You might be surprised to learn (I was!) that self-help books have been published in the US since 1776. It was Stephen Covey who had written about studying eighteenth century books, articles and essays on self-improvement, popular psychology and success in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It turns out that back in the days scholars were focussing their attention on such postulates as integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience and modesty as the foundations of success. Covey sites Benjamin Franklin's autobiography as a good representative of the historic personal development literature. "It is, basically, the story of one man's effort to integrate certain principles and habits deep within his nature." Covey concludes that those early self-help books were based on "character ethic". 

Shortly after World War I the dominant view of success in the US shifted to what might be called "personality ethic". "Success became more of a function of personality, of public image, of attitudes and behaviours, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human interaction." We recognise this paradigm easily because in the past 100 years this latter view of success and personal growth hasn't changed much. We are still taught "positive mental attitude", "fake it until you make it", "sink or swim", etc. And more specifically, there emerged hundreds of books and "quick fix" courses on how become a "killer salesman" or "get any date you want". These tend to be manipulative, deceptive and devious - quite the opposite of the "character ethic" of the previous era. 

It's not that there is something wrong with learning how to speak in public by faking confidence before it becomes natural or how to write good copy by tapping into popular psychology. It's just that taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture shows a bleak worldview of people trying to outrun each other in the short term and ultimately failing to reach deeper, more important values in the long term. Consider this: an ambitious salesman learns a trick or two and enjoys success in the office before his habits of deception and cutting corners seep into other areas of his life. Before he knows is, he becomes a serial cheater and his idea of looking after his health is taking an aspirin the morning after the night before. By 45, he is deeply unhappy and unwell, his sports car and luxury lifestyle notwithstanding.  

Covey refers to "personality ethic" self-help literature as a band-aid which works well to fix things temporarily but which cannot solve deeply rooted, chronic problems or bring long-term success. His book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People attempts to draw our attention back to the core principles of integrity, humility and "win-win". 

I read his book in January 2017 just as Donald Trump had been inaugurated as the 45th President of the US. It occurred to me that Trump embodied everything that Covey (who had first published his book in 1989) had detested. Trump is the author of The Art of the Deal, How to Get Rich, Think Like a Billionaire, Think Big and Kick Arse, The Way to the Top, to name just a few of his books. These are bestsellers! It's no wonder a ruthless businessman with no morals or personal ethics was elected to lead the US. We should be wondering why so many Americans were surprised about his victory in the first place. Similarly, it's time to realise that populism in other parts of the world (whether it's "right" or "left") is the result of our culture becoming so obsessed with quick fixes and miraculous promises (I leafed through The Times on the tube yesterday and came across an ad which suggested that turmeric cured cancer.) It's our view of success - in its every facet - that desperately needs to be re-examined. 

You reap what you sow. It is now time to ask ourselves some difficult questions. When France goes to the polls tomorrow and Britain a month later, let's try to consider the impact of our vote on the lives of our brothers and neighbours. UK's vote to leave the EU was the selfish outcome for other members of the club who had enjoyed peace and economic cooperation for decades since the World War II. I'm not saying that we should not be putting our own agenda first, but I do believe that we ought to be taking a wider view and multiple factors into account when making decisions which impact other people (and our planet as a whole). And when I say "we ought to", I mean we can no longer afford to do otherwise.

​I’ve had my flat re-painted and the results - dust everywhere, blotches of paint, nauseating smell - were so devastating as my first impression that I called my mum and shouted at her. My mum had had nothing whatsoever to do with my idea of home improvement, let alone with its execution, but I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was frustrated and instead of calling the builder, a total stranger, responsible for the chaos, who hadn’t quite finished the work, I vented out my feelings on the person I love most. 

In his book The Course of Love, Alain de Botton, observes the following:

“The world upsets, disappoints, frustrates and hurts us in countless ways at every turn. It delays us, rejects our creative endeavours, overlooks us for promotions, rewards idiots and smashes our ambitions on its bleak, relentless shores. And almost invariably, we can’t complain about any of it. It’s too difficult to tease out who may really be to blame; and too dangerous to complain even when we know for certain (lest we be fired or laughed at)."

He then explains that we pick people we love - “the very nicest, most sympathetic, most loyal people in the vicinity” to blame for our frustrations and disappointments. It is, of course, completely unfair and irrational, if not absurd. But people who love us are the ones who understand us and tolerate our behaviour. They are the ones “most likely to stick around while we pitilessly rant at them.”

Still, even with this good explanation it is difficult to excuse such behaviour entirely. De Botton says that therein lie the rules under which love operates. He argues that “our wild charges are a peculiar proof of intimacy and trust, a symptom of love itself - and, in their own way, a perverted manifestation of commitment."

“Whereas we can say something sensible and polite to any stranger, it is only in the presence of the lover we wholeheartedly believe in that we can dare to be extravagantly and boundlessly unreasonable."

Alain de Botton’s latest book The Course of Love is one of the most original and thought-provoking books I’ve ever read. It’s written as a case study of a relationship between two people - Rabih and Kirsten - who meet, fall in love and get married, which is when love really begins. The reader follows the couple “ever after” through sulks and disappointments, children and infidelity, blame and maturity. Every so often the author adds his own commentary to highlight valuable lessons sprouting from the most prosaic situations, be it laundry or a fleeting crush. The sulks are explained as a failure in communication; happiness in love  - as finding familiarity. The book is frightening in its absolute honesty and appealing in its uplifting wisdom.

True to his style, de Botton excels at navigating the perils of love and marriage with wit. 

“Choosing a person to marry is hence just a matter of deciding exactly what kind of suffering we want to endure, rather than of imagining we have found a way to skirt round the rules of emotional existence.” 

On this note, I know exactly what I’m getting as a present for a friend of mine, who is getting married next month.  The Course of Love is a bible of love for the faithful and atheists alike. 

Over the last couple of years of practising mindfulness I have become particularly attuned to how subtle things and experiences shape my sense of well-being. Working from home means I get plenty of sleep, eat a freshly cooked, healthy breakfast and avoid public transport in peak hours. In the summer, I have breakfast on my balcony, savouring a cup of coffee and reading a paper, left over from the weekend. Sometimes I would go to yoga at lunchtime and stretch with a teacher, whose classes make my body and soul sing. I get my vegetables delivered and I unpack the box with a sense of curiosity characteristic of children.

Strangers and friends have been helping me with their time and advice, inspiring me and gently pushing me to make the most of my talents. My goddaughter has been a bundle of joy, always making me laugh and appreciate our special relationship. I have stopped blaming post viral fatigue for wrecking my life. Instead, I have come to think of it as an important life event, which made me discover myself and look at what I have with gratitude.

Gratitude has become a bit of a buzzword and with good reason. Too many tragedies happened in the world this year, broadcasting the message: "Life is too short - make the most of it." At the same time, ebola sufferers and desperate refugees surely must help us realise how fortunate we are to have health and homes. In the age where everything - fashion, headlines, new technologies - move so fast, people are beginning to notice the wear and tear. Mental health problems are on the rise. We are too anxious, busy and stressed out to notice how beautiful the world is, unless it's been posted on Instagram. Health and well-being gurus encourage us to practise gratitude to raise self-awareness and happiness.

The gratitude effect has been scientifically proven to enhance well-being. It encourages us to "count our blessings" we tend to forget, once we get used to them. "Everyone has something to be happy about. Perhaps they have a loving partner, good health, great kids, a satisfying job, close friends, interesting hobbies, caring parents, a roof over their heads, clean water to drink, a signed Billy Joel album, or enough food to eat," writes Professor Richard Wiseman in his book 59 Seconds. "However, as time passes, they get used to what they have and, just like the smell of fresh bread, these wonderful assets vanish from their mind."

Psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCollough conducted an experiment, investigating gratitude and subjective well-being (2003). Three groups of people were asked to spend a few moments each week writing. The first group listed  five things for which they were grateful, the second noted down five things that annoyed them and the final group jotted down five events that had taken place during the previous week. The 'gratitude' group remarked on seeing the sunset or on the generosity of their friends. The 'annoyed' group wrote about bills and arguments. The 'events' group detailed making breakfast and driving to work. The results were startling. Compared to those in either the 'annoyed' or 'events' groups, those expressing gratitude ended up happier, much more optimistic about the future, physically healthier and even exercised significantly more. 

Similarly, research by Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson (2005) suggests that writing a gratitude diary every day for a week makes one happier and more resilient with the effects which may persist for months. 

I was intrigued by this and began writing my own gratutude diary in May. Every day I wrote down three simple things I was grateful for: sunny spells, a good chat with a friend and finding time to meditate. I have not been perfectly consistent over the last six months, but flicking through my diary now makes me smile. The last six months have been kind to me, and I am grateful. I could be healthier, fitter and luckier, but, in truth, I've had a wonderful year with so much to be proud of and pleased about. Writing the blessings down is simple, and the effects are surprisingly powerful. 

If a gratitude diary isn't your thing, how about some Christmas cards? It's the season to be grateful.

The Shrink and the Sage in the FT Weekend made me think about the effect of the environment we live in on our lives. As usual, the resident psychologist and the philosopher did not commit to an answer, doodling around the question but provoking plenty of thoughts. I suppose, that’s the point. I too could probably deliberate this way and that, but right now I happen to think pretty strongly that we are greatly conditioned by the environment we live in.
 
Just this week I was flying with Ryanair and was sitting next to an older couple returning from a holiday. If you fly with Ryanair, you know how obsessed they are with being on time. When they land, they play a jovial tune to celebrate their punctuality and encourage passengers to applaud their service. This time, however, we were late. It was no secret since we took off 30 minutes after the scheduled departure, and the crew made an announcement just before landing, apologising for the tardiness on that occasion. Yet when we landed, the old man next to me trumpeted the tune, just like he must have been conditioned to do by previous Ryanair flights. He heard the announcement, he knew we were late but he could not help himself: “Tu-tu-tu-toooo!”
 
A deeper way to illustrate my point is to look at Russia. In his brilliantly written and meticulously researched book, The Invention of Russia, The Economist’s head of Moscow bureau, Arkady Ostrovsky describes the process of ideological warfare carried out by Russia's president Putin. In December 2011, tens of thousands of Muscovites took to the streets to protest against the rigged parliamentary elections. At that time Putin’s rating started to slide. The president was angry at the people who owed him for cleaning up the mess of 1990s and improving the standard of living. Thanks to Putin, Russian middle class of the 21st century could enjoy consumerism just like their Western counterparts: wear H&M and Zara, go on holiday to Spain and buy Jamie Oliver’s cook books. All of a sudden these well-to-do people were catching up with anti-corruption activists, became interested in politics and raised their concerns about Russia looking increasingly like a one-party nation again. 
 
Kremlin turned to the ideology. “Putin countered the idea of Russia as a modern, European-style nation-state by inciting traditional values of the state and the church. By prosecuting Pussy Riot, the young women punk singers who performed obscenely in front of the altar of Russia’a main cathedral, banning the promotion of homosexuality and barring the adoption of Russian children by American couples, the Kremlin was able to present the liberals, who protested against all this, as a bunch of homosexual, blasphemous mercenaries ready to sell Russian children,” writes Ostrovsky. “He turned to anti-Americanism as the only ideological tenet that had survived the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia no longer aspired to be like the West, or sought its approval and recognition. Instead, it trumpeted its difference.”
 
I grew up in Russia and never encountered homophobia while I lived there. We talked about gays openly with my contemporaries at school. Now the same contemporaries express very different views on social media. “Homosexuality is not normal,” they say, “it’s unnatural. Gay people need hormonal therapy.” I can only imagine that in the last few years people living in Russia have been conditioned towards such views by the state-controlled media. 
 
“Propaganda feeds not so much on ignorance, but on resentment - a mixture of jealousy and hostility. Having an imagined but mighty enemy, America, makes people feel noble and good; it compensates for personal weaknesses and failures, and frees them from the need to justify themselves to anyone and above all to themselves.” 
 
“Russia is running the risk of overdosing on hatred and aggression,” writes Ostrovsky. Of course, the Western media and their consumers are guilty of environmental conditioning as well. Here too often “Putin”, “Russia” and “Russians” are piled up and packaged as one dish, sprinkled with xenophobia and aggression. The problem is that we live in the environment of headlines and Twitter messages, when hardly anyone has time for a ‘long read.’ As a result, we end up shouting at strangers on social media, signing petitions we have not researched to understand and piling up onto any bandwagon we come across. If you are not guilty of that, pat yourself on the back for your superhuman resilience. The rest of us need to become less impulsive and more reflective before we drown in the whirlpool of our own creation. 

Q: What might a man having an affair and a man running a marathon have in common?
A: Going through a mid life crisis.

It’s a bit harsh but it’s true enough. Plenty of men choose extra-curricular activities which prove their manliness and vigour, when they reach that stage of their lives commonly referred to as the ‘middle-age’. Apparently, some are convinced that a show of masculinity helps to resolve the crisis of ‘getting on a bit’. 

On Sunday I was cheering marathon runners in London, standing on Embankment just before the 25 mile (40km) mark. Some participants stopped running by that point and were walking. I noticed that most of them were men in their thirties and forties; they looked young, fit but defeated. Women and older men kept on running, perhaps slowly, but determined. I wondered if men in their prime started too fast and ran out of steam. Or maybe they signed up for the marathon to prove something to their peers or themselves but weren’t able to commit to consistent training, distracted by other trials of their strength and toughness: punishing work travel, nights out with the lads, amateur boxing fights etc. I wondered if they had it in them to admit to being in pain, feeling weak and regretting signing up to the ordeal in the first place. 

There comes a point when each and every one of us realises our own mortality. I remember being 29 at that time, overwhelmed by a wave of nausea suddenly taking over me. Happily, it passed quickly. It’s like one of those milestones in life like getting periods or losing virginity when it feels like a big deal one day and ancient history just a little while later. Of course, mid life crisis is a bit more complicated, led by mind-boggling questions “Is this it?” and “What’s the point?”. 

Men (for I’ve decided to frame this article around men) notice how a boozy night is suddenly taking its toll the morning after; how a morning run feels that tiny bit heavier and the press-ups are suddenly less springy than they used to be a decade earlier. It bothers them, which is understandable. Then a curious thing happens: they decide to fight it head on. Typically, a man going through a mid life crisis would enter a Tough Mudder race, buy a shiny new toy or chase a daringly short skirt. Whatever takes their fancy, their partner is often left behind, because a man (strong, tough, hard-core) chooses to fight his demons solo. 

A few weeks back I was having a drink with an old friend of mine. We have not seen each other in a while. John (let’s assume that’s his name) told me what he’d been up to and suddenly opened up. He went through a mid life crisis, wondered about the meaning of life, went camping in the wild and tried a couple of other things hoping to battle it out. I listened to him and found myself captivated by his honestly, his openness and vulnerability. I noticed too how he had relaxed, as if a burden fell off his shoulders just by sharing his innermost fears with another human being. I had to laugh when John had mentioned he might get a puppy but really that softer side of him was a revelation to me. If only all men could tap into their vulnerabilities, share their worries and fears and explore their less masculine qualities. I wager we’d see fewer Ferraris with frustrated middle-aged drivers roaring by.

Long weekends are terribly useful to tackle the important home chores you’ve been meaning to address … since Christmas. How many of you have compiled a ‘to-do’ list in your head ahead of Easter? How many of you have managed to avoid it? 

Bear with me, I am not sending you on this ‘guilt trip’ for nothing. According to research referenced by Professor Richard Wiseman in his book 59 Seconds, "24 per cent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. Presumably this figure underestimates the scale of the problem, given that it can only be based on people who completed the questionnaires on time”.

Ahead of the working week, no doubt piled up with assignments and deadlines, let’s tackle the problem of procrastination. 

Procrastination has been famously illustrated in a classic Russian novel Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov, first published in 1859. The protagonist, Oblomov, starts with unpaid bills, apathy and bored idleness and ends up perishing away, unable to combat his own sloth. He dies from procrastination. His heritage to the world is the word oblomovschina, with “Oblomov” at its root - it means procrastination.  

The phenomenon stems from the ground fertile with self-doubt and fear of failure, perfectionism, being prone to boredom and availability of easy distractions (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube), overestimating the scope of the project and then feeling crushed by its enormity, low willpower and “feeling that life is too short to worry about seemingly unimportant tasks.” If you have a junior who routinely delivers minimally researched work full of glaring typos, you know what I mean. If your offspring would rather play online games, then revise for exams, help is at hand.

In the 1920s a young Russian psychology graduate named Bluma Zeigarnik was having tea with her supervisor in a café in Vienna. They were both watching the waiters and spotted a curious thing: when a customer asked for a bill, the waiters could easily remember what the customers had ordered. However, if a customer came back to query the bill just a moment later, the waiters struggled to remember anything about the order. Professor Wiseman, quoting the paper published in Psychologische Forschung by Zeigarnik in 1927, writes: “It seemed that the act of paying for the meal brought a sense of closure in the waiter’s mind and erased the order from their memories.” Zeigarnik then devised a number of experiments and confirmed that once an activity was done and dusted, the mind “breathes an unconscious sigh of relief”. By contrast, an unfinished activity keeps nagging at the brain, causing anxiety. 

We can draw two helpful conclusions from these findings. First, it helps to break any work into manageable chunks. If you are working on a presentation, it helps to write its outline first, have a coffee break, then tackle the executive summary, then work on the case studies, then break the rest into discrete sections and tackle those. The same logic applies to spring cleaning, planning your next holiday, finding a new job. 

The second helpful tip is brain anxiety. Once you start something, the brain is ‘anxious’ to finish it. What you need to do is to start! Take any piece of work and promise yourself to persevere with it for fifteen minutes. This is how I’ve put together this article. Once I start writing a new piece for my blog or an article for a magazine, I know that once I begin typing, I am halfway there. It is (almost!) that simple.  

At the beginning of a ski trip I have the hibbie jibbies. I am about to meet seventy strangers for a pre-dinner drink. “Skier or boarder?” “What do you do?” “Have you been to Val d’Isere before?” will circulate the room. “Where are you from?” will be the question I'll get asked a lot because of my accent. There will be dinner conversations and impromptu heart-to-hearts later in the bar. It’s a great opportunity to make new friends and grow a professional network. And yet I feel uneasy at the prospect.

Many people who know me would be surprised to read that. They would consider me an extrovert, relishing the possibility to get energised by other people. Indeed, I am an open, gregarious, outgoing person. I have no problem starting a conversation with a stranger, even someone I hold in high-esteem, but it does not mean I find it easy.

If I were to do a test to determine my character, I would struggle to fit into a neat pattern. Have a look at the Myers Briggs website where an extrovert is identified as a person who “likes getting energy from active involvement in events and having a lot of different activities”, “has a wide range of friends and knows lots of people”, “can understand a problem better when she can talk out loud about it and hear what others have to say”. That’s me! An introvert is described as a person who “feels comfortable being alone and likes things she can do on her own” and “takes time to reflect on an idea.” Wait, that’s me again! 

The trouble with the standard definitions of an “extrovert" and an “introvert” is that they are too black and white. You are either “outgoing and gregarious” or “reticent and shy.” In reality (and Myers Briggs agree), people are not that polar. The most outgoing person may need time for herself to reflect, recoup and spend time in the world of ideas and stories. I have always suspected that a simple label does not fit me or any other person, but it was not until I met Gavin Presman of Inspire, that I’ve realised the obvious: we are all distributed somewhere along the line drawn between the two polarities, and it is most likely that none of us are either 'black' or 'white'.

Gavin helped me recognise another pattern: after a big party or a networking event, I crave solitude. It’s almost like I am on a string, being pulled into one direction, then going exactly the opposite way to restore my inner balance. 

                                                                                                 ***

Once you recognise such patterns of behaviour in yourself, it becomes easier to understand yourself and others. Spotting someone who is mostly an extrovert is easy: they dress for others, whilst those who are mostly introverts dress for themselves. The former might wear high heels or something bright, the latter - comfortable clothes. The benefits of attuning to your circle of friends and colleagues are obvious: you’ll build and nurture better relationships. If your friend is an introvert, don’t invite her to a noisy party cum networking event. If your potential client is an extrovert, take him to a trendy, airy lunch spot (not an intimate cafe) and let him do the talking.

Finally, what is it that irritates us so much about each other? Extroverts seem to say things before they’ve thought about them, which tends to cause trouble. What if we started to appreciate that extroverts are wired that way - they need to put a problem out there in order to tackle it? Introverts appear to be indecisive. In reality, they are just taking time to think things through, it’s their nature and a real asset at that.

Having spent sometime writing this in solitude, I am now ready for the buzz again. In fact, I crave it!

In December 1970 psychologists Philip Kunz and Michael Woolcott conducted an experiment with Christmas cards. They sent cards to people, randomly selected from a local telephone directory. The researchers were interested in the concept of reciprocity. The majority of total strangers, who received their cards, sent their own Christmas cards to Kunz and Woolcott. The experiment, documented as “Season’s Greetings: From My Status to Yours” in Social Science Research in 1976, described how reciprocity can be used as a simple persuasion technique.

In his book 59 Seconds Professor Richard Wiseman writes about another experiment in 1970s, in which psychologist Dennis Regan invited volunteers to an art gallery to help rate paintings on show. In the gallery they met an assistant, who showed them around. In half of the cases, the assistant brought a volunteer a bottle of cola from a free drinks table. In other cases, the assistant only helped himself. At the end of the tour, the assistant asked a volunteer to buy some raffle tickets from him, priced at 25c, explaining that he only had a handful left and that he would win a $50 prize if he sold out: “Any would help, the more the better.” Even though the cola came from a free drinks table and did not cost the assistant anything, the small gesture of offering a drink prompted volunteers to buy twice as many raffle tickets than those who weren’t given refreshments. 

Both studies show that apparently spontaneous acts of favour elicit a need to reciprocate.

Another effective experiment, described by Professor Wiseman, was published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology in 2002 by Strometz, Rind, Fisher and Lynn: “Sweetening the Till: The Use of Candy to Increase Restaurant Tipping.” During the experiment waiters in a restaurant were instructed to hand customers their bills with or without sweets. The group of customers, given a single sweet per person, tipped 3% more than the control group, which did not received any sweets. Customers who received two sweets each, tipped 14% more than the control group. Finally, in the fourth group, customers received a bill with one sweet each but then, as waiters were turning away from the table, they reached into their pockets and handed each customer a second sweet. The customers ended up with two sweets each as in the other group, but the ‘spontaneous' gesture delivered a much more powerful effect, resulting in tipping increased by 23%. 

Psychologists are fascinated by reciprocity or back-scratching. It only takes a simple gesture (of offering a free drink or handing out a couple of sweets) to induce someone to buy raffle tickets or leave a generous tip. We like to help people we like. To put it differently, if you want to help yourself, perhaps it is worth offering to help others first.

Professor Wiseman remarks that not all favours result in reciprocity. “Favours have their strongest effect when they occur between people who don’t know each other very well, and when they are small but thoughtful. When people go to a large amount of effort to help someone else, the recipients can often feel an uncomfortable pressure to reciprocate."

Morris, Podolny and Ariel (2001) also wrote about “Culture, Norms and Obligations: Cross-National Differences in Patterns of Interpersonal Norms and Felt Obligations Toward Co-Workers”. "Americans were heavily influenced by the reciprocity rule (‘Has this person helped me in the past?’), Germans were more concerned about whether their actions would be consistent with company rules, the Spanish were driven more by basic rules of friendship and liking, and the Chinese were swayed by the status of the co-worker.” 

In 1970 American psychologist Walter Mischel and his colleagues at Stanford University conducted a series of groundbreaking experiments with preschoolers in which children were encouraged to delay ‘gratification’ of eating a marshmallow. They were promised a greater reward if they succeed. The study is now textbook material of how humans exert self-control in the face of ‘hot' temptations. 

In the original marshmallow experiment a child aged 3-7 was offered a choice between one marshmallow provided immediately or two marshmallows if he or she waited for around 15 minutes, during which the tester left the room and then returned. The original purpose of the study was to find out when self-control or willpower develops in children. 

In over 600 children studied, a minority ate the marshmallow immediately. Of those who attempted to delay, one third deferred gratification long enough to get the second marshmallow. Age was a major determinant of deferred gratification, explained by the development of the executive function of the brain.

It is interesting to observe children taking part in marshmallow experiments. Placed in a room with nothing but a marshmallow on a plate, they instinctively look away and cover their eyes so as to avoid temptation, they fidget, and you can see the struggle they go through. Some stroke and lick their marshmallows, others just stuff their faces straight away. This is exactly what Mischel observed in his original study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1972. 

What do the marshmallow experiment findings teach us?

Temptation is tricky. Adam and Eve could not resist it, and neither could Bill Clinton, if you care for a less biblical example. With Christmas season coming up, treats start to appear in offices, and it takes a hell of a willpower to resist a mince pie. (I’ve just failed.) But why is temptation so irresistible?

Mischel, talking at a How To Academy lecture, explained that it is the vividness, the immediate nature of a temptation that is its trump card. The future gratification (e.g. “If I don’t eat this mince pie now, I will look slimmer later.”) is imprecise and uncertain, by contrast.

One way to help yourself would be to remove temptation from your vicinity: if a colleague brings a batch of homemade brownies, tell her they are a bit stale so she does not tempt you again. (I am joking, of course, but you get the idea.)

Another idea is to paint the picture of ‘future marshmallows’ as bright as possible. Staying with food temptations, when offered a desert menu at a restaurant, close your eyes and visualise a bikini body or a ‘six-pack’. The waiter will get the hint and bring you a bill.

Mischel noted that chronic stress, the state many of us are in these days, accentuates the temptation to respond to immediate gratification preventing the executive function of our brains to give a slower, more reflective response. Have you ever demolished a whole bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate when you are stressed? I never seem to be able to resist doing that. According to Mischel, the trick is to take a deep breath, to slow down. Meditation would, of course, help, if you gave yourself permission to take time out.

The initial findings were subject to later, no less illuminating research. Mischel and his colleagues found that children, who at the age of four were able to delay gratification by seconds, were significantly more successful in their lives. They achieved higher SATs, went to university, achieved greater career heights and displayed greater social competence, higher resilience against lives’ setbacks and were less likely to be addicted to drugs. 

If you have a few minutes, it’s worth watching a video of the marshmallow experiment on YouTube.  

Last week I was in New York. No matter what you are doing there (believe me, I was nowhere close to 5th Avenue), you are constantly under attack by ubiquitous ads, offering a sparkling smile for your next selfie, to buy a tree to save the jungle, to supersize your juice or to get three pairs of jeans for the price of two. It’s not just New York: whether you are walking on a street or browsing online, everyone seems to be after your credit card. 

Of course, New York is a famous shopping destination. Visitors fly home with an extra piece of luggage bursting with new purchases. Any high street or shopping mall promises an endorphin rush of retail therapy treatment. This psychological trick has been key in creating value for global and local brands alike: think Sennhauser, Selfridges, Burberry, Jimmy Choo. The question is: does retail therapy actually work?

Professor Richard Wiseman in his book 59 Seconds has asked just this question. Do we actually feel better after we splash out on a new bag or a gadget? And, more importably, does the joy last?
Professor Wiseman suggests filling in the following questionnaire to rate your level of materialism. I encourage you to do this quickly, even if popping into Selfridges or Bloomingdale’s isn’t your idea of a perfect day.

1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree

1. I am impressed by people who own expensive cars and houses                                                                 1 2 3 4 5 
2. I tend to judge how well I am doing in life by the possessions I buy                                                         1 2 3 4 5 
3. I like to buy things I don’t really need                                                                                                                 1 2 3 4 5 
4. I like to be surrounded by expensive items                                                                                                       1 2 3 4 5 
5. I think that my life would be better if I owned more luxury items                                                            1 2 3 4 5
6. I am sometimes bothered by the fact that I can’t afford to buy certain luxury goods                        1 2 3 4 5
7. Buying expensive items makes me feel good about myself                                                                         1 2 3 4 5
8. I seem to put more emphasis on material things than most of my friends and family                     1 2 3 4 5
9. I am prepared to pay significantly more money for branded items                                                          1 2 3 4 5 
10. I enjoy owning items that others find impressive                                                                                        1 2 3 4 5

Add up your scores. If you are between 40 and 50, you place high value on acquisition of possessions, you frequently associate happiness and success with being able to acquire things and you rate yourself and others by what you or they have. If your score is between 10 and 20, you value relationships and experiences more than possessions. If you are between 21 and 39, you are averagely materialistic and are, statistically speaking, of little interest. 

According to Wiseman, researchers have spent a great deal of time looking at the link between high scores in such questionnaires and happiness. “The findings are as consistent as they are worrying - high scores tend to be associated with feeling unhappy and unsatisfied with life.”

Why is this the case? It’s not about the financial consequences of always wanting the latest thing, but of how the money is spent. You see, materialists tend to be more self-centred. Elizabeth Dunn and her colleagues at the University of British Columbia conducted a survey among employees who received bonuses of $3,000 - $8,000 and found that people who spent a greater share of money on others were far happier than people who spent it on themselves. To prove that causality is indeed the “right” way, i.e. that spending money on others induces happiness rather than that happy people spend more money on others, Dunn and colleagues conducted another experiment where two groups people were given $20 to spend each. One randomly put together group of people was asked to spend money on themselves, whilst in the other group people were asked to buy presents for friends or family. "Participants who spent the money on their friends and family ended up feeling significantly happier than those who treated themselves."

It turns out that such findings aren’t surprising at all. "Neuroeconomist William Harbaugh and his colleagues from the University of Oregon gave participants $100 in a virtual bank account and asked them to lie down in a brain scanner. Participants first saw some of their money being given to help those in need via mandatory taxation, and were then asked to decide whether to donate some of the remaining amount to charity or keep it for themselves. The scanning results revealed that two evolutionary ancient regions deep in the brain - the caudate nucleus and the nucleus accumbens - became active when participants witnessed some of their money going to those in need, and were especially busy when they donated money voluntarily. These two brain regions also spring into action when our most basic needs are met, such as when we eat tasty food or feel valued by others, suggesting a direct brain-based link between helping others and happiness. 

Wiseman concludes that the only retail therapy that is capable of making you happy is when you spend money on others. (And if you don’t have spare cash, why not perform an act of kindness towards a friend or a stranger, which does not have to cost anything at all.)

But what makes people materialistic in the first place? Wiseman brings up research carried out by psychologists Lan Nguyen Chaplin and Deborah Roedder John, who published an article in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2007, arguing that “materialism takes root in early childhood, and is mainly driven by low self-esteem.” In their study children aged between eight and eighteen completed a questionnaire rating their self-esteem (with questions like “Are you happy with the way you look”?), before given a display board with images showing sports, hobbies, such as arts and music, friends, family, school and material things, such as new shoes or a computer. The children were asked to choose as many images as they liked to put together a collage “What makes me happy”. The task allowed researchers to assess the level of materialism, calculating the percentage of “material” images selected. Comparing the results revealed a strong link between low self-esteem and materialism. 

Wiseman also recommends that we “buy experiences not goods”. 

Psychologists Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich, quoted in 59 Seconds, conducted a number of studies which proved that buying experiences made people more happy than buying products both in he short- and in the long-term. The reason for that is our memories are easily edited so that we forget about the long wait at the airport and only remember the idyllic beach and the beautiful sunset. By contrast, purchases go out of fashion, we get used to them and stop noticing the gadgets only recently appearing so shiny at the Apple store. Also, experiences “force” us to spend time with others, and sociability is known to induce happiness. Conversely, certain purchases may isolate you from friends who might get jealous of your latest expensive treat.

There seems to be one last thing to add: grab a friend and go on holiday!