Self-Control In Kids Predicts Future Success

SpuriousLogic writes "A new study suggests that a child's future success depends on the amount of self-control they exhibit. From the article: 'The international team of researchers looked at 1,037 children in New Zealand born in the early 1970s, observing their levels of self-control at ages 3 and 5. At ages 5, 7, 9 and 11, the team used parent, teacher and the children's own feedback to measure such factors as impulsive aggression, hyperactivity, lack of persistence and inattention. At age 32, they used physical exams, blood tests, records searches and personal interviews of 96% of the original participants to determine how healthy, wealthy and law-abiding the subjects had turned out to be. The results were startling. In the fifth of children with the least self-control, 27% had multiple health problems. Compare that with the fifth of kids with the most self-control — at just 11%. Among the bottom fifth, 32% had an annual income below approximately $15,000, while only 10% of the top fifth fell into that low-income bracket. Just 26% of the top-fifth's offspring were raised in single-parent homes, compared with 58% of those in the bottom fifth. And 43% of the bottom fifth had been convicted of a crime, far outstripping the top fifth's 13% rate.'"

Comments

Causation is not Correlia

[ShakaUVM]

"Among the bottom fifth, 32% had an annual income below approximately $15,000, while only 10% of the top fifth fell into that low-income bracket. Just 26% of the top-fifth's offspring were raised in single-parent homes, compared with 58% of those in the bottom fifth."

Well, that may very well be the problem right there. Ditto for the fact that kids with low self control probably came from low-income families, too.

That said, doing martial arts as a kid is a wonderful way to learn self-control, among many other benefits. I'm half convinced it cures ADHD, too, from my personal experience.

Re:Causation is not Correlia

[hedwards]

That's what I was thinking. Kids with self control problems in school often come from backgrounds where sitting still and having self control isn't valued. But beyond that, of course if they're still having trouble with self control as adults their income is going to suffer, people who can't or won't fit the business world are going to be making less money whether or not it's warranted. Businesses just aren't in the practice of hiring people they don't think fit their business.

Re:Causation is not Correlia

[aliquis]

I haven't RTFA or RTFFP.

Anyway, what I wonder in this case is how much is genetics and how much is environment. Though they don't say anything about anything of it, just how they act as kids.

But for instance genetics may not decide whatever your parents separate or not (or maybe it does if they are more "explosive" characters themselves .. And you get that), but eventually that may affect how you interact with other persons.

Personally I feel pretty fucked up now at the age of 31. I've had a somewhat weird life as kid but I didn't felt weird or remotely as bad back when I was say 20.

Way too little real interaction with other people in my life, work/job/whatever, love, death, sadness make you behave weird. It could had changed and some people could probably had helped but it kinda scares them away because what are they supposed to see in someone such as myself?

Crap :(

Re:Causation is not Correlia

[Kell Bengal]

I know exactly how you feel. You grow up a product of your environment and you don't really look back until you're 30 and realise what could have been, if things had been different. I certainly grew up in the shadow of potential I was supposed to be meeting, even when I wasn't encouraged at home and being bullied mercilessly. I think it's insane how we expect children to learn and study at school and then send them home to parents who tell them that hard work is dumb. Even with the best genetics in the world, those kids are going to have it tough later in life.

Re:Causation is not Correlia

[tsm_sf]

Even at a very young age I realized that boxing was a far more practical and effective discipline.

It seems to me that the "effectiveness" of any martial art has everything to do with the particular instructor's point of view. Some emphasize the "martial" more than the "art", and vice versa. The most striking example of this for me was a fencing class I took years ago where the instructor devoted half of each class to what was basically dirty street fighting with a rapier. Useless in a practical sense, and entirely contrary to the spirit of the sport, but it was exactly as much fun as it sounds.

Re:Causation is not Correlia

[dogmatixpsych]

The researchers controlled for childhood income (socioeconomic status {SES}) and IQ. The low self control kids were more likely than high self control kids to become single parents (58% versus 26%) and have very low income (32% versus 10%). Yes, the low self control kids were more likely to be brought up in low SES homes and were more likely to have lower IQs but the researchers controlled for that in all analyses: "Dunedin study children with greater self-control were more likely to have been brought up in socioeconomically advantaged families (r = 0.25, P
Anyway, the regression coefficients for the study are generally quite modest, but it's an interesting finding (one that's been replicated many times, actually). I would like to have seen better statistical analyses though (some multi-level modeling would have been more elegant).

Re:Shocking

[flink]

Well, the shocking thing is how early the amount of self control one has appears to be "set". Most of us have little to no awareness and certainly no control of how we are raised before we are 3, yet it appears that a major facility that determines how successful we will be for the rest of our lives is already well established by this age.

Don't Eat the Marshmallow... Yet! (related)

[eepok]

http://www.ted.com/talks/joachim_de_posada_says_don_t_eat_the_marshmallow_yet.html/

In this short talk from TED U, Joachim de Posada shares a landmark experiment on delayed gratification -- and how it can predict future success. With priceless video of kids trying their hardest not to eat the marshmallow.

Metabolism also linked to success

[turing_m]

I take it that a "good" metabolism is a fast metabolism, according to this study? A fast metabolism is not good to have in a famine. It's only "good" to have in our current environment of plentiful food. It would make sense that if you don't have enough self control to stockpile some food reserves (or something that can be traded for food) in preparation for such a time, your body had better do it for you by making you a lazy fatass.

As someone who's studied and taugh

[Anonymous Coward]

That said, doing martial arts as a kid is a wonderful way to learn self-control, among many other benefits.

So does "doing" musical instruments.

Any sport, for that matter.

And any activity that requires concentration and diligence.

I've studied martial arts for quite a few years and taught a little too. The benefits are no better than the above and actually playing sports that use a ball will give a kid "ball sense" - the ability to predict where it's going from looking at it.

Studying music will also give the kid the same mental preperation and more dextarity than martial arts. Martial arts will not make one better at other sports than if one didn't do them.

As far as combat skills: I worked with "jocks" who came off the street with no previous martial arts experience and beat black-belts.

The skills from martial arts are overrated and there's nothing like after several years of practice to walk into your orthopedist and finding him shopping for an airplane while you're hobbling over to his desk. And then there's the dentist for your TMJ.

I don't care how good you become (I was .very good, others will land hits on you.

Old and Bad study

[gurps_npc]

Been dismissed multiple times before by real scientists. The problems with the study was: a. They determined success and defined control in the year 2000, not 1970.

Note the dates, kids from the 1970s, at kids age 3-11 measured success when the kids were 32. I.E. Math says the study ended in 2000.

No, your fate is NOT predestined by the time you are 11.

Re:Link to the Paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: I Am A Criminologist.

The Dunedin study has been the source of a lot of research on the development of delinquency throughout the life-course (specifically by Terrie Moffitt). One of the arguments which has evolved from the study is that of a developmental taxonomy of delinquents, including the existence of what were termed "Life-Course-Persistent" offenders who are bound, due to a variety of deficiencies (familial, environmental, biological, social) to engage in a nigh unescapable life of delinquency and crime.

I don't have a lot of time to delve into this study, but I can say that the general problem with the self-control argument has always been that it is, in essence, a tautology. AFAIK, there's never been a clear measurement of self-control that separates it from the things that it is supposed to cause. The basic posited causal relationship is that: Low-Self Control --> Deviance/Crime/Aggression. How then is self-control measured? By looking for the presence of Deviance/Crime/Aggression. So, according to the theory, low self-control causes what we measure to see if there's low self control... Make sense? A lot of criminologists find the propositions of low-self control theory to be problematic due to this measurement issue. Just quickly looking at the methods section in the back of the paper, the measures of self-control appear to be collected in this way.