A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety
Tóm tắt
Policy-makers are considering large-scale programs aimed at self-control to improve citizens’ health and wealth and reduce crime. Experimental and economic studies suggest such programs could reap benefits. Yet, is self-control important for the health, wealth, and public safety of the population? Following a cohort of 1,000 children from birth to the age of 32 y, we show that childhood self-control predicts physical health, substance dependence, personal finances, and criminal offending outcomes, following a gradient of self-control. Effects of children's self-control could be disentangled from their intelligence and social class as well as from mistakes they made as adolescents. In another cohort of 500 sibling-pairs, the sibling with lower self-control had poorer outcomes, despite shared family background. Interventions addressing self-control might reduce a panoply of societal costs, save taxpayers money, and promote prosperity.
Từ khóa
Tài liệu tham khảo
DT Stuss, DF Benson The Frontal Lobes (Raven, New York, 1986).
P Carneiro, JJ Heckman, Human capital policy. Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policy?, eds JJ Heckman, A Krueger (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003).
RH Thaler, CR Sunstein Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Penguin Group, New York, 2008).
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 4th Ed, Washington, DC, 1994).
J Heckman Stimulating the young. The American http://www.american.com/archive/2009/august/stimulating-the-young. Accessed June 8 2010. (2009).
R Layard, J Dunn A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age (Penguin, London, 2009).
The Science of Early Childhood Development (Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, Cambridge, MA, 2007).