“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” ~ Anonymous proverb Character education’s greatest task is instilling a mark of maturity: the willingness to delay gratification. In many studies, those who learn to restrain their impulses—by electing larger-later rather than smaller-now rewards—have gone on to become more socially responsible, academically successful, and vocationally productive. The ability to delay gratification, to live with one eye on the future, also helps protect people from the ravages of gambling, delinquency, and substance abuse. In one of psychology’s famous experiments, Walter Mischel gave 4-year-olds a choice between one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows a few minutes later. Those who chose two later marshmallows went on to have higher college graduation rates and incomes, and fewer addiction problems. Although a recent replication found a more modest effect, the bottom line remains: Life successes grow from the ability to resist small pleasures now in favor of greater pleasures later. Marshmallows—and much more—come to those who wait. The marshmallow choice parallels a much bigger societal choice: Should we prioritize today, with policies that keep energy prices and taxes low? Or should we prioritize the future, by investing now to spare us and our descendants the costs of climate change destruction? “Inflation is absolutely killing many, many people,” said U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, in explaining his wariness of raising taxes to fund climate mitigation. Manchin spoke for 50 fellow senators in prioritizing the present. When asked to pay more now to incentivize electric vehicles and fund clean energy, their answer, on behalf of many of their constituents, is no. But might the cost of inaction be greater? The White House Office of Management and Budget projects an eventual $2 trillion annual federal budget cost of unchecked climate change. If, as predicted, climate warming increases extreme weather disasters, if tax revenues shrink with the economy’s anticipated contraction, and if infrastructure and ecosystem costs soar, then are we being penny-wise and pound-foolish? With the worst yet to come, weather and climate disasters have already cost the U.S. a trillion dollars over the past decade, with the total rising year by year. nattrass /E+/Getty Images The insurance giant Swiss Re also foresees a $23 trillion global economy cost by 2050 if governments do not act now. The Big 4 accounting firm Deloitte is even more apprehensive, projecting a $178 trillion global cost by 2070. What do you think: Are our politicians—by seizing today’s single economic marshmallow—displaying a mark of immaturity: the inability to delay gratification for tomorrow’s greater good? A related phenomenon, temporal discounting, also steers their political judgments. Even mature adults tend to discount the future by valuing today’s rewards—by preferring, say, a dollar today over $1.10 in a month. Financial advisors therefore plead with their clients to do what people are not disposed to do . . . to think long-term—to capitalize on the power of compounding by investing in their future. Alas, most of us—and our governments—are financially nearsighted. We prioritize present circumstances over our, and our children’s, future. And so we defend our current lifestyle by opposing increased gas taxes and clean-energy mandates. The western U.S. may be drying up, sea water creeping into Miami streets, and glaciers and polar ice retreating, but even so, only “1 percent of voters in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll named climate change as the most important issue facing the country, far behind worries about inflation and the economy.” The best time to plant a tree, or to have invested in climate protection, was 20 years ago. The worst time is 20 years from now, when severe climate destruction will be staring us in the eye. As we weigh our present against our future, psychological science reminds our political representatives, and all of us, of a profoundly important lesson: Immediate gratification makes today easy, but tomorrow hard. Delayed gratification makes today harder, but tomorrow easier. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com. Follow him on Twitter: @davidgmyers.)   ... View more

What can students do to efficiently learn and remember? Cognitive science offers answers, say Adam Putnam, Victor Sungkhasettee, and Henry Roediger in their new essay, “Optimizing Learning in College.” Their learning tips include these: Find a quiet place to study. Get away from the TV. Tune out social media. Shut down e-mail. Focus! Generate questions about important points. Generate questions to be answered by your reading, such as “What is cognitive dissonance? How do people study it?” Read, recite, and review. Mentally summarize a chapter after reading it. Then review it and take note of what you missed. For concept learning, flashcards help. “Recalling information from memory is one of the best ways to remember information. . . . Many newer textbooks also including online resources with interactive quizzes.” (Yes!) Write your notes instead of typing them. Leave your laptop at home. Transcribing lectures engages less active processing than does hand-writing your own synopses of the presented material. Space your study. “By spacing your studying you will learn the material in less time.” Attending lectures that cover—in different words—the same concepts previously read in a text also provides spaced learning. Study by quizzing yourself. To prepare for an exam, “practice testing is one of the best study strategies.” Another best practice is explaining something to someone else, as in a study group. Sleep and exercise. Exercise enhances focus and creativity (as well as having health and emotional benefits). “Sleep deprivation can hurt your cognitive functioning without your being aware of it.” ... View more

Originally posted on April 22, 2014. Critics have used the SAT test redesign to denounce the SAT and aptitude testing.  The multiple choice SAT has “never been a good predictor of academic achievement,” Bard College president Leon Botstein argued in Time. Better, to “look at the complex portrait” of college applicants’ lives, including “what their schools are like.” said Colby College English professor Jennifer Finney Boylan in a New York Times essay. The SAT only measures “those skills … necessary for the SATs,” surmised New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert.  In a new Slate essay, David Hambrick and Christopher Chabris, distinguished experimental psychologists at Michigan State University and Union College, rebut such assertions.  Massive data, they argue, show that •    SAT scores do predict first-year GPA, whole-college GPA, and graduation likelihood, with the best prediction coming from a combination of both high school grades and aptitude scores. •    SAT scores of 13-year-old predict future advanced degrees and income, much as kindred and strongly-related IQ scores predict job training and vocational success. •    In one famous nationwide sample, the IQ scores of Scottish 11-year-olds predicted their later-life longevity, even after adjusting for socioeconomic status. •    Although SAT scores are slightly higher among students from high income families, the SAT also provides an opportunity for students from nonelite public school to display their potential—rather than to be judged by “what their schools are like.”  Thus SAT scores, when compared with assessments influenced by income-related school quality, have a social levelling effect.  •    Test preparation courses often taken by higher income prep school students “don’t change SAT scores much.” Ergo, say Hambrick and Chabris, while other traits such as grit, social skill, conscientiousness, and creativity matter, too, “the idea that standardized tests and ‘general intelligence’ are meaningless is wishful thinking.” ... View more