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Success at its Best: Self Control versus Happiness According to Jonah Lehrer’s The New Yorker article titled “Don’t: The
Secret of Self‐Control,” success is predictable. Psychologists agree. However, while the psychologists of decades past
might have “focussed on raw intelligence as the most important variable when it comes to predicting success in life,”
Walter Mischel and others believe “intelligence is largely at the mercy of self‐control” (Lehrer). Mischel, a professor of
psychology, coined together an experiment that would “identify the mental processes that allowed some people to
delay gratification while others simply surrendered” (Lehrer). In the conducted trials, he investigated whether the
children could hold off on eating a presented snack in exchange for a second one. Marshmallows, pretzels, and cookies
were among the treats used to entice the kids. Later, this experiment was expanded to analyze the correlation between
the children who were able to wait for the second treat and their academic achievements. The results showed that low
delayers, the children who ate the presented snacks almost immediately, were “more likely to have behavioral
problems, both in school and at home. They got lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had
trouble paying attention, and found it difficult to maintain friendships” (Lehrer). Using these findings, Mischel concluded
that the more patient people, the high delayers, would be more successful than the low delayers. Even so, Mischel was
thinking in his own terms of success, and drew his own assumptions from the given data. By taking his views and
slapping them down on paper, Mischel confined the meaning of success into a small, intransigent container.
Nevertheless, success is not a formula that can be written down and followed to the letter; it is entirely dependent on
the person and his or her goals. A sense of achievement doesn’t always stem from grades or other academic
accomplishments. Being a high delayer might make it easier to become successful in the long run, but happiness is what
truly motivates people. What is the objective in achieving success? What is it that instigates people to toil incessantly
over some obscure and noncommittal aspiration? Some might say prosperity, or even repute. Either way, all
perspectives eventually point towards happiness as the crux of the matter. If people are successful, they can live in
comfort and security, which are the foundation of happiness. When most people envisage success, they are thinking
specifically of their happiness. John Jonides, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, conversely,
believes that success is brought by self‐control, which he describes as “an ability to direct the spotlight of attention so
that our decisions aren’t determined by the wrong thoughts” (Lehrer). Mischel seems to agree, and he points to Carolyn
Weisz, who is now a professor at the University of Puget Sound and the quintessence of success, a “textbook example of
a high delayer” (Lehrer), due to her attendance at Stanford as an undergraduate and attainment of a Ph.D. at Princeton,
in contrast to her brother, Craig, who spent his career in the entertainment industry doing “all kinds of things” (Lehrer).
Nevertheless, who is Mischel to claim that Craig was unsuccessful? What basis is he using to establish that a vocation in
the entertainment industry cannot lead to success? If such a vocation was desirable to Craig and could beget happiness,
could Craig not also be considered successful? People like Craig, who work in the entertainment industry, might not
always be high up on the social hierarchy or acclaimed by the general populace, but might be the ones who achieved
success through pursuing their dreams and becoming who they wanted to be. What, then, does Mischel hope to validate
through Carolyn’s accomplishments? With all these different approaches to success, how can anyone be expected to
ascertain what the true definition of success is? In order to appraise the academic value of the children used in the
marshmallow experiment, Professor Yuichi Shoda of the University of Washington recorded everything about them from
their “academic records and their social graces to their ability to deal with frustration and stress” (Lehrer). It was clear to
him and others that those who were high delayers were more academically successful than those who were low
delayers, as was supported by S.A.T. scores that showed children who could “wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score
that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds”
(Lehrer). Still, can this really be considered success? If we deem success to be the realization of happiness, S.A.T. scores
suddenly don’t appear to be especially significant. Even if high delayers are “successful” in the way that the article
suggests, they won’t be happy because they will always be suppressing their desires. Mischel tries to rationalize this in a
more appealing manner. “If you can deal with hot emotions, then you can study for the S.A.T. instead of watching
television. And you can save more money for retirement” (Lehrer). The truth of the matter, though, is that by making
suppression of desires into a habit, kids will only harm themselves. It might start as something beneficial—studying for a
test instead of surfing the internet, or memorizing the period table of the elements instead of playing video games
indoors. As they grow older, however, suppression will turn into things like letting siblings run amok while they do
chores all by themselves, permitting friends to take the last chocolate bar that they’d been painstakingly saving, and
tolerating others who would take advantage of their compliance. Eventually, suppression of desires will become self‐
neglect. This is not what success should be like. Success should lead to happiness, not detract from it. As long as an
action leads towards greater satisfaction in the end, one can be considered successful no matter what the S.A.T. scores
may seem to say. And if excellent S.A.T. scores are required to achieve that satisfaction later on, then so be it. Test
scores and stable jobs are only the stepping stones, not the objective. If we think of success in this manner, it becomes
clear that being a high delayer is not the only way to achieve success. The article states that the skill of metacognition, or
“thinking about thinking” (Lehrer), is what allows people to “outsmart their shortcomings” (Lehrer). Mischel concluded
from his data that children with better metacognition were “better able to delay gratification” (Lehrer) and were more
likely to become successful. He mentions that kids who couldn’t delay were often using terrible ideas that would only
tempt them into taking the first marshmallow without waiting for the second, which is why Mischel’s view of willpower
helps to “explain why the marshmallow test is such a powerful predictive test” (Lehrer). Of course, when they refer to
metacognition, they are only considering suppressing people’s desires, which might not provide people with happiness.
Because of this, other qualities such as organization, perseverance, confidence, or creativity may better lead to efficacy.
People with these characteristics are able to work their way around obstacles or limitations without allowing
shortcomings to overtake them. They flip situations to benefit them and their desires with ingenuous ideas that they
persistently work towards. By knowing what they want and going for it, they reach success by becoming content and
happy throughout their lives. A feeling of self‐worth is infinitely more important than a good grade, even if it is an S.A.T.
one. Having the techniques of a high delayer is unquestionably not the only approach to success. On the other hand, it
is understandable that even those with the necessary characteristics might not utilize them to their fullest potential. Not
all high delayers are successful, just as not everyone in the world is content. To resolve this, Mischel developed a
strategy, a “shortcut” (Lehrer), one that would help children to manipulate the essential skills needed for success into
working for them. Mischel and his colleagues “taught children a simple set of mental tricks—such as pretending that the
candy is only a picture, surrounded by an imaginary frame—[and] he dramatically improved their self‐control” (Lehrer).
This way, even children who weren’t originally high delayers could benefit and develop the appropriate mental
techniques. Using these self‐control exercises, those who were formerly unable to wait even a full minute could now
wait a quarter of an hour. However, these strategies were meant for small children at the age of four or five, and
certainly not meant to achieve happiness. Those above primary education would need approaches with more
complexity. Older children should have a general idea of what they want to accomplish, so that they can set
expectations for themselves. By listing goals and checking them as they are completed, one can establish a feeling of
accomplishment as the check marks grow in number. Because one would know that happiness would be attained at the
end, he or she would try harder to complete all of the goals. Another strategy is to give a bit of compelling force.
Oftentimes, people will work harder if they know someone else is expecting something of them. For example, some
children study harder in order to make their parents proud. Similarly, teenagers will subconsciously attempt to present a
respectable impression in the presence of an object of affection. In order to do this, a child could simply inform a parent
or a friend of his or her goals. Thus, the parent figure or the friend would be expecting something of him or her, and so
the child would automatically work harder than he or she would have. Even better, at the end of the goal, the child
would have the benefit of having his or her parents please with him for completing the set agenda. Repeated use of
these techniques will eventually lead to success. Becoming successful is never a walk in the park, no matter whose
definition of success is used. Having the qualities of a high delayer makes it easier to become academically
accomplished, but it is has no more bearings than that of the qualities of low delayers on how to achieve happiness.
Other qualities may be advantageous as well, such as systematic coordination, determination, optimism, and
resourcefulness. And with the right techniques, success will merely be “a matter of learning how to control your
attention and thoughts” (Lehrer). Organization and perseverance go a long way towards success, and different people
have different methods that work for them. Using creativity, people can come up with different paths to happiness that
might not have anything to do with universities or intellectual appraisals. As Mischel puts it, “We can’t control the world,
but we can control how we think about it” (Lehrer). Lehrer, Jonah. (2009). Don’t: the secret of self‐control. The New
Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all
Comments: Your essay challenges the idea that being a high delayer is any more advantageous to being a success in life
than being a low delayer. You provide adequate support for this claim by including quotes from Jonah Lehrer’s essay,
and analyzing the ideas which are presented in that piece. You focus on the highly subjective nature of success and
satisfaction, and how this is demonstrated by the case of Carolyn and Craig Weisz, a sister and brother who participated
in Mischel’s original marshmallow tests. You raise the question that even though Craig was a low delayer in the original
tests, he can still be seen as successful in life if he has accomplished the goals that he has set for himself. Your essay
grapples with the complexities which underline the concept of success and the various interpretations of how it can be
achieved in life. Your essay is well written, with a coherent structure that makes it easy to follow and enjoyable to read.
Grade: B+