Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don't think you need a study to show this. Try:
And see how you compare to people who put the work in.
Or take the time to speak to someone who's worked at a test prep center - contrary to what you might hear in the IQ reductionist space, test prep works (or at least that is what I have been told by someone in the biz). Similarly, look at professional classical musicians or Olympians: they don't succeed without practicing a lot.
Certainly there might be exceptions (savants, people with unnatural size and strength, etc.) but for most people your odds of success improve via hard work.
Isn't it correct that Carlsen's father was a chess fan who introduced him to the game at 5 and he's been competing since he was 8?
I definitely think that something like innate talent or genius matters, particularly around the tails, but if you can choose to be a person with an internal locus of control who believes in hard work you should prefer this as long as you can temper it with the understanding that there is not a linear connection between hard work and success.
Deliberate practice is the necessary condition for success across domains, but there’s no compelling evidence that activating “hard work” (in contrast to simply work) is a key determinant in performance. When you squint at what an elite performer means by hard work, you don’t often see a level of stress or endurance or extra care which a normal person would intuit is meant when they hear that they must “work hard” or “put more effort in”. They do not typically sustain a state of willful effort and instead there are just other factors involved. Even with SAT test prep, there are social and genetic factors which inform a person’s ability to sit down and study for long hours which seems totally uncorrelated to any manifestation of stress or vigilance or care which characterizes “harder work”. Those with the ability can sit in place for six hours with little stress; those without cannot, despite how hard they attempt it. (Usain Bolt eating 1000 chicken McNuggets in the week leading up to his Olympic Gold, where he turned around mid-win to smile always sticks out in my mind as an example of this).
Okay. I'm not really sure we have any real difference of opinion here, since by "hard work" I don't necessarily mean "psychologically difficult." For instance, in my example above, Carlsen probably likes chess, people who shoot in rifle tournaments typically like shooting rifles, etc. But the truth remains that for lots of things (like, to use another one of my examples, test prep) people often don't like doing it, but they will be better off if they do.
I mean, I don't really know why the bar here is "elite performer." The OP said he wanted his kids to learn about achieving success through hard work. He didn't say "I want my kids to learn that through hard work they could achieve anything they want."
Usain Bolt is at an extreme tail and we shouldn't teach our kids to emulate him (at least not specifically, unless they also show extremely rare promise as athletes). I want my kids to be able to sit down and do test prep (even if they don't want to) to get a better grade than the one they could already have gotten. I don't particularly care if they are a world-class marathon runner.
Right but there’s scant evidence that hard work, as some communicated message or “gospel” or internalized value, through its enacting or though its belief, modifies a person’s ability to do this. The ceiling of the influence of grit etc when genetics are controlled is 4.4% on school performance, but even this doesn’t tell us to what extent that can be modified anyway. Some studies find very little effect / barely significant findings on GPA for interventions aimed at increasing grit / hard work. No effect longterm when a student self-learns grit in a module.
As a gospel this is a very poor gospel indeed, quite bad news in fact, because you are damning the vast hordes of the relatively unsuccessful to endless self-criticism under the false belief that it was their fault they failed — when it likely was never in their hands to begin with.
I think these sorts of studies are really interesting but "giving kids a module on grit" is going to give you only limited information on the effects parents will have on their children over the course of a childhood.
But hey, let's get into them. Your first study I think is shaky in the sense that it relies purely, as far as I can tell, on subjective teacher ratings rather than even a cursory objective standard - and the study itself notes this problem. But regardless, it controls for environmental effects:
So if OP is trying to create a rearing environment that is "conducive to both cognitive and non-cognitive influences on school performance" this study, if it managed to control properly, would screen it out. Or in other words, if I'm reading it correctly, it doesn't say much if anything about the question at hand.
(It also says "it is well established that self-control and grit predict academic outcomes" so I stand by my claim that if you can choose this, you should.)
Finally, I think that 4.4% is not bad. If someone gave you a button and said "push this and you'll score four percent better on every test you take for the rest of your life, no downsides or other side effects" it would be obvious to push it.
Your second link says that grit is associated with positive life outcomes and can be influenced through school interventions:
Needless to say, the OP's intervention is going to be implemented in a very small group; presumably he has no need for it to scale, unlike the people who wrote the study:
Regardless, the study found small impacts for students at large and substantial impacts to Roma minorities. I agree with the authors:
(I will confess I only read through the end of the second section of this paper before posting because it is 44 pages long and I only had to read 5 pages to see that it was saying that at a very minor classroom intervention had lasting positive effects particularly for students whom could be expected to do poorly.)
Just like the other finding, this is a no-brainer if there are no downsides. Nor do either of these studies suggest that self-control and grit cannot be taught, particularly by parents over an extended period of time. For the state, there are probably going to be trades offs or financial costs to teaching these to children.
But OP is going to have to raise his kids one way or another. It seems to me that he might as well raise them to believe in grit and self-control. Even if the benefits on GPA and income are minor, developing a healthy internal locus of control can hedge against depression and anxiety, which is a good enough reason to encourage it in children.
The teacher assessment was a survey on their grades, so not quite subjective. Re the second study:
Unfortunately, if the teachers of the Roma students are more likely to be Roma themselves (likely), then they would lie on both grades and teacher surveys, which explains their unique results. A researcher can’t come out and say “we found a significant finding, but only among Roma, therefore it should be ignored”, sadly, as there’s political correctness which prevents an academic from noting that the entire Roma culture is based on scheming and cheating and stealing. Really, Roma populations should be excluded from most studies. But if you look at this:
There are just not many studies that have measured the effect of a grit intervention (or any proxy for “hard work” ideology) on academic performance, .
This study in Germany finds a “4% improvement in GPA”: https://media-api.suub.uni-bremen.de/api/core/bitstreams/69dec0aa-d690-4c4e-94ab-a82b460fbdc7/content
And there’s this one: https://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/Alan%20Boneva%20Ertac%20Grit%202019.pdf which finds
A 0.23 SD change in a typical high school GPA is a change of 0.14, which translates to 1.7% higher annual earnings. That kind of sucks! Because there’s a significant wellbeing cost if somebody believes that they have an obligation to always “try their hardest” for optimal results under the belief that this secures their success. And if all that this can do is bring a 70k yearly salary up to 72k, it’s just not worth it. If you told a youth that their hardest work will only move the needle by 1.7% annual earnings, he would probably conclude in himself that it’s not worth it to be faithful to the “gospel of hard work”. Maybe there’s another study that finds a greater effect and I haven’t seen it?
Yes, but they also asked the teachers to evaluate their grit and self-control, if memory serves.
Interesting.
Right - if these minor efforts had good effects, it seems likely that a more prolonged effort earlier in life would have stronger impact.
Again, you aren't addressing the point that studies that screen out environmental effects will screen out the effort OP wants to do.
If I told a youth this he would probably laugh at me for suggesting that getting lectured in class from time to time had that much of an impact on his life choices.
I would happily accept a lecture telling me to work hard in exchange for an extra $100,000 over the course of a 50 year career! I would accept a lecture from you in exchange for $2000 right now! A monthly lecture, even!
Again, unless any of these studies you've dug up are looking at home life, we can assume that school intervention studies will control for home environment which means they tell us nothing about OP's plan.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The contention is that:
are not actually factors under your control. In short you cannot "choose to be a person with an internal locus of control who believes in hard work". You are or you aren't, depending on genetics and early life and other stuff that you can't toggle on and off.
Not entirely sure this is true, I've veered both ways.
Well I know of at least one study which demonstrates that exposure to socialist ideology results in (materially) worse life outcomes. They note that it doesn't affect the underlying personality traits, so to me looks a bit like merely externalizing your locus of control ("bad things happen to me because of my social class and the existence of The Rich, only The Revolution can help me and others") can screw you up for life, ceteris paribus. Which in turn means that not externalizing it leads to if not better, then at least not worse results.
More options
Context Copy link
The OP is specifically asking for advice on how to influence someone's early life, so (in theory) even if it's entirely correct that 100% of one's ability to do hard work is unchosen, OP could still succeed at giving his kids the ability to do hard work.
I think, intuitively, that it is common sense that you can choose to work hard, at least to a limited degree. I think most people have the experience of buckling down on an important or time-sensitive project, and easing up or even slacking off when things are less urgent (or when there's less external pressure), even if there's still work to be done. And so if you conceptualize "working hard" as choosing to buckle down relatively more and ease up relatively less, I think it's hard to argue that you can't "choose to work hard."
The question of whether or not choosing to do that consistently pays off commensurate to the effort is a much more interesting one and I think sort of depends on your goals. But it seems fairly clear that below a certain threshold of hard work (failing to study at all, to show up to work, etc.) you will suffer. And I think above a certain threshold of hard work, you will probably suffer too (if for no other reason than you need to sleep!)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link