This is one of the best psychological predictors of how much someone will earn.
People with stronger self-control have higher salaries.
It is one of the best psychological predictors of how much someone will earn.
The conclusions come from a study of over 2,500 people who completed tests of ‘delay discounting’.
Delay discounting is the ability to give up a small reward now to get a bigger one later.
It’s like investing money instead of spending it right away — you get more later if you can resist buying a new car now.
Previous studies using the famous ‘marshmallow test‘ have shown that children with greater self-control go on to earn higher salaries as adults.
The new study revealed that occupation and education were naturally the best predictors of salary — after this came location and gender.
However, after these came delay discounting, ahead of age, race, ethnicity or height.
Dr William Hampton, the study’s lead author, said:
“if you want your child to grow up to earn a good salary, consider instilling in them the importance of passing on smaller, immediate rewards in favor of larger ones that they have to wait for.
This is probably easier said than done, as very few people naturally enjoy waiting, but our results suggest that those who develop the ability to delay gratification are likely investing in their own earning potential.”
The study used machine learning to rank income predictors, Dr Hampton explained:
“All sorts of things predict income.
We knew that this behavioral variable, delay discounting, was also predictive — but we were really curious how it would stack up against more common-sense predictors like education and age.
Using machine learning, our study was the first to create a validated rank ordering of age, occupation, education, geographic location, gender, race, ethnicity, height, age and delay discounting in income prediction.”
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Hampton et al., 2018).
