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Self-Control In Kids Predicts Future Success

Posted by samzenpus on from the stop-figiting dept.

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.'"

59 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. First post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Self control? What's that?

  2. Causation is not Correlia by ShakaUVM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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.

    1. Re:Causation is not Correlia by hedwards · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Causation is not Correlia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      What are you talking about? I think it's very clear from the research: kids with little self control clearly caused themselves to grow up in a single-parent home. I mean, how else could you possibly interpret that data?

    3. Re:Causation is not Correlia by aliquis · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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 :(

    4. Re:Causation is not Correlia by agm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "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.

      It says the study subjects offspring were raised in single parent homes, not that the study subjects themselves were raised in a single parent home.

      It also says an annual income of below $15000. Given this was in New Zealand, I doubt very much this is true. $15,000 NZD is not much at all. Perhaps they converted it to some other currency?

    5. Re:Causation is not Correlia by b4upoo · · Score: 2

      I suppose that the very moment a punch is about to strike would be a lousy time to suffer loss of concentration.
                          I suspect that not only do the low testing subjects suffer from social and psychological problems but many probably carry very hard to diagnose medical problems as well. And being that they may reflect their parents status it is likely that the money needed for good medical care was never available to them from birth onward. It is just another proof that socialized medicine is not optional but something that must happen to improve our society.

    6. Re:Causation is not Correlia by noidentity · · Score: 2

      Never mind that, the things they call success are those things that self-control plays a central role in: following the law, and being financially and healthfully well-off. Up next, they found that kids who breathed oxygen had a much higher survival rate into adulthood than kids who breathed argon.

    7. Re:Causation is not Correlia by Kell+Bengal · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
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    8. Re:Causation is not Correlia by tsm_sf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
    9. Re:Causation is not Correlia by dogmatixpsych · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you read the research article (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/01/20/1010076108) - [note: open access, so you can download the pdf or read the full text online] - the researchers state the annual income was 20,000 NZD, which is roughly 15,000 USD ("For example, by adulthood, the highest and lowest fifths of the population on measured childhood self- control had respective rates of multiple health problems of 11% vs. 27%, rates of polysubstance dependence of 3% vs. 10%, rates of annual income under NZ $20,000 of 10% vs. 32%, rates of offspring reared in single-parent households of 26% vs. 58%, and crime conviction rates of 13% vs. 43%.") So yes, it was converted for an American audience.

    10. Re:Causation is not Correlia by dogmatixpsych · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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).

    11. Re:Causation is not Correlia by lightspeedius · · Score: 2

      At 30 things CAN be different.

      Unless of course you've got a mortgage... which maybe the point of mortgages.

    12. Re:Causation is not Correlia by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      If your genes are bad, nothing about you will work right: you'll be dumb, you'll be ugly, you'll be unhealthy. By contrast, good looks, good health, and good intelligence tend to go together, because people who have good genetics will express all the right genes at the right time during development and end up symmetrical and well-wired (barring some freak accident).

      Back to Biology 101 for you. Not even close. Health and intelligence are not genetically linked (Stephen Hawkings, anyone?). Attractiveness and intelligence are not genetically linked (Paris Hilton for the win).

      Yes, there are unfortunate people with 'piss poor protoplasm' (the technical term). These people have a much harder time being 'successful' because they're often sick or disabled. However, I can think of a number of individuals with chronically poor health who have managed to make enormous contributions to society. Furthermore, there are many perfectly healthy, perfectly attractive, perfectly stupid people running amok in the world, Sarah Palin being the perfect example. There are many, many extremely intelligent people whose physical attributes would never raise the pulse of bystanders. And yes, if you're attractive AND intelligent you have some advantages that most people don't have but that has nothing to do with genetic linkages to the two traits.

      Stop reading Playboy. It's messing up your mind.

      --
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    13. Re:Causation is not Correlia by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 2

      Average income is a poor measure (brought down by non-working youth, elderly and unemployed). Median income is better, and is around $NZ 38 k IIRC (disclaimer: I'm from New Zealand). If we get selective and choose "median income of the working population" I think it goes up to around $NZ 45 k. So the figure you get depends on whether you take median or mean, and which population you use for your sample (make sure when doing comparisons with other countries that you are using the same 'statistics', or the comparison becomes less accurate).

    14. Re:Causation is not Correlia by arivanov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The data is right, the conclusion is wrong.

      The data clearly shows that US and UK schools fail miserably in educating the potential top 5% percentile of students (ditto for bottom 5%). The best students (especially male ones) are guaranteed to be in that "lack of self control" bucket. They are bored. Anyone who had a smart boy will tell you that based on experience (girls are slightly better at faking interest).

      I have seen it first hand with my 8 year old. He was assigned exactly in that bucket and had an "impossible to educate, needs psychiatric assessment" label in 2 schools. The lot - refuse to sit, lashing out, etc. Guess what, his granny taught him to read in another language with a different alphabet in 3 weeks at the age of 6. He has now managed to compensate for the 2 years when the teachers had him labelled as "impossible" and get back to his class level in English (4 years in 2) and to a level which is at least a year ahead of where he should be in math.

      I really hate to think where he could have been if his teachers did not assign him to the "non-compliant, belongs to the never succeed bucket" in his last year at the nursery.

      --
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    15. Re:Causation is not Correlia by gtall · · Score: 2

      Just for the record, you do realize your argument is full of holes. You have a statistical study of...err...one. And they did a statistical study, they never said "if you have no self-control as a kneebiter, then you will become a wanker".

      It is precisely because these are statistical studies that they may not apply in your particular case. It doesn't apply in any other particular case either even if the tyke had no self-control and became a wanker. However, if smoking causes cancer in X % of the cases, you might wish to consider not smoking. You might even die in your nineties after having smoked your entire adult life.

    16. Re:Causation is not Correlia by Kashgarinn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're reading too much into this from your own perspective.

      Your perspective is that you have an intelligent, but out of control individual, you're assuming all individuals who lack self-control are the same as the individual you know, and that if only the needs of these individuals are met, everyone would be better.

      The thing is.. and this is the big thing.. individuals who are just as intelligent, but do not lack self-control have more control over their lives in the future.

      It's the difference between being intelligent, finding school boring and lashing out at the environment because you're bored, or being intelligent, finding school boring, but enduring that anyway and taking what you can from it.

      In your case, I'd try and develop the kids self-control. Intelligence is a fine tool to cut through obstacles, but self-control is the tool to cleave mountains.

    17. Re:Causation is not Correlia by Quirkz · · Score: 2

      I think you're right. The GP assuming that acting impulsively is a sign of intelligence. It's only one counter-example, but my own story opposes his. I was a bright kid. I was bored constantly in school. I didn't disrupt things, I just sat there being bored. Sometimes teachers would let me read a book in class, and I wasn't so bored. Others didn't like me reading, so I had to pretend to pay attention and do slightly less fun things like doodle or whatever. It's definitely not necessary to be disruptive just because you're bored.

      --
      The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
  3. TED - Marshmallow Experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  4. Re:Shocking by flink · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. Don't Eat the Marshmallow... Yet! (related) by eepok · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  6. Character by fwarren · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or maybe character matters?

    --
    vi + /etc over regedit any day of the week.
  7. Metabolism also linked to success by turing_m · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    --
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    1. Re:Metabolism also linked to success by orphiuchus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I call bullshit. Someone with a fast metabolism is going to have a lot easier time chasing down prey (and running from predators) than someone who takes two days to digest a single Twinkie.

      Then why are there so many of us with famine-ready metabolisms walking around?

      By the way, I just love eating 1700 calories a day and doing an hour of p90x just to keep from gaining 5 pounds a week. Thanks famine-survival-specialist ancestors!

    2. Re:Metabolism also linked to success by epine · · Score: 2

      In an expanding population, low birth age is an advantage. More generations: more tau growth multiples. In a declining population, delayed birth age is an advantage: fewer tau shrinkage multiples. Not for a long time has the western world experienced a consistently declining population due to high mortality (rather than family planning). We forget the other sweep of the pendulum.

      A sunny day metabolism is not necessarily optimal for a rainy day. Clearly starvation has been a problem in the history of the human species, because it's awfully easy to tip into porker mode.

      It could even be that our genetic program interprets indolence combined with high food intake as "pending baby explosion" and plans accordingly. In old school population dynamics, the best predictor of bust was boom. The same group of people lauded in this study for self-control under different conditions could be the group who starved to death waiting for social chaos to play itself out.

      Unfortunately, mother nature didn't comment the code, so it can difficult to distinguish a bug from a feature.

      // MoNa 332BC - coefficient of porkerhood boosted 10%
      // MoNa 145BC - coefficient of porkerhood boosted another 10%

      Besides, those dates make no sense. We all know that MoNa would have written that date somewhere in the six thousand millennium block, though some dim bulbs have construed the four digit date stamp in years.

    3. Re:Metabolism also linked to success by ikkonoishi · · Score: 2

      You don't need a fast metabolism to tend sheep or raise crops. You want to burn as little energy as possible while waiting for them to be ready to eat.

  8. Surprise, children are people too by h00manist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The same is true for adults, or, if you may, human beings. Big surprise, I don't know why people insist on treating children as retards or something.

    --
    Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
  9. Re:If that were true... by c0lo · · Score: 2

    Then that chef Ramsey dude wouldn't be richer then dirt. /fail

    Yeah, buddy, go ahead and, possibly, abuse everybody the way Ramsey does. Should be a behavior required for being successful - my manager seems to think so as well.
    Just let aside the pesky control on yourself and, for God's sake, don't take any time to think what Ramsey actually controlled in himself to acquire his kitchen management skills; this is a too deep detail, can't be important if it is non-obvious.

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  10. Re:Shocking by siddesu · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not really, in my country he runs the second-largest telecom. The second and the third to smoke are government ministers.

    / really.

  11. 1037 children by Coppit · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    The researchers had a very strong temptation to find another 300 children to study, but being successful scientists were able to exhibit self-control.

  12. Self control == Intelligence by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Informative

    I can't comment on the study because I couldn't find a link to it in the linked article (wtf?).

    One of the definitions of intelligence is the ability to put off an immediate reward for a long term benefit. Children are presented with a jelly bean and told "if you can wait until [the researcher] get back, you'll get 3 jelly beans", and then the researcher leaves.

    Kids who can put off temptation the longest tend to score highest in IQ tests.

    For example, smokers could give up smoking for 3 months and use the money to pay for a high-def TV. This never happens in practice, because of their inability to put off the immediate pleasure in order to get the long-term reward.

    BTW, the links on Slashdot have no underlines? With no decoration, you have to mouse around the text in order to see if a link was included in the article.

    1. Re:Self control == Intelligence by orphiuchus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Self control is only part of intelligence if you expand the definition to include it. In my opinion we use the word "intelligence" as too much of a blanket term encompassing all the elements of success.

      The truth of the matter is that someone who processes and retains information with the bottom 20% of the population but has the self control to do the extra work required for them to get the grades and/or do good work at, whatever their profession is, is very likely to be more successful than their peers.

      Most of the 4.0 students(with engineering or noble science majors) I knew in college never left their rooms on weeknights. I realized a few years ago that they weren't necessarily smarter, some of them quite frankly seemed kind of dim, what they had was work ethic and a realistic assessment of how much time they had to put in to make the grades. And that is far more important than an IQ test.

    2. Re:Self control == Intelligence by gtall · · Score: 2

      Yep, in grad school we could always tell the ones we'd be graduating with. Those that had grit made it, those that didn't...no matter how they flashed their intelligence...did not.

  13. As someone who's studied and taugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:As someone who's studied and taugh by ShakaUVM · · Score: 2

      So does "doing" musical instruments.

      Any sport, for that matter.

      I've done sports, played instruments (the violin, which isn't especially easy), and done martial arts. While you might incidentally learn concentration and discipline from sports and music, in martial arts it is taught explicitly.

      Well, your mileage will vary, of course, but my instructor in TKD would spend a significant amount of time with students cultivating their character and self-control.

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

      Learn to dodge. Pain is a great teacher. =)

    2. Re:As someone who's studied and taugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Part of the confusion may be that you're discussing martial arts like there's no difference between the different disciplines, let alone different instructors and facilities.

      Things like Kung-Fu and Tai Chi will involve much more focus and concentration than most other martial arts.

      Similarly, Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), Muy Thai and Wrestling (and, to a lesser degree, Judo, Aikido and Krav Maga) have shown themselves to be very effective in actual hand-to-hand combat whereas most others haven't shown themselves to be worth much more than a deterrent to those who don't realize how ineffective they are.

      So basically, the term martial arts is way too vague for the disagreement you're having. It's like arguing whether sports help you get in shape when one of you is thinking track and field and the other is thinking ping pong.

    3. Re:As someone who's studied and taugh by tragedy · · Score: 2

      Well duh. People who expect otherwise are getting their ideas about martial arts from movies and TV. Might as well believe in detectives who solve a new murder every week and that you can have realistic immersive VR, but you'll die in real life if you die in the VR etc. I can pretty much guarantee that anyone who takes martial arts classes will be a better fighter than they would be without them (barring debilitating injuries). That's pretty much going to be true even if only for the daily exercise. It doesn't make them a better fighter than everyone who hasn't taken the classes just automatically. It's exactly the same as any other skill. Someone can train for years, maybe all their life, and some newbie with talent or some physical attribute that gives them an edge can come along and best them with no training or maybe just a few lessons. It's true for chess, basketball (consider a super-well trained 5' 2'' basketball player vs. someone naturally athletic and 8 feet tall who can just reach up and put the ball into the basket), tennis, racecar driving, gymnastics, all kinds of martial arts, academics,and just about everything else.

      All that doesn't mean that the training is somehow worthless, just that some people are naturally better at some things than others. Usually there's a tradeoff where they're better at one thing and worse at others. Realistically though, there are people who are better at absolutely everything than some other people: faster, stronger, better reflexes, better eyesight, better balance, better memory, better learning skills, more intelligent in every way, etc. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to measure that sort of thing objectively of course. Especially if you're going to claim it's hereditary. It could just be nutrition or lack of disease, etc. Plus, despite what insane social Darwinists might think, all the superpeople might die in a plague along with 99% of humanity while a subgroup with some sort of mutation that limits their intelligence and athletic ability, but also confers immunity, survives.

      In any case, the "jocks" who come off the streets and defeat black-belts may be good in a fight. Put them in a fight with a parallel version of themselves who trained in martial arts from a young age and the parallel universe version is the one I would put my money on if I gambled.

  14. Re:Stupid correlation studies by FrootLoops · · Score: 2

    Amina Khan, the linked article's author, seems to have lifted those correlation numbers from the study. Suggesting the study didn't deal with causation is itself fallacious unless you've read the study and found the same problem. It's really unsurprising that a journalist reports statistics poorly, but saying the study itself is bad because of that is just cynically wrong.

  15. Domestication? by zes · · Score: 2

    Am I the only one thinking that all they are saying is that the animal Homo Sapien Sapien is easier to domesticarte if you do it early? Surely this is the case with most species?

  16. Re:Sample size by MyLongNickName · · Score: 2

    Huh? Whut? The number of traits is irrelevant when correlating two specific traits. The only argument you can make is that there isn't a causal relationship. 1,000 is MORE than enough to show correlation, especially when the variations between groups is so high.

    --
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  17. The article never said otherwise by artor3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The "causation is not correlation" refrain doesn't really apply here. The article claims that self-control predicts success, not that it causes it. The study seems pretty solid, and it's conclusion is believable. Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to determine whether self-control leads to success versus "unknown factor X" leading to both self-control and success. To do that would require you to take a large sample of children, and teach self-control to some who don't have it, while also breaking the self-control of some of those who do. Not the sort of study a parent will sign their kid up for.

    The point is that self-control is good, and trying to instill it in a child is likely (but not guaranteed) to help them in life.

    Also, I think you're misunderstanding the summary. It's not saying that the kids with poor self-control had low income or single-parent homes growing up, it's saying that kids with poor self-control are likely to grow into adults with low income and broken homes. The fact that lack of self-control can lead to divorce should surprise no one.

    1. Re:The article never said otherwise by Zalbik · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The article claims that self-control predicts success, not that it causes it.

      The point is that self-control is good, and trying to instill it in a child is likely (though not guaranteed) to help them in life.

      I think your second paragraph needs to have a little discussion with your first paragraph...

    2. Re:The article never said otherwise by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 2

      There is more to the research than this, as well.

      Executive function ("self control") is associated with imaginative play: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=76838288 for the pop summary. Imaginative play, in which kids grab relative raw "things" and make things out of them and make stories with those things (i.e., more like turning a stone into a building and a twig into a person than Legos or Playmobil toys) and unsupervised play are deeply on the decline.

      The chilling fact: they recently repeated some tests for executive function that had been administered to children over 60 years ago. Contemporary 5 year olds show the same executive function as 3 year olds in the 1940s (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514) Say what platitudes you like about "new" kinds of intelligence and information processing and cognitive multitasking: a decline in the ability to do basic self-control is going to be a massive problem. Perhaps this also has something to do with the fact that college students study 40% less now than they did 40 years ago... and nearly half learn almost nothing in their first 2 years of college (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_large_numbers_of_college_students_don_t_learn_much)

  18. Parents! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Please beat your children.

  19. Re:Stupid correlation studies by artor3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't get why so many people on Slashdot like to harp on this. How exactly do you expect them to prove causation in a sociological study? Correlation is all they can show, and correlation can be interesting. And since they used the word "predicts" instead of "leads to", they can't even be accused of conflating the two.

  20. Re:Old and Bad study by orphiuchus · · Score: 2

    That's not what "Honors" programs in US schools have been telling us...

  21. Link to the Paper by BlackSupra · · Score: 5, Informative

    Link to the paper "A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety" by Terrie E. Moffitt, Et Al.

    The Abstract : http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/01/20/1010076108

    The PDF Paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/01/20/1010076108.full.pdf+html

    The Journal Snippit: http://www.pnas.org/site/misc/highlights.shtml#control

    Though policy-makers have considered programs to enhance the nation’s health, wealth, and safety through interventions to improve children’s self-control skills, researchers had not previously shown that childhood self-control actually influences adult outcomes in large populations. Terrie Moffitt et al. analyzed assessments of more than 1,000 participants in the Dunedin, New Zealand Longitudinal Study who were followed from birth to age 32. Even after accounting for differences in social status and IQ, the researchers found that children as young as 3 who scored highly on measures of self-control were less likely than lower-scoring children to develop common physical health problems, abuse drugs, experience financial difficulties, raise a child in a single-parent household, or be convicted of a crime as adults. In a second sample of 500 nonidentical British twins, the sibling who scored lowest in measures of self-control at age 5 was more likely than the other twin to begin smoking, perform poorly in school, and engage in antisocial behaviors at age 12, the authors report. Children whose self-control improved during the study fared better as adults in measures of health, wealth, and criminal history than was otherwise predicted by their initial childhood scores. The results suggest that even small improvements in individuals’ self-control could improve the health, wealth, and safety of large populations, according to the authors. — J.M.

    1. Re:Link to the Paper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Link to the Paper by argStyopa · · Score: 2

      An interesting point that I don't believe has been called out in comments yet: note that they tested some kids as young as THREE.

      Not to say that there aren't some things that parents could do to help with self-control, but testing at that early age would lead me to believe that many of the elements of self-control are innate and not learned.

      I know a family of four kids, and two of them are meticulous, careful, self-controlled individuals. Two are impulsive, whimsical, and NOT self-controlled at all. Same home environment, one of each gender in each group. Not sure if there's anything that could have been done to 'make' the impulsive pair more likely to be more self-disciplined.

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      -Styopa
  22. Is real science from Dunedin Longitudinal Study by QuestionsNotAnswers · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here is an interview about this in particular (not sure if available outside NZ!): http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Children-with-more-self-control-turn-into-healthier-and-wealthier-adults/tabid/506/articleID/18253/Default.aspx or google http://www.google.com/search?q=Dunedin+Longitudinal+Study for background information.

    It is a very rigourous study that has been going for nearly 40 years (now on phase 38), producing 900 papers, and a superb data set because they still have an amazing 96% of the original sample set (now aged about 40) getting regularly tested. They go to extreme lengths to continue keeping the original people coming back - e.g. organising flights for all the people that have elsewhere including a large number that are spread around the world.

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    Happy moony
  23. Re:Old and Bad study by QuestionsNotAnswers · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are talking complete bollocks.
     
    This particular study is a sub-study of one of the most complete longitudinal studies of its kind and it is still continuing. It is run by real scientists, some of whom have made it their life work.

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    Happy moony
  24. Definitely not causation. by gstrickler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Lack of self control certainly does not prevent success:

    • Bill Clinton
    • Richard Nixon
    • John F Kennedy
    • Robert Downey Jr
    • Charlie Sheen

    List could continue for a very long time.

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    make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
    1. Re:Definitely not causation. by nomadic · · Score: 2

      Nixon, Clinton, and Kennedy definitely had tremendous self control; if you look over their lives they were each working on a long-term plan to obtain the presidency. The fact that once they reached the goal they let themselves do what they want doesn't mean they lack self control, but rather once they had achieved their goal, why not enjoy the power it brought.

  25. Done by Stanford First by bi$hop · · Score: 2

    A professor at Stanford did a less rigorous version of this study using marshmallows and bells in the 1960s: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer

  26. Confusing self-control for intelligence? by HotNeedleOfInquiry · · Score: 2

    If you believe "The Bell Curve", which I do, IQ selects for all of the positive attributes listed in the article. What's the correlation between IQ and self-control? And why is it ignored?

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    "Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
  27. Re:Stupid correlation studies by nomadic · · Score: 2

    It's a lot easier to chant "correlation doesn't mean causation" than actually think critically.

  28. Re:Baffling -- where did my story submission go? by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    There's recently been an upgrade of the site. Well, the direction is still open for debate, but in an attempt to make it look more i lots of things have suddenly stopped working and/or looking weird.

    Seems like taco and his gang didn't have the self control needed to actually test stuff before releasing it.

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    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  29. Re:Shocking by mikael_j · · Score: 2

    That was a Berlusconi reference. Try googling "bunga bunga party".

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    Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4