Learn Self-Control, Stay Off the Dole

Pacific Standard:

It’s an age-old debate: Are we the masters of our fate, capable of shaping our own destinies? Or are we at the mercy of our genetics and/or upbringing to such an extent that the trajectories of our lives are pretty much set early on?

Newly published research provides evidence supporting the latter, bleaker perspective.

An analysis of decades worth of data on two large, nationally representative groups of British citizens finds those who had problems with self-control as children had more trouble finding, and keeping, jobs as adults.

“Low childhood self-control predicted unemployment in adulthood, even decades later at age 50,” a research team led by Michael Daly of the University of Stirling writes in the journal Psychological Science. “The predictive strength of differences in childhood self-control was equal to, or greater than, that of intelligence.”

Read the whole story: Pacific Standard