Slight flaw in the logic of the doughnut experiment.

Wondering if anybody else thought of this... If you ask me, there was a slight flaw in the logic of the doughnut experiment. (And I'm not just talking about what Tom points out later in the movie.)

In the marshmallow experiment with the children, the kids were given a marshmallow and told they were free to eat it, but if they waited 20 minutes without eating it, the guy would come back and give them a second marshmallow.

However, with the doughnut experiment with the adults... all the every told them was that the doughnuts in the room were stale, but somebody would come replace them with fresh doughnuts in 20 minutes.

...Nobody said to the adults "IF you do not take any of the stale doughnuts, we will replace them in 20 minutes with fresh doughnuts." There was no consequences for taking the stale doughnuts. So, first off, some people may simply have not taken the stale doughnuts because they don't want to eat stale doughnuts, not due to any patience or whatever.

But, more importantly...

What if somebody thought "Hmm...they are probably going to throw the stale doughnuts out anyway. If I eat a stale one now, I can also have a fresh one when they come back." Heck, for that matter, my personal thought process may have been something along the lines of "You know, they will probably just throw these doughnuts out. Plus, I bet the stale doughnuts aren't that bad. If I eat a stale one now, I can take a fresh one for the road to save for later."

So, if you ask me, the experiment was flawed. The children's experiment was very simple. They were told that they could eat the marshmallow, but would get two if they did not eat it until he got back. They were given a potential reward that they would only get if they exercised patience. This was not properly re-created with the adults.

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