The "Triple Package" Explains Why Some Cultural Groups Are More Successful

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Yale Law School professors Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed 'Tiger Mom,' and her husband Jed Rubenfeld write in the NYT that it may be taboo to say it, but certain ethnic, religious and national-origin groups are doing strikingly better than Americans overall and Chua and Rubenfeld claim to have identified the three factors that account some group's upward mobility. 'It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success,' write Chua and Rubenfeld. 'The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you've done is not good enough. The third is impulse control.' Ironically, each element of the Triple Package violates a core tenet of contemporary American thinking. For example, that insecurity should be a lever of success is anathema in American culture. Feelings of inadequacy are cause for concern or even therapy and parents deliberately instilling insecurity in their children is almost unthinkable. Yet insecurity runs deep in every one of America's rising groups; and consciously or unconsciously, they tend to instill it in their children. Being an outsider in a society — and America's most successful groups are all outsiders in one way or another — is a source of insecurity in itself. Immigrants worry about whether they can survive in a strange land, often communicating a sense of life's precariousness to their children. Hence the common credo: They can take away your home or business, but never your education, so study harder. 'The United States itself was born a Triple Package nation, with an outsized belief in its own exceptionality, a goading desire to prove itself to aristocratic Europe and a Puritan inheritance of impulse control,' conclude Chua and Rubenfeld adding that prosperity and power had their predictable effect, eroding the insecurity and self-restraint that led to them. 'Thus the trials of recent years — the unwon wars, the financial collapse, the rise of China — have, perversely, had a beneficial effect: the return of insecurity...America has always been at its best when it has had to overcome adversity and prove its mettle on the world stage. For better and worse, it has that opportunity again today.'"

Comments

Simple enough...

[TWX]

...in that some feeling of superiority or supremacy for either the group that one hails from, be it family, community, race, whatever, gives one the belief that one can achieve, or can achieve more than others.

Feeling of inadequacy guilts one into taking action, to actually attempt to strive to meet that perceived superiority.

Impulse control prevents one from going for instant short-term benefits when those benefits are small, when one can see longer-term benefits by being willing to settle for something lesser now.

I'm not going to get into the racism and other unfortunate points of the argument, but it's not that surprising to me that those that feel that they can achieve will achieve, while those that don't feel that they can achieve won't, by the averages.

Re:Simple enough...

[TemperedAlchemist]

The middle one is an easy trip to mental illness.

This all seems like a bunch pseudoscience BS, it's not worth any serious consideration.

Re:Simple enough...

[anagama]

Here is an interesting example supporting your point FTA:

Merely stating the fact that certain groups do better than others -- as measured by income, test scores and so on -- is enough to provoke a firestorm in America today, and even charges of racism. The irony is that the facts actually debunk racial stereotypes.

There are some black and Hispanic groups in America that far outperform some white and Asian groups. Immigrants from many West Indian and African countries, such as Jamaica, Ghana, and Haiti, are climbing America's higher education ladder, but perhaps the most prominent are Nigerians. Nigerians make up less than 1 percent of the black population in the United States, yet in 2013 nearly one-quarter of the black students at Harvard Business School were of Nigerian ancestry; over a fourth of Nigerian-Americans have a graduate or professional degree, as compared with only about 11 percent of whites.

By the same token, racism is adaptable. Adherents will just shift their focus from genetic factors, to cultural ones, and in fact, that is in a sense what the article suggests with the exceptionalism point.

Honestly, the more I think about this the more disturbing it is, particularly the inferiority thing. I've ended up doing fairly well by objective measures -- I'm from one of those successful cultural groups -- but I'm still very insecure and often deeply unhappy. At the end of it, we're dead, and I'm a good 2/3 of the way there, still wondering how I can waste so much of my life being unhappy.

I end up thinking about the immigrant wisdom of, "they can take everything from you, but they can't take your education" -- well, death takes that too and if you lead a life of suffering (for no good reason, just cultural BS) -- what the fuck good did it do you?

Re:Simple enough...

[chihowa]

The bad aspects of cultures should be changed, but it's touchy because it often gets ibnncorrectly equated to race.

I think that culture is deliberately equated to race by some to dismiss, without consideration, the idea that the disadvantages some people carry because of their culture are 1) repairable, by fixing the bad aspects of the culture, and 2) the fault of the members of the culture, by teaching these bad thought patterns and behaviors to their members.

It's far more appealing to these people to think that certain people are inferior/superior because of their race (the racist crowd) or that it's somehow everybody else's fault for the failure of certain cultures to prosper (the PC crowd). Equating culture to race allows us to not address the shortcomings in our different cultures and to shout down any attempt to even identify the shortcomings as racist.

Cultures may have strong correlation to race because distinct cultures were often developed by racially isolated groups of people. But cultures, and the individual behaviors and ideas contains within them, are portable to every group of people. We should be dissecting cultures to adopt the good aspects and shed the bad ones.

Crazy!

[Big Hairy Ian]

So you have to have an inferiority complex whilst believing yourself to be superior and be a control freak at the same time?

This explains why my manager is a psycho :D

Re:Crazy!

[rmdingler]

There's another force at work.

Native kids, born into the complacency that is life in a wealthy western nation, often lack the drive wielded by those not too far removed from the have-not lifestyle afforded by life with fewer resources.

First generation immigrants are generally more motivated and productive compared to those farmed locally.

What a bunch of baloney! Sample bias buddy.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is sample bias, and that is all it is. People with education (and/or welath), a drive to better themselves, willing to chuck everything in one land to seek fortune halfway across the world. That is the sample you are looking at in America. Not a truly representative sample of India, or Nigeria or Chinese.

I am a very successful (by most metrics. education, job security, networth, income, family, status/respect among the peers) Indian American. Any statistics about Indian Americans suffers from terrible sample bias. Almost all the Indian immigrants to USA fall into exactly two categories. 1. Highly educated (post grad + in India from top Indian universities, IITs, IIMs, IISc, AIIMSs, NITs, RECs, etc). 2. Emigres from Gujrat business communities. Both groups would be very successful wherever they go, not because of any of this triple package.

The Gujarati business community is world wide and they thrive in every corner of the world. A huge percentage of grocery stores, motels, retail stores and pawn shops in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific islands are owned by them, and they are making big inroads into USA, UK, Canada, New Zeland, Australia etc as their immigration polices are getting relaxed .

The educated Indians were bottled up in India, when it was pursuing socialistic policies. A small trickle of engineers and doctors from India in 1960s became a veritable torrent during 1990s. Stated with F1 student visa, and then H1B work visas. They are all college educated.

The achievements of Indian children in academics in the USA is not very much out place compared to the Whites, Jews, the African Americans or Chinese, if you draw a sample with same level of education/wealth from these communities.

This triple package theory does not explain why, despite being endowed with the triple package in the dyed in wool pristine form, India and Nigeria are so corrupt and so mired in poverty.

Does not sound desirable at all

[gweihir]

All these, except impulse control, are strong indicators of an imbalanced and immature personality. These people are a problem. Their "success" is essentially of negative worth to society, and, I suspect, to themselves.

Re:WTF?

[SirGarlon]

Because it was a slow news day, and the editors thought it was time for a good elitist/racist flame war?

It'll work if you want to suceed

[Taco Cowboy]

When I arrived on the shore of America I had nothing.

I didn't even speak English.

To make the long story short - two of the three factors were very vital for my survival, and ultimately put me to where I am - except for the "superiority" factor, because I was less than a nothing back then.

As I grow more accustomed to the American lives, I get to know people from different cultures - for one reason or another, I find one group very very interesting - the Jews.

They are in so many ways so similar to the Chinese - and yet, they are far superior to the Chinese (yes, insecurity complex at play here) in that the Jews have a purpose in their own private lives and also for their community lives - on the other hand, most Chinese do not.

At the end of the day, the success of the Jews is not a fluke - their culture is structured in such a way that death of one member is nothing - even a massacre of millions to the Jews is nothing - as long as their culture gets to live on.

BBC has a very interesting program on the revival of Jewish culture in Krakow, Poland -
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...

What the Chinese have is number. What the Jews have is determination.

But other than that, in many other aspect in lives, what the Jews are can very much be found in the Chinese.

And I am not the only one who is saying this - read the following article (written by a Jew) to find out what he says ---

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/C...

Re:It'll work if you want to suceed

[Anonymous Coward]

and America's most successful groups are all outsiders in one way or another

Okay but American blacks have NEVER felt like part of mainstream society and they are definitely the least prosperous group. That's a great big gaping hole in the theory that needs to be explained.

Having a culture that glorifies violence and street crime and actively persecutes those who want education really, really doesn't help. That's what gangsta culture does. No group could thrive with that. So the real question is why the nearly suicidal anti-achievement attitude? Where does it come from? Why can't people understand that embracing it means forever denying yourself your true protential? The successful black people who own businesses, enter the professions, and work in academia all have one thing in common: they rejected thug culture and growing up, they were often targeted and harasses and assaulted because of it. Not by whites, but by fellow American blacks.

Re:It'll work if you want to suceed

[XcepticZP]

How about you add a disclaimer to the top of your post? "Warning: Post contains my anecdotally-proven religious and racial stereotypes."

Re:It'll work if you want to suceed

[Chrisq]

Despite generations of discrimination, most Jews and Chinese are faring significantly better than white Americans.

Uhm ... most Jews (in America) are white Americans.

Re:It'll work if you want to suceed

[dkleinsc]

When was the last time the Jews feel like they are the "mainstream" anywhere but in Israel ?

That's easy: 2014, in the United States. There are a lot of places in which being Jewish not only doesn't make you an outsider, it makes you the dominant religious group. You can find these places in nice neighborhoods in metropolitan New York City, around institutions of higher learning, and in the upper echelons of many businesses. Announcing that you're Jewish in the United States will typically garner about the same reaction as announcing that you're Baptist.

Jewish people in the US have not received anything close to the oppression that black people have, and I say that as someone who's part Jewish. Jewish Americans were not:
- effectively barred from living in most of the country.
- prevented from attending public schools and later institutions of higher learning, which allowed them to gain the skills they needed to succeed.
- paid less than their non-Jewish counterparts doing the same job.
- beaten or killed as a common recreational activity in large areas of the country, with police either ignoring it or actively supporting it.
- prevented from borrowing money from banks, which allowed them to buy homes and start businesses.
- targeted by America's current system of racial oppression called the "War on Drugs".

A big reason for this is that any white Jew (there are non-white Jews, but the vast majority are white) who doesn't do something to telegraph that they're Jewish can pretty easily blend in with other white people. This is obviously a benefit that Chinese and Indian immigrants didn't get, but it's real, and significant.

Re:It'll work if you want to suceed

[ebno-10db]

I seriously question your ability to recognize objective reality over political correctness.

That's ok, I seriously question your ability to consider possibilities beyond whatever confirms your biases. Analogously, I question your ability to see anything in writing beyond what confirms your biases and kneejerk reactions, as I did not outright reject the idea. I simply expressed skepticism (a useful thing when taking a scientific view). Moreover, the main reason for my skepticism is the difficulty of studying such questions objectively, particularly when many of the "researchers" are so absorbed in their own preconceived notions (people such as yourself).

Despite generations of discrimination, most Jews and Chinese ...

My family is Jewish. The level of discrimination experienced by Jews is far less than what many other groups experienced. Yes, I know about "gentleman's agreements" and the "Jewish quota", but as bad as they were, they were minor compared to what many other groups experienced. At one point anti-Catholic sentiment was stronger than anti-Jewish sentiment. Every synagogue in America has a copy of George Washington's letter welcoming the first Jewish community to America. Contrast that with the fact that the man was a slave owner.

Another factor is that at the time most Jews came to this country, the family farm was already waning due to increases in productivity. The supply of people who knew how to farm exceeded the demand. Trades people, certain types of craftsmen, and so forth were better tickets to prosperity. Jews were concentrated in that work, and few were farmers, because in much of Europe they couldn't own land, and had to move from one country to another from time to time. The timing for their arrival in America was fortuitous.

As for Chinese, there was at one time strong prejudices against them, although largely concentrated in the West Coast and not as bad as against black people, for example. The prejudice also waned earlier (WWII prejudice was against Japanese, and China was out ally). Moreover, the majority of people of Chinese descent in America are from people that arrived here much more recently. Our prejudicial immigration policy only ended in 1965, and then for some decades thereafter it wasn't easy to emigrate from China. Hence they arrived at a time when not only was there little or no anti-Chinese prejudice, but at a time when they were being promoted as the "model minority". Lastly, most Chinese immigrants are people who are middle class or better. They are generally not some ill-educated farmers from the still very poor hinterlands. The same is true of Indian immigrants.

I also note that you switched from talking about Chinese to talking about Asians (presumably East Asians, unless you include say, Tajiks). Obviously China is not all of East Asia, but you tout East Asian cultures in general. So how do you account for the fact that the Vietnamese are not a particularly successful immigrant group?

I don't know the relative importance of the various factors I mentioned and, given the difficulties and fog of bias surrounding such studies, I question who does. My main point is that the issues go way, way beyond your "there are mostly Asian kids in my Scratch class". Or are you going to stick to that observation as your "objective" view?

Success = happiness?

[pr0nbot]

Would you rather be successful and miserable, or a happy failure?

I'm told that Hawaii, for example, has an odd vibe where a lot of people lead frugal lives with clapped out cars and McJobs, but they're there because it's a wonderful place to live. Do they deserve contempt for their lack of ambition? Praise for their ability to value the things that really matter? Respect despite having chosen a path we might not choose for ourselves?

Impulse control

[erroneus]

I love that they made impulse control one of the three important characteristics. I think it's an important factor to be sure and one that really sets different people apart from each other.

Teenagers are famous for their lack of impulse control. Either it is my age showing or there really does seem to be an decrease of impulse control among American teens. It might be convenient to blame race for some of this... no, it really is easy when you look at the whole world instead of just what goes on in the U.S. But we're all human and we have a component of what we learn and are taught. Impulse control is 'behavior' and it comes largely from parenting.

The article highlights asian success who are also pretty famous for their parenting. Most people in the US find the style a bit restrictive to say the least and even distasteful. But the result speak for themselves do they not? And over the last few decades or more, there has been a constant stream of complaints by older people who keep talking about kids today and "family values" and parenting and all that. Mostly, this all falls on deaf ears of people who think they know better or that the old ways are no longer valid in "today's world."

And when you look at trending among different ethnicities in the US, where you see an increase in fatherless families or otherwise single parents you see more and more of these problems we call "impulse control" issues. (Back in the day, we said "criminal tendencies") But it's a bit sad and also gratifying that this story is not about what makes the white man in America successful. After all, the white man in America is the target of blame for other ethnicities' shortcomings. But I am glad this study points out that other non-white people can do better than white people and white people don't seem to be resentful or trying to take them down, let alone "keeping them down." (In fact, I would go so far as to say the white man is generally in awe of and are looking up to the successful asians.) So isn't it about time we stop listening to the complaints which even today continue to sound about the white man in America?

At he end of the day, each of us only have ourselves to blame for what we can and cannot do. (Within some reason of course.) But impulse control is huge. It's what affects the decisions and courses we take in life. I once or twice explained to my sons that life is a series of forks and paths. Some are mutually exclusive. When you make one choice, many other choices disappear. For example, getting a facial tattoo would close a LOT of doors in a person's future. (And those damned gauged earrings? Who, outside of a cannibalistic clan, would think that is acceptable in society?)

I have a sense of responsibility. I have this dark inner feeling that the things my family and especially my children do are a reflection on me. So I do what I can to ensure they reflect as well as possible. I hope my sons feel the same way as they go through life. It's a driving factor in family values. We need a lot more of this. No more single parents. No more running away from responsibility. Life isn't about whether or not you're happy any more. That's on you, but it's not on you to make another person's life worse because you're unhappy. That's a violation.

Re:Jim Goad...

[SirGarlon]

Hard to say. In his first sentence, Jim Goad used a four-letter word for female genitalia to describe Amy Chu. That may be his opinion, but it's not important outside his head. Starting the article that way did not create the impression that an insightful and well-reasoned analysis will follow. I quit reading.

Gets popcorn....

[LoRdTAW]

This is some serious racial/ethnic flame war fuel right here.

I would hazard a guess that many of the immigrants who come here are already motivated to do better, why else would they leave their home to come here? They aren't going to let their kids sit in front of a video game for hours when they busted their ass to relocate to another country and build a better future. They also want to make sure their kids are pushed into prestigious, high income jobs like business management, lawyers and doctors. You can't blame them for trying to ensure their kids are successful.

"Native" kids and their parents don't know the hardships such as poverty, disease or oppressive governments their immigrant parents experienced in their homeland. They take their comfortable life for granted and don't have the same motivation to succeed because they already feel successful. As long as they get to play video games, go out on a weekend to party and have enough money to pay rent and bills, they are satisfied. This usually happens around the second or third generation born here.

And as a side note:
You want to know the secret to success? Risk. Immigrants took a big risk to come here. Their kids will also take risks like starting a business or changing jobs at the drop of a hat for more pay. Of all the people I know, the ones who are successful are the ones who took risks career wise and went into business or made major job/career changes.

Re:Jim Goad...

[metlin]

The maturity of the article, combined with the vulgar name calling and his own admission that he did not read the book, makes me question anything he has to say. A quick search shows his penchant for beating people up and getting himself incarcerated, none of which particularly helps his case.

In contrast, Amy and Jed are both Yale professors, and if nothing else, their hypotheses are backed up by some semblance of data.

He also employs sheer hyperbole in interpreting the piece:

Yesâ"the Nigerians. According to Chua and Rubenfeld, Nigerians are one of Americaâ(TM)s Eight Master Races. The bookâ(TM)s promotional material states that âoeNigerians earn doctorates at stunningly high rates.â Doctorates in whatâ"childhood witchcraft? Baby farming? Penis panics? How to murder someone via telephone? How to transform yourself into a goat? They are highly accomplished in the art of Internet scamming, Iâ(TM)ll give them that. But I suspect that Nigerians may be mere tokens on this list, tossed in at the end to avoid overt accusations of racism.

If he had read the piece, he'd have read the following:

Immigrants from many West Indian and African countries, such as Jamaica, Ghana, and Haiti, are climbing Americaâ(TM)s higher education ladder, but perhaps the most prominent are Nigerians. Nigerians make up less than 1 percent of the black population in the United States, yet in 2013 nearly one-quarter of the black students at Harvard Business School were of Nigerian ancestry; over a fourth of Nigerian-Americans have a graduate or professional degree, as compared with only about 11 percent of whites.

So yeah, I don't think the word "salient" really applies here. He's nothing more than a dimwit troll, and his language, demeanor, and reading skills only highlight that.

Re:Victimization will not get you anywhere ...

[dkleinsc]

I explained why: White Americans organized systems to keep black people from achieving the same success available to other ethnic minorities. I described a bunch of the systems that black people were and still are on the receiving end of that Jewish people (and, for that matter, Vietnamese people) never experienced in remotely similar numbers.

When you're in a rigged game, the most moral and capable person imaginable will still lose. The game of life was and continues to be rigged against black people. Why should there be any surprise that they don't have the same successes experienced by people who got to play by the same rules as everyone else?