- Born
- Died
- Walter Mischel was born on February 22, 1930 in Vienna, Austria. He was married to Harriet Nerlove. He died on September 12, 2018 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- SpouseHarriet Nerlove (divorced, 3 children)
- After the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, his family fled and settled in New York City, where they ran a dime store. He helped support the family by working in an umbrella factory and as an elevator operator.
- He received a master's degree from the City College of New York and a PhD from Ohio State University, both in clinical psychology. He taught at Harvard University before moving to Stanford.
- He was a psychologist who headed up the "marshmallow test" at Stanford University involving self-control and delayed gratification. A child was given a treat and presented with a choice. He could eat the treat right away. Or he could wait, alone, for up to 20 minutes. If he could resist eating the treat, he would then receive two treats as a reward. Mischel stayed in contact with some of the children into their adult lives, and presented his findings to mainstream readers in his 2014 book "The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control is the Engine of Success".
- I wanted to know how my three young daughters developed, in a remarkably short period of time, from being howling, screaming, often impossible kids to people who were actually able to sit and do something that required them to concentrate. I wanted to understand this miraculous transformation.
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