9 ms·

The Rising Return to Non-Cognitive Skill [pdf]

135 points by luu 9y ago

tboyd47 9y ago
Fascinating study & highly relevant to most people here (since many of us "hackers" are in highly cognitive job roles) Conclusion: > Thus, the labor market appears to increasingly value individuals possessing high non-cognitive relative to cognitive skills over time.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
zitterbewegung 9y ago
I had to look the defninition of Non-Cognitive skills. Below is an example. https://blog.udemy.com/non-cognitive-skills/ https://blog.udemy.com/non-cognitive-skills/ Once I understood what they were I realize that I have encountered the behavior in my life anecdotally. Also, I realize the ones that I am deficient in. EDIT: The study has a definition that I missed when reading it. See tboyd47's comment below.
- turc1656 9y ago
  Thanks for this. I was wondering the same thing. Terrible term, for sure.
- tboyd47 9y ago
  It doesn't seem that the skills in that link are relevant to this study: > The non-cognitive score is based on behavioral questions in a 20-minute interview with a trained psychologist. On the basis of the interview, the draftee is scored along four separate dimensions (see Mood et al. (2012)): (i) social maturity, (ii) psychological energy (e.g., focus and perseverance), (iii) intensity (e.g., activation without external pressure) and (iv) emotional stability (e.g., tolerance to stress). There is also an overall non-cognitive score on a Stanine scale, which ranges from 1 to 9.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    To clarify, this quote (posted by tboyd47) is the text describing "non-cognitive skills" from the body of the linked PDF. It seems somewhat related to the concepts shared on Udemy, but it's obviously better to use the definition provided in the paper itself.
  - Animats 9y ago
    They seem to define "non-cognitive skills" as "social skills". Not manual skills, such as those needed for carpentry. This is confusing. Is this a translation from Swedish?
    - wutbrodo 9y ago
      Not just social skills: for example, intensity and stress tolerance. I think "emotional skills" would be a better way to describe what they're getting at.
    - etiam 9y ago
      Yes, it's confusing and no, it isn't due to a translation. There is quite a bit of other unnecessarily convoluted jargon and grammar in the report as well, so I think it's just that one or more of the authors has misguided ideals about academic writing style.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >Not manual skills, such as those needed for carpentry Those skills are still cognitive. You need to know what you're doing to do carpentry. It's not like your hand moves by itself.
  - svachalek 9y ago
    In terms of these I find that (ii), (iii), and (iv) do seem to fit the term "non-cognitive" in that they're things we build up with experience and practice but don't really think about consciously. But social maturity surprises me, perhaps it's a technical term that means something different than I think, because at least for me maturing took quite a bit of thought. The "overall" score seems kind of mysteriously thrown in.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Thanks, I initially took it to mean soft skills more along the lines of interpersonal relations.
  - tboyd47 9y ago
    The definition of "non-cognitive skill" actually used by the researchers does seem to include some interpersonal aspects such as "social maturity."
- hasenj 9y ago
  Wait, how are problem solving and critical thinking not cognitive skills?
thanatropism 9y ago
I refuse this terrible term and invite everyone to use (following zitterbewegung's udemy link) to use "metacognitive skills" instead.
- alistproducer2 9y ago
  Seconded. Non-cognitive has a pretty clear intuitive meaning so to then define term to mean almost the polar opposite doesn't make any sense to me.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    > Non-cognitive has a pretty clear intuitive meaning so to then define term to mean almost the polar opposite doesn't make any sense to me. FWIW, I didn't interpret it as the polar opposite. I don't see that much of an issue with a model of skills as physical, cognitive, and emotional.
- tboyd47 9y ago
  Why do you think "metacognitive skills" is better? The definition of "metacognition" is "awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes." How does that relate to what the researchers were studying?
- Danihan 9y ago
  Meta means self-referential. How are emotional skills "self-referential cognitive skills?"
  - thanatropism 9y ago
    Meta-x = x about x. E.g. meta-theory is a theory about theories, not a theory about itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta (Douglas Hofstdadter made a career of cheerfully pointing out that a theory about theories must include itself as the kind of theories it is about -- "I am a strange loop" and all that. But still, what the language means is that.)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jackcosgrove 9y ago
The buzzword a year or two back was "grit". From my own experience non-cognitive skills are becoming rarer, so increasing returns make sense.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Increased internet use seems to be leading to decreased availability of non-cognitive skills.
exelius 9y ago
In my experience, non-cognitive skills are definitely a big boost to your career. However, the real need is for people with both cognitive AND non-cognitive skills: if you can understand something intrinsically through your cognitive skills, you can leverage your non-cognitive skills to lead a group of people with high cognitive skills. That leadership piece is what's in demand; and IMO that requires strength in both areas.
- nerpderp83 9y ago
  Not from my experience.
  - rocqua 9y ago
    How so? I've heard what OP said often enough I'd call it folk knowledge. What part do you disagree with?
    - wutbrodo 9y ago
      > That leadership piece is what's in demand; and IMO that requires strength in both areas. I'm not the person you asked but for me, the idea that leadership is more in demand than intelligence doesn't ring true (anecdotally, of course). In the course of my career, I've met more than enough capable leaders, but finding people who meet the bar for intelligence is much harder. At some level, this is probably due to the fact that you need far less leadership than you do intelligence: by definition, leaders are a fraction of the workforce, but intelligence is useful at pretty much every level in the org (for white-collar work). I guess I'm lucky enough that I've been in companies that were generally quite well-run; I'm sure the demand for leaders would seem higher in dysfunctional companies where competence in leadership isn't routinely achieved.
      - chrisco255 9y ago
        Yeah if great leaders are plentiful in your organization I would say that's an outlier in my experience. To be clear, there are often many decent managers in any stable organization...however, if we interpret "leader" to be something more, including the ability to drive change and execute, I think those types are few and far between.
aerovistae 9y ago
> Workers with an abundance of non-cognitive skill were increasingly sorted into occupations that were intensive in: cognitive skill; as well as abstract, non-routine, social, non-automatable and offshorable tasks. Such occupations were also the types of occupations which saw greater increases in the relative return to non-cognitive skill. Isn't this a contradiction? "Increasingly sorted into occupations that were intensive in cognitive skill" and simultaneously "greater increases in the relative return to non-cognitive skill"? So are we just saying they saw the heaviest rise in skills in general? I didn't read past the abstract, maybe the body is clearer.
- tboyd47 9y ago
  It sounds like the quoted excerpt is saying: for occupations intensive in cognitive skill, both the number of people with non-cognitive skills entering the job and their relative salaries increased during the examined time period.
bitL 9y ago
How do you increase your stress tolerance? Imagine you are working on bleeding edge stuff at some top company with crazy pace and you don't want to end up with burnout. What would you do in order to improve this aspect? I noticed ramping up fitness training actually decreases my stress resistance as I stress my body and consequently brain much more and am more prone to getting mentally exhausted than when I am not training at all.
- pm90 9y ago
  Fitness training is a very personal and individual thing. If you're feeling mentally exhausted after working out, you are definitely doing something wrong. I would recommend working with a qualified physical trainer with actual professional qualifications to get a tailored workout regime (be careful since there are many "personal trainers" who really don't know what they're doing). Also, consider getting involved with yoga and getting a massage. While working out is great for building muscle and endurance, stress your body too much and it will give away.
  - bitL 9y ago
    It's actually quite weird, I do HIIT/strength/cardio training for a few days, I feel awesome, and then one day suddenly I hit a cliff and my brain is shutting down. The thing is I can't predict when it happens; I saw some relation to NO (sometimes adding NO-inducing supplements alleviates issues) though it doesn't seem to work 100% And if you read fitness articles, I am not the only person that has this issue. I mean "neural fatigue" is pretty common, so probably it goes further up with some people like me...
    - crispyambulance 9y ago
      Get a trainer who will take the time to understand your needs and your goals and customize a proper workout routine for you that will modulate in type and intensity throughout the period of a week. What you're describing sounds like over-training.
    - frubar 9y ago
Boothroid 9y ago
So then surely we need some measures to prevent discrimination against those lacking in non-cognitive skills?
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  Or our education systems need to actually train people in those skills instead of ignoring them.
asimjalis 9y ago
Can these non-cognitive skills be taught? Does anyone know of good resources for building these non-cognitive skills?
sulizilxia 9y ago
The danger area is conflating lack of success in a particular social setting with noncognitive skills. I.e., "this person lacks persistence" versus "this person has given up because this social setting is pathological." I worry that this trend is used to justify unethical behavior by making trait-based attributions of dissenters. I say this without denying the importance of social skills--but there's a fine line between "socially skillful" and "psychopath", especially as you move up the ladder.

135 points by luu 9y ago

Fascinating study & highly relevant to most people here (since many of us "hackers" are in highly cognitive job roles) Conclusion: > Thus, the labor market appears to increasingly value individuals possessing high non-cognitive relative to cognitive skills over time.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

zitterbewegung 9y ago

I had to look the defninition of Non-Cognitive skills. Below is an example. https://blog.udemy.com/non-cognitive-skills/ https://blog.udemy.com/non-cognitive-skills/ Once I understood what they were I realize that I have encountered the behavior in my life anecdotally. Also, I realize the ones that I am deficient in. EDIT: The study has a definition that I missed when reading it. See tboyd47's comment below.

turc1656 9y ago
Thanks for this. I was wondering the same thing. Terrible term, for sure.
tboyd47 9y ago
It doesn't seem that the skills in that link are relevant to this study: > The non-cognitive score is based on behavioral questions in a 20-minute interview with a trained psychologist. On the basis of the interview, the draftee is scored along four separate dimensions (see Mood et al. (2012)): (i) social maturity, (ii) psychological energy (e.g., focus and perseverance), (iii) intensity (e.g., activation without external pressure) and (iv) emotional stability (e.g., tolerance to stress). There is also an overall non-cognitive score on a Stanine scale, which ranges from 1 to 9.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  To clarify, this quote (posted by tboyd47) is the text describing "non-cognitive skills" from the body of the linked PDF. It seems somewhat related to the concepts shared on Udemy, but it's obviously better to use the definition provided in the paper itself.
- Animats 9y ago
  They seem to define "non-cognitive skills" as "social skills". Not manual skills, such as those needed for carpentry. This is confusing. Is this a translation from Swedish?
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    Not just social skills: for example, intensity and stress tolerance. I think "emotional skills" would be a better way to describe what they're getting at.
  - etiam 9y ago
    Yes, it's confusing and no, it isn't due to a translation. There is quite a bit of other unnecessarily convoluted jargon and grammar in the report as well, so I think it's just that one or more of the authors has misguided ideals about academic writing style.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >Not manual skills, such as those needed for carpentry Those skills are still cognitive. You need to know what you're doing to do carpentry. It's not like your hand moves by itself.
- svachalek 9y ago
  In terms of these I find that (ii), (iii), and (iv) do seem to fit the term "non-cognitive" in that they're things we build up with experience and practice but don't really think about consciously. But social maturity surprises me, perhaps it's a technical term that means something different than I think, because at least for me maturing took quite a bit of thought. The "overall" score seems kind of mysteriously thrown in.
graphitezepp 9y ago
Thanks, I initially took it to mean soft skills more along the lines of interpersonal relations.
- tboyd47 9y ago
  The definition of "non-cognitive skill" actually used by the researchers does seem to include some interpersonal aspects such as "social maturity."
hasenj 9y ago
Wait, how are problem solving and critical thinking not cognitive skills?

thanatropism 9y ago

I refuse this terrible term and invite everyone to use (following zitterbewegung's udemy link) to use "metacognitive skills" instead.

alistproducer2 9y ago
Seconded. Non-cognitive has a pretty clear intuitive meaning so to then define term to mean almost the polar opposite doesn't make any sense to me.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > Non-cognitive has a pretty clear intuitive meaning so to then define term to mean almost the polar opposite doesn't make any sense to me. FWIW, I didn't interpret it as the polar opposite. I don't see that much of an issue with a model of skills as physical, cognitive, and emotional.
tboyd47 9y ago
Why do you think "metacognitive skills" is better? The definition of "metacognition" is "awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes." How does that relate to what the researchers were studying?
Danihan 9y ago
Meta means self-referential. How are emotional skills "self-referential cognitive skills?"
- thanatropism 9y ago
  Meta-x = x about x. E.g. meta-theory is a theory about theories, not a theory about itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta (Douglas Hofstdadter made a career of cheerfully pointing out that a theory about theories must include itself as the kind of theories it is about -- "I am a strange loop" and all that. But still, what the language means is that.)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jackcosgrove 9y ago

The buzzword a year or two back was "grit". From my own experience non-cognitive skills are becoming rarer, so increasing returns make sense.

graphitezepp 9y ago
Increased internet use seems to be leading to decreased availability of non-cognitive skills.

exelius 9y ago

In my experience, non-cognitive skills are definitely a big boost to your career. However, the real need is for people with both cognitive AND non-cognitive skills: if you can understand something intrinsically through your cognitive skills, you can leverage your non-cognitive skills to lead a group of people with high cognitive skills. That leadership piece is what's in demand; and IMO that requires strength in both areas.

nerpderp83 9y ago
Not from my experience.
- rocqua 9y ago
  How so? I've heard what OP said often enough I'd call it folk knowledge. What part do you disagree with?
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    > That leadership piece is what's in demand; and IMO that requires strength in both areas. I'm not the person you asked but for me, the idea that leadership is more in demand than intelligence doesn't ring true (anecdotally, of course). In the course of my career, I've met more than enough capable leaders, but finding people who meet the bar for intelligence is much harder. At some level, this is probably due to the fact that you need far less leadership than you do intelligence: by definition, leaders are a fraction of the workforce, but intelligence is useful at pretty much every level in the org (for white-collar work). I guess I'm lucky enough that I've been in companies that were generally quite well-run; I'm sure the demand for leaders would seem higher in dysfunctional companies where competence in leadership isn't routinely achieved.
    - chrisco255 9y ago
      Yeah if great leaders are plentiful in your organization I would say that's an outlier in my experience. To be clear, there are often many decent managers in any stable organization...however, if we interpret "leader" to be something more, including the ability to drive change and execute, I think those types are few and far between.

aerovistae 9y ago

> Workers with an abundance of non-cognitive skill were increasingly sorted into occupations that were intensive in: cognitive skill; as well as abstract, non-routine, social, non-automatable and offshorable tasks. Such occupations were also the types of occupations which saw greater increases in the relative return to non-cognitive skill. Isn't this a contradiction? "Increasingly sorted into occupations that were intensive in cognitive skill" and simultaneously "greater increases in the relative return to non-cognitive skill"? So are we just saying they saw the heaviest rise in skills in general? I didn't read past the abstract, maybe the body is clearer.

tboyd47 9y ago
It sounds like the quoted excerpt is saying: for occupations intensive in cognitive skill, both the number of people with non-cognitive skills entering the job and their relative salaries increased during the examined time period.

bitL 9y ago

How do you increase your stress tolerance? Imagine you are working on bleeding edge stuff at some top company with crazy pace and you don't want to end up with burnout. What would you do in order to improve this aspect? I noticed ramping up fitness training actually decreases my stress resistance as I stress my body and consequently brain much more and am more prone to getting mentally exhausted than when I am not training at all.

pm90 9y ago
Fitness training is a very personal and individual thing. If you're feeling mentally exhausted after working out, you are definitely doing something wrong. I would recommend working with a qualified physical trainer with actual professional qualifications to get a tailored workout regime (be careful since there are many "personal trainers" who really don't know what they're doing). Also, consider getting involved with yoga and getting a massage. While working out is great for building muscle and endurance, stress your body too much and it will give away.
- bitL 9y ago
  It's actually quite weird, I do HIIT/strength/cardio training for a few days, I feel awesome, and then one day suddenly I hit a cliff and my brain is shutting down. The thing is I can't predict when it happens; I saw some relation to NO (sometimes adding NO-inducing supplements alleviates issues) though it doesn't seem to work 100% And if you read fitness articles, I am not the only person that has this issue. I mean "neural fatigue" is pretty common, so probably it goes further up with some people like me...
  - crispyambulance 9y ago
    Get a trainer who will take the time to understand your needs and your goals and customize a proper workout routine for you that will modulate in type and intensity throughout the period of a week. What you're describing sounds like over-training.
  - frubar 9y ago

Boothroid 9y ago

So then surely we need some measures to prevent discrimination against those lacking in non-cognitive skills?

jschwartzi 9y ago
Or our education systems need to actually train people in those skills instead of ignoring them.

asimjalis 9y ago

Can these non-cognitive skills be taught? Does anyone know of good resources for building these non-cognitive skills?

sulizilxia 9y ago

The danger area is conflating lack of success in a particular social setting with noncognitive skills. I.e., "this person lacks persistence" versus "this person has given up because this social setting is pathological." I worry that this trend is used to justify unethical behavior by making trait-based attributions of dissenters. I say this without denying the importance of social skills--but there's a fine line between "socially skillful" and "psychopath", especially as you move up the ladder.