There was a fascinating article by Jonah Lehrer in The New Yorker about self control and how it is a better indicator of success in life than IQ tests:
The initial goal of the experiment was to identify the mental processes that allowed some people to delay gratification while others simply surrendered. After publishing a few papers on the Bing studies in the early seventies, Mischel moved on to other areas of personality research. “There are only so many things you can do with kids trying not to eat marshmallows.”
But occasionally Mischel would ask his three daughters, all of whom attended the Bing, about their friends from nursery school. “It was really just idle dinnertime conversation,” he says. “I’d ask them, ‘How’s Jane? How’s Eric? How are they doing in school?’ ” Mischel began to notice a link between the children’s academic performance as teen-agers and their ability to wait for the second marshmallow. He asked his daughters to assess their friends academically on a scale of zero to five. Comparing these ratings with the original data set, he saw a correlation. “That’s when I realized I had to do this seriously,” he says. Starting in 1981, Mischel sent out a questionnaire to all the reachable parents, teachers, and academic advisers of the six hundred and fifty-three subjects who had participated in the marshmallow task, who were by then in high school. He asked about every trait he could think of, from their capacity to plan and think ahead to their ability to “cope well with problems” and get along with their peers. He also requested their S.A.T. scores.
Once Mischel began analyzing the results, he noticed that low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly, seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at home. They got lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had trouble paying attention, and found it difficult to maintain friendships. The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds.
I remember reading about this a while back myself and finding it rather interesting. I think the basic theory is that some people will subscribe to 'short term pain for long term gain' more than others.
Posted by: Edward | June 11, 2009 at 06:37 PM
Yeah, but how do you teach it? As an educator I see it everyday-those who can sit still and those who can't. Why was I able to do it while some of my contemporaries couldn't? Psychology fascinates me.
Posted by: MC | June 13, 2009 at 12:34 AM
I don't know if everything can be taught, despite what the self help books tell you. This seems very much one of those 'nature' rather than 'nurture' phenomena. Psychology fascinates me too, and I wish I'd become one instead of an accountant (...anything but an accountant!). My old uni friend (also did accounting) is studying it now - if only accounting didn't pay so well...
Posted by: Edward | June 25, 2009 at 12:22 PM