In the same study, the predictive power of self-control was comparable to intelligence or family socioeconomic status. (2011) have demonstrated in a representative sample of over a thousand New Zealanders that self-control measured with observer, parent, teacher, and self-report ratings during the first decade of life predicts a startling array of adult life outcomes, including income, savings behavior, financial security, occupational prestige, physical and mental health, substance use, and (lack of) criminal convictions. Longitudinal research on larger samples followed over longer periods and with a broader array of life outcomes has since affirmed the significance of self-control ( Duckworth & Carlson, 2013 Duckworth, Tsukayama, & Kirby, 2013 Mischel, 2014). In follow-up studies at the same school, we found that rank-order changes in self-control every six months predicted subsequent rank-order changes in report card grades-but not the reverse ( Emanuele et al., 2010). Finally, whereas self-control predicted rank-order gains in report card grades, IQ did not. But we also learned that self-control predicted all the same outcomes and more: fewer absences, less procrastination, more time studying, and less time watching television. What did we learn? We were unsurprised to find that students with higher IQ scores in the fall went on to earn higher report card grades and standardized achievement test scores in the spring. Seven months later, at the conclusion of the school year, we collected official school records. In the fall, we administered a standard IQ test and a multi-method battery of self-control, including questionnaires completed by students and their parents and homeroom teachers, as well as both hypothetical and behavioral delay of gratification tasks. To test the hypothesis that the capacity to regulate attention, emotion, and behavior in the presence of temptation predicts academic success better than general intelligence, we undertook a prospective, longitudinal study of local middle school students ( Duckworth & Seligman, 2005). Thus, those with greater self-control seemed to get the most out of every learning opportunity. In particular, academic work was almost always pitted against less effortful, more entertaining alternatives. We observed that the challenges of “studenting” ( Corno & Mandinach, 2004) extend far beyond the intellectual. Other than intelligence, why do some students do better than others? And can these psychological determinants be changed? These are the questions that drew one of us (Duckworth) to leave the classroom, where for years she’d taught math to teenagers, to train with the other (Seligman) as a psychological scientist.īoth of us had watched equally intelligent students succeed or fail for reasons entirely separate from their innate facility for learning.
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