Aspen Idea and Smoozing Fest

A few of the people that I follow on Twitter were at the Aspen Idea Festival over the weekend. I think that the point of the conference is to bring together various smart people and to cross fertilize ideas. I'm alternatively jealous of the attendees and suspicious of them. Lots of big heads there.

I've been watching a few of the talks on their website. David Brooks did a talk on a book that he's writing about education, success, and neuro-science. It rambles about, but there are some interesting nuggets in there.

He mentions a famous experiment that was done on a group of four year olds. Each four year old was  led into a room with a desk, a chair, and a marshmallow. The kid was told that he/she would be left alone for a few minutes, but not to eat the marshmallow. If he didn't eat the marshmallow, he would get two marshmallows when the person returns. Every kid ate the marshmallow. However, the kids who waited the longest before eating, who were able to defer gratification for longer, ended up more successful later in life.

I want to try this experiment on my niece this week.

Comments

[MH]

If the experiment isn't enough fun, you could just tell her the truth about Santa.

[Doug]

Have you filed the details of your experiment with your Human Research Subject board?

James Fallows of the Atlantic has had good reports about the whole Aspen shindig.

[Tammy]

She won't eat it because she knows it's bad for her teeth. Let's try it.