Hyperbolic discounting - minimizing future rewards and delayed gratification

The tendancy to place more importance on rewards in front of us and minimize rewards or punishments in future.

This was proved in teh famous marchmallow test where children who were able to wait for longer were rewarded wtih more marshmallows.
further tests revealed that if the marshmallows were hidden under a tray, the children were able to wait ten times longer
In the original experiment the children who waited did many things to avoid thinking about the marshmallows: sang, made funny faces, closed tehir eyes, etc.
the children who did eat had been staring, maybe imagining how it would taste