-year olds are products of their environment. A five-year old only-child raised in a comfortable environment with loving parents would most definitely view the situation differently from a five-year old raised in a single-parent, struggling household with multiple siblings who competes for second helpings. They would have different interpretation of how to maximize the opportunity from the deal that’s being offered based on their upbringing. As such, their choices wouldn’t be a product of their self-will to delay gratification per se; it would be a product of how they would normally relate to everyday situations.

An even more important variable would be the child’s perception with equity and trust in his or her environment, mostly derived from their experience with caregivers. Is it one based on love and trust? Have the adults in the child’s life been present and trustworthy, imparting a capacity to trust in return? How has the system worked for the child?

For example, if a child has had a bad experience with adults not coming through with promises, then that child is maximizing the opportunity by taking what’s offered rather than bank on an uncertainty. A totally rational choice based on his or her ``equity and trust” experience with the system. Even a child who delayed gratification only to be disappointed when the reward wasn’t doubled as promised would probably not make the same choice again.

However, this doesn’t mean that the actual findings of the experiment are wrong. Pre-K children who exhibited higher levels of self-will in delaying gratification for a bigger reward did do better by the metrics that measure life’s success. It doesn’t matter what environmental influences drove their decisions. The equation that correlates self-will and discipline with better life choices and skills still stand, leading to the obvious conclusion that children raised in a trusting and trustworthy environment with high levels of equity would be better able to develop the key cognitive skills for success and happiness.

Which goes to the heart of the Sewol tragedy.

What the heart wrenching and oftentimes maddening debate around Sewol tragedy shows is the appalling lack of trust that Korean people have in the system that they live in. Sewol was literally the last straw that broke the camel’s back since it represented the government’s inability or abdication of its responsibility to safeguard the lives of its most vulnerable citizens. And if the government isn’t able to protect the lives of its citizens, or even play an indirect part in the taking of those lives, then how can the people trust the government to do anything else on their behalf? Or believe anything the government says that it’s doing on their behalf?

Globalpost reports that a ``United Nations report released on July 24 found that South Koreans’ trust in their government was lower than nearly all countries studied. The Asian nation was more distrustful than Iraq, Ukraine, and Nigeria.”

What happens to people in such low trust societies? The same thing that happens to children who grew up in an environment with low equity and trust. They take and run what they can have here and now. In a low trust society, that’s the most rational choice since you have no trust that what’s being promised will be delivered. Looking out for number one, doing whatever it takes to grab the short-term reward, competing for the quick win rather than a long term strategic victory, and giving empty promises for support that’s quickly forgotten once elected are all symptoms of a low-trust society.

If a five-year old’s future is predicated on his or her self-will and discipline to delay gratification, then what does that say for a society whose culture is one of instant gratification and quick results? Worse, what does it say about the children that we are raising in Korea, the same ones that saw their classmates entombed in the sea as the system failed all around them. What type of choices would they make when they grow up?

Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn. com, facebook. com/jasonlimkoreatimes and @jasonlim2012.