4 ms·

As a counter point, I've always felt that a main thing holding people back was desire & drive. You not having "it" lead to you cultivating a desire and a drive

As a counter point, I've always felt that a main thing holding people back was desire & drive. You not having "it" lead to you cultivating a desire and a drive to acquire. Self motivation > resources

lend000 8y ago
There's a spectrum. It seems like the highest source of ambition external to genetics is growing up lower middle-class / poorer than many of your friends and neighbors, but with opportunity to succeed. Anecdotal, of course. My friends who grew up wealthy or upper middle class tend to dream much smaller, even if they are only first generation-wealthy / likely have some ambitious genes.
moate 8y ago
Not the case. Also, motivation comes down to a range of environmental/societal factors. Some quick hits on "hard work" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201208/the-great-myth-hard-work https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201208/the... https://commonwealthmagazine.org/economy/sociologist-thomas-shapiro-says-that-a-lack-of-assets-not-income-is-holding-africanamericans-back/ https://commonwealthmagazine.org/economy/sociologist-thomas-... https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2763&context=jssw https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=h...
hwillis 8y ago
A lack of desire and drive makes it very easy to lose a lot of money. The inverse is not really true, though. You'll never be able to afford college if you're flipping burgers through high school. You'll never be a doctor if you aren't smart enough, no matter how much you want it.
dyeje 8y ago
Really? So, you have Child A and Child B. Child A - Wealthy upbringing - Always full on nutritious food - Elite, private schooling - Live in a stable, loving home Child B - Poor upbringing - Almost always hungry, only able to eat cheap calorie dense foods - Public, underfunded inner city school - Shuffled around between foster homes You think that the deciding factor for these examples would be their desire and drive? I don't, and I think the science out there agrees with me when I say poverty has numerous adverse effects on how a human turns out. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f16e/845b8222cb92541902c19bb1920ee8af5a04.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f16e/845b8222cb92541902c19b... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528798/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528798/ https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1196/annals.1425.023 https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1196/an... https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/how-poverty-and-depression-impact-childs-social-and-emotional-competence https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/how-poverty-and-dep... http://www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx http://www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx
- Clubber 8y ago
  I would say Child B would be a lot more successful if he had drive than if he didn't. Same with Child A. I've known a lot of rich kids that didn't amount to squat. (I went to one of those elite private schools, but my dad was a teacher there, so we got steep discounts).
  - Hermitian909 8y ago
    Sure, but we're not comparing the child to themselves with and without motivation holding all other factors constant. The question is, if two otherwise equivalent children are placed in living situations of vastly different quality how likely are differences in drive going to influence success? The fact that some poor kids succeed and some rich kids fail isn't nearly as important as the what percentage of these groups succeed and fail.
  - hsljekskfh 8y ago
    what is drive? the will to succeed. how can you test it? see whether they succeeded. what is success? whatever we define. hmmm
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  deleted because that's easier than writing a long edit pointing out the specific context in which my comment was intended (a context that should have been obvious based on the parent comments).
  - graedus 8y ago
    You think it is more likely for a poor person to ascend to a higher class than for a rich person to remain rich? That is surprising.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    And I'd take that bet, and quite likely your money, because study after study has shown that growing up in poverty is most likely to result in that person remaining in poverty.

As a counter point, I've always felt that a main thing holding people back was desire & drive. You not having "it" lead to you cultivating a desire and a drive to acquire. Self motivation > resources

lend000 8y ago

There's a spectrum. It seems like the highest source of ambition external to genetics is growing up lower middle-class / poorer than many of your friends and neighbors, but with opportunity to succeed. Anecdotal, of course. My friends who grew up wealthy or upper middle class tend to dream much smaller, even if they are only first generation-wealthy / likely have some ambitious genes.

moate 8y ago

Not the case. Also, motivation comes down to a range of environmental/societal factors. Some quick hits on "hard work" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201208/the-great-myth-hard-work https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201208/the... https://commonwealthmagazine.org/economy/sociologist-thomas-shapiro-says-that-a-lack-of-assets-not-income-is-holding-africanamericans-back/ https://commonwealthmagazine.org/economy/sociologist-thomas-... https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2763&context=jssw https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=h...

hwillis 8y ago

A lack of desire and drive makes it very easy to lose a lot of money. The inverse is not really true, though. You'll never be able to afford college if you're flipping burgers through high school. You'll never be a doctor if you aren't smart enough, no matter how much you want it.

dyeje 8y ago

Really? So, you have Child A and Child B. Child A - Wealthy upbringing - Always full on nutritious food - Elite, private schooling - Live in a stable, loving home Child B - Poor upbringing - Almost always hungry, only able to eat cheap calorie dense foods - Public, underfunded inner city school - Shuffled around between foster homes You think that the deciding factor for these examples would be their desire and drive? I don't, and I think the science out there agrees with me when I say poverty has numerous adverse effects on how a human turns out. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f16e/845b8222cb92541902c19bb1920ee8af5a04.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f16e/845b8222cb92541902c19b... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528798/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528798/ https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1196/annals.1425.023 https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1196/an... https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/how-poverty-and-depression-impact-childs-social-and-emotional-competence https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/how-poverty-and-dep... http://www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx http://www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx

Clubber 8y ago
I would say Child B would be a lot more successful if he had drive than if he didn't. Same with Child A. I've known a lot of rich kids that didn't amount to squat. (I went to one of those elite private schools, but my dad was a teacher there, so we got steep discounts).
- Hermitian909 8y ago
  Sure, but we're not comparing the child to themselves with and without motivation holding all other factors constant. The question is, if two otherwise equivalent children are placed in living situations of vastly different quality how likely are differences in drive going to influence success? The fact that some poor kids succeed and some rich kids fail isn't nearly as important as the what percentage of these groups succeed and fail.
- hsljekskfh 8y ago
  what is drive? the will to succeed. how can you test it? see whether they succeeded. what is success? whatever we define. hmmm
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
deleted because that's easier than writing a long edit pointing out the specific context in which my comment was intended (a context that should have been obvious based on the parent comments).
- graedus 8y ago
  You think it is more likely for a poor person to ascend to a higher class than for a rich person to remain rich? That is surprising.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  And I'd take that bet, and quite likely your money, because study after study has shown that growing up in poverty is most likely to result in that person remaining in poverty.