Walter Mischel

Professor Walter Mischel is Niven Professor of Humane Letters at Columbia University since 1994. Walter Mischel has research interests in personality structure, process, and development, and in self-regulation (aka willpower). His professional honors and awards include the following: National Academy of Sciences (elected 2004); Merit Award, National Institute of Mental Health, 1989 up to 2009 (awarded twice, sequentially); Jack Block Award for Distinguished Contributions to Personality Psychology (2005); Distinguished Scientist Award, Society of Experimental Social Psychologists (2000); Fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists (elected 1999); Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa, Ohio State University (1997); Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, American Psychological Association, 1982; and the Distinguished Scientist Award, APA Division of Clinical Psychology, 1978. WALTER MISCHEL is internationally known as the inventor of the "Marshmallow Test, " widely recognized as one of the most famous and important experiments in the history of psychology. Based on experiments begun with preschool children at Stanford University's Bing Nursery School in the late 1960s, and still continuing, Mischel's studies opened a window for the modern scientific analysis of the cognitive and brain mechanisms that enable delay of gratification and self-control beginning early in life.