Such a visual representation allowed 'time-binding' it enabled the infant to delay and temporarily inhibit the impulse for immediate gratification. His argument was that the infant created a mental, 'hallucinatory' image of the object of desire the child's libidinal or sexual energy was directed at this hallucinatory image.

To call Mischel the trailblazer would be to airbrush out the work of Freud, who intuited pleasure deferral as a component of self, a marker of increased maturity, in 1911. It is undeniable that he is not sceptical enough, but considering the impact he has had on psychological and criminological terrain, the humility in his tone is much more notable than his writing's longueurs. After that, his irksome habits in this book seemed less important. So Mischel's description of the research team's surprise struck me as a little overdone, until I remembered that he was the one behind the results that we now hold as truisms. We have become used to the truth of this: deferred gratification enables the fulfilment of long-term goals it is so commonplace an observation that you might find it in a fortune cookie or a posh Christmas cracker. The results were astonishing to the team: good impulse control turned out to be a predictor of success in disparate areas, from academic results to health in later life. It was simple: they could have one marshmallow immediately, or wait, alone in a room, for a given number of minutes, ring a bell and the researcher would give them two. There, he tested pre-school kids on their self-control. He created what he called his 'Surprise Room' at Stanford University's creche (amazing how sinister that sounds now). W alter Mischel's study into impulse control began in the 1960s.

The marshmallow test book