I was watching a documentary the other night that reminded me of a key discovery of ‘The Dunedin Study’ – that “self-control is important for the health, wealth, and public safety of the population”.

The longitudinal study followed 1,000 children from birth to the age of 32 yrs, and showed indisputably that developing self-control in early childhood predicts physical health, substance dependence, personal finances, and criminal offending outcomes as adults. Another study following 500 sibling-pairs, showed that siblings with lower self-control had poorer outcomes, despite shared family background.

It seems that teaching young children how to delay gratification, control impulses, and modulate emotional expression predicts success at many life tasks as adults. At the age of 32yrs, children with poor self-control were more likely to be struggling financially; have health issues that also included alcohol or substance abuse, and weaker employment and relationships.

Interestingly, this is one area where all disciplines of science seem to be in agreement:

• Neuroscientists study self-control as an executive function by the brain’s frontal cortex.
• Behavioral geneticists have shown that self-control is subject to both genetic and environmental influences.
• Psychologists have described how self-control changes the course of life.
• Health researchers report that self-control predicts early mortality; psychiatric disorders; and unhealthy behaviors.
• Sociologists find that low self-control predicts unemployment and recognise self-control as a direct causal variable in criminal behavior.
• Even economists are now focusing attention on self-control as a key consideration for policy-makers to enhance the physical and financial health of the population and reduce the crime rate.

Right across the board – the emphasis on self-control skills of conscientiousness, self-discipline, and perseverance are showing a distinct failure in both parenting and preschool programs to support children in learning this critical skill. The byproduct is showing up in high levels of teen pregnancy, school dropout, delinquency, work absenteeism and crime.

The study has also provided some good news – it has shown that self-control’s effects follow a gradient, meaning that interventions that achieve even small improvements in self-control for individuals could shift the entire distribution of outcomes and yield large improvements for entire populations.

Read more on the study.

Author: Gail La Grouw. Insight Mastery Program Director, and Strategic Performance Consultant for Coded Vision Ltd.