Marshmallows and Juvenile Delinquency

Are you familiar with the famous marshmallow experiment by Walter Mischel in 1972? I have talked about this in another post, but in this post I would like to relate this experiment and its implication on juvenile delinquency. In this experiment, the researcher put children in a room with a marshmallow in front of them. Mischel told these children that they could eat that one marshmallow now, but if they could wait until the experimenter returned, they would earn another marshmallow. The findings showed that less than 40% of the children actually waited for the other marshmallow. According to Mischel, this phenomenon called as "delayed gratification" has a major implication on the cognitive and personality development of these children. 

Children who could wait for another marshmallow were described by their parents to be more confident and assertive, better in self-control, and more intelligent. What is more interesting about the findings too is that, when the children were presented with an object of gratification in front of them, and they were given a choice of refraining if they want more of this object, it caused a dilemma that caused this feeling of frustration, especially when the marshmallow was in front of them. So, the coping mechanism they used to refrain from eating that one marshmallow gave an understanding on individual differences in handling frustration. Some created a mental distraction by playing with their hands, some even attempted to sleep, and some others spoke to themselves. All these showed that children, even without guidance, are able to produce their own ways to control themselves. 

So, relating to my current interest, does this have a similar implication on adolescents who have the tendency to be delinquents? Do adolescents who have a less efficient self-control strategies are more likely to commit crime just to satisfy their current gratification? Are adolescents who could manage timely reception of rewards more likely to have a stronger defence against delinquency?

I a intended to conduct this research, but it might take quite some times. When I have done with the research, I'll definitely share the findings with the world. But this makes an interesting research findings, doesn't it?