3 ms·

Er, the paper cited shows that intelligence (and proxies thereof, like family background, as intelligence/SES are heritable) is prior to the marshmallow test an

by gwern 7y ago

Er, the paper cited shows that intelligence (and proxies thereof, like family background, as intelligence/SES are heritable) is prior to the marshmallow test and also predicts patience/success in the marshmallow test. Kids aren't wealthy or not, so that can't possibly be the causal mechanism...

lalaland1125 7y ago
The parents of the kids can be poor though which might lead to a lack of food in the home.
zepto 7y ago
Kids are of course wealthy because they share in the wealth of their family.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  The issue is that it's patience at age 4, so kids have had maybe two years to learn even very basic expectation-and-outcome patterns. The effect people often describe where adult poverty teaches you to spend now before you lose your money isn't going to have kicked in yet. That doesn't rule out food insecurity or other unfulfilled commitments teaching kids this result, but it has to be something earlier and more subtle than the established patterns of wealth in adults.
  - zepto 7y ago
    Kids learn a lot by imitation, and 4 years is plenty long enough for them to pick up on their parents patterns. Nothing supports your assumption that the effect hasn’t had time to kick in.
    - Bartweiss 7y ago
      "Pick up on their parents' patterns" isn't the same thing, though. At the very least, it's an extra remove away, and probably modified by other control variables in the study like 'parental responsiveness'. I'm not claiming that family wealth doesn't affect patience, but I see lots of people giving the specific rationale that being poor teaches people to spend their money immediately because it won't be available later. That doesn't make much sense to me, partly because people learn that pattern first-hand in late childhood or later, and more importantly because the original marshmallow test study stayed predictive within an entirely above-middle-class population. In general, I don't think the current data actually offers much evidence for any specific narrative about how wealth causes this effect. Assessing that would call for information like the effect of relative versus absolute wealth, or at the very least a breakdown of what income levels this correlation happens over.
      - zepto 7y ago
        ”people learn that pattern first-hand in late childhood or later” Is this a fact? If so do you have any evidence or references in support of it?
godelski 7y ago
Family income shows different tends in the marshmallow test. Kids from rich families often do much better. To my knowledge, no one thinks this is because rich kids come from better genetic stock (you'd be amazed how many experiments and studies change when you control for income levels). This supports the gp's hypothesis of the causality stack being flipped upside-down. Having more money leads to less stress, because you have less want. If you're a child of wealth you may not directly have the money, but you sure have the benefits of it.
- gwern 7y ago
  > To my knowledge, no one thinks this is because rich kids come from better genetic stock (you'd be amazed how many experiments and studies change when you control for income levels). They do, they're just polite about it because no one wants to put it that way. However, this is just Herrnstein's syllogism in action: if intelligence/education are heritable, education leads to higher incomes, then higher income families will have higher genetic potential which is passed onto kids (especially with the existing high levels of assortative mating on education). And this is precisely what we see with polygenic scores: there certainly are class differences in means.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  I'm not surprised if it's true, but is there data showing that kids from rich families do better on the marshmallow test? I can't find it, and I'd be pretty interested to see the size of the effect. The 2018 replication just added a single control for a whole battery of environmental factors. Family income was included (and correlates like parent's education), but it also lumped in biological factors (e.g. birth weight) and child-psychological factors (e.g. cognitive performance one year earlier). Given that, it's really hard to understand how much impact each specific element had.
  - godelski 7y ago
    Here's a study [0]. From my understanding every behavioral economist would not be surprised by the results. You'll notice the mention of the 2/3 due to "the presence of controls for family background, early cognitive ability, and the home environment." That's family income. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618761661 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761876166...

by gwern 7y ago

lalaland1125 7y ago

The parents of the kids can be poor though which might lead to a lack of food in the home.

zepto 7y ago

Kids are of course wealthy because they share in the wealth of their family.

Bartweiss 7y ago
The issue is that it's patience at age 4, so kids have had maybe two years to learn even very basic expectation-and-outcome patterns. The effect people often describe where adult poverty teaches you to spend now before you lose your money isn't going to have kicked in yet. That doesn't rule out food insecurity or other unfulfilled commitments teaching kids this result, but it has to be something earlier and more subtle than the established patterns of wealth in adults.
- zepto 7y ago
  Kids learn a lot by imitation, and 4 years is plenty long enough for them to pick up on their parents patterns. Nothing supports your assumption that the effect hasn’t had time to kick in.
  - Bartweiss 7y ago
    "Pick up on their parents' patterns" isn't the same thing, though. At the very least, it's an extra remove away, and probably modified by other control variables in the study like 'parental responsiveness'. I'm not claiming that family wealth doesn't affect patience, but I see lots of people giving the specific rationale that being poor teaches people to spend their money immediately because it won't be available later. That doesn't make much sense to me, partly because people learn that pattern first-hand in late childhood or later, and more importantly because the original marshmallow test study stayed predictive within an entirely above-middle-class population. In general, I don't think the current data actually offers much evidence for any specific narrative about how wealth causes this effect. Assessing that would call for information like the effect of relative versus absolute wealth, or at the very least a breakdown of what income levels this correlation happens over.
    - zepto 7y ago
      ”people learn that pattern first-hand in late childhood or later” Is this a fact? If so do you have any evidence or references in support of it?

godelski 7y ago

Family income shows different tends in the marshmallow test. Kids from rich families often do much better. To my knowledge, no one thinks this is because rich kids come from better genetic stock (you'd be amazed how many experiments and studies change when you control for income levels). This supports the gp's hypothesis of the causality stack being flipped upside-down. Having more money leads to less stress, because you have less want. If you're a child of wealth you may not directly have the money, but you sure have the benefits of it.

gwern 7y ago
> To my knowledge, no one thinks this is because rich kids come from better genetic stock (you'd be amazed how many experiments and studies change when you control for income levels). They do, they're just polite about it because no one wants to put it that way. However, this is just Herrnstein's syllogism in action: if intelligence/education are heritable, education leads to higher incomes, then higher income families will have higher genetic potential which is passed onto kids (especially with the existing high levels of assortative mating on education). And this is precisely what we see with polygenic scores: there certainly are class differences in means.
Bartweiss 7y ago
I'm not surprised if it's true, but is there data showing that kids from rich families do better on the marshmallow test? I can't find it, and I'd be pretty interested to see the size of the effect. The 2018 replication just added a single control for a whole battery of environmental factors. Family income was included (and correlates like parent's education), but it also lumped in biological factors (e.g. birth weight) and child-psychological factors (e.g. cognitive performance one year earlier). Given that, it's really hard to understand how much impact each specific element had.
- godelski 7y ago
  Here's a study [0]. From my understanding every behavioral economist would not be surprised by the results. You'll notice the mention of the 2/3 due to "the presence of controls for family background, early cognitive ability, and the home environment." That's family income. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618761661 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761876166...