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A large portion of the student body at every American college is "drowning themselves in pleasure and mindlessness". The simple, naturalistic explanation is tha
by atdt 3y ago
A large portion of the student body at every American college is "drowning themselves in pleasure and mindlessness". The simple, naturalistic explanation is that when Harvard students abandon themselves to partying and procrastination, it is for the same reason that students at Boston University or Colorado State do it: i.e., they're young, horny, and on the loose for the first time in life, and their mental circuitry for self-regulation isn't fully wired up yet. But this account does not satisfy the Harvard man, who is at pains to distinguish his habits of procrastinton as themselves the mark of a Harvard man, a proof of belonging to an elite order.
- trabant00 3y agoExactly this. There is no need for overthinking things, like in the article. When I was in college I noticed one group who managed well above all the others. They where in their 30s.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoMy now-deceased mother earned her bachelors [UTSA] in her early-50's, and always commented how "few of my classmates attend office hours and even fewer seem to care about what we're learning." Lady: they're just trying to survive while all these intoxicating chemicals [hormones, drugs, rage] pollute their very existences.
- searealist 3y agoYou honestly believe that people who get into Harvard don't have more self-discipline on average that those who don't?
- jrflowers 3y agoCan’t speak for the GP but I’d say “No they do not” to your question.
- testermelon 3y agoAssuming that they do, does it significantly change the patterns and tendencies of actions among that age group? I think the distribution of behavior should be intact even if you just sample among Harvard students.
- p-e-w 3y agoPeople who attend institutions considered "elite" have on average been told since early childhood that they are part of the elite. In my experience, such people tend to have less self-discipline and fewer inhibitions than regular folks. That's a natural consequence of knowing that nothing truly bad can ever happen to you, no matter what you do.
- Gareth321 3y agoWhile true, the estimated average IQ at Harvard is 142. IQ is highly associated with self-control and discipline.
- p-e-w 3y ago> IQ is highly associated with self-control and discipline. I'd like to see a citation for that, especially for the idea that the self-control/discipline associated with high IQs transfers over to non-academic aspects of life, which is what's in question here.
- DropInIn 3y agoI'm pretty sure they're conflating a higher likelihood of determining an action precluding risk factor prior to action with actual self control and discipline.... It's more just that the smarter you are the more likely you are to both recognize the existence of the risk factor as well as "do the math" before your impulses induce action.
- Gareth321 3y agoHere you go: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2614657/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2614657/ > Delay behavior in both sexes was also correlated positively with IQ and with Q-sort-derived indexes of ego resiliency and ego control. The relationship between ego control and delay behavior was particularly strong after both IQ and ego resiliency were partialled. These results were interpreted as reflecting the fundamental importance of both cognitive skillfulness and impulse control for adaptive delay behavior in situations that contain strong motivational inducements. This study doesn’t measure academic related delayed gratification. I’m surprised to be asked for a source. This has been settled science for decades.
- badrequest 3y agoNot the GP, but emphatically and obviously yes. There's the "reads a new book once per week" type of discipline that the average ivy leaguer tends to have, and there's the "wakes up at 4AM to go to the job they don't like despite how much their back hurts" discipline that the working class are obligated to develop.
- deely3 3y agoWhoa, thats quite arrogant statement. So, are you PR person from Harvard?
- josh_fyi 3y ago> reads a new book once per week" type of discipline that the average ivy leaguer tends to have I got two degrees and spent five years at Harvard, and -- no, they don't.
- credit_guy 3y agoSo you're saying the sweat of a coal miner is equivalent to the sweat of an Einstein ("genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration")?
- yardstick 3y agoIt’s my understanding that a lot of people who could make the cut for Harvard etc but do not due to resource constraints (limited student numbers, limited finances). These people then go on to other universities. So yes I believe you’ll find all levels of self-discipline across all the universities.
- kelipso 3y agoThe difference is there are some 3000 universities in the US. I guarantee you, the vast majority of students who could make the cut at Harvard are not attending a college ranked at 1500. So when you compare an average student at Harvard, maybe there's no significant difference between that student and students at the top 100 (or pick a number, 100 seems high frankly, I've studied in universities ranked around 20, 50, 100 and the differences in the average student and course difficulty was quite big between the 20 and 100) ranked universities, but there's certainly a difference between that student and the average college student.
- beebeepka 3y agoThis has to be sarcasm
- nicbou 3y agoThere you go. Why are people lazy and self-sabotaging? Because they're human. They want to do pleasant things more than they want to do unpleasant things. It's just school. A few years down the road people don't care about most of what you did there. Better enjoy the ride as much as you can without torpedoing your career.