4 ms·

Of course students who 'sit still' and 'do as their told' do better in an educational system which prioritizes conformity. The kid who decides to open the draw

Of course students who 'sit still' and 'do as their told' do better in an educational system which prioritizes conformity. The kid who decides to open the drawer to find the toys: that's the guy I want on my team. I'm more than willing to farm out grunt work to the 'successful' high delayers.

silentbicycle 17y ago
You're mischaracterizing their argument. They're saying that people who are poor at resisting impulsive behavior tend to be less successful because they're more likely to get caught up in problems associated with poor impulse control. Credit card and gambling debt, drug addiction, getting in fights, etc. It's about people who fail since they consistently choose to spend time getting wasted or playing WoW rather than studying, practicing, or other things that pay off in the long-term. This isn't about conformity, because it specifically includes people who have trouble meeting their own goals.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  It's interesting. But (regarding parenting): "Have they established rituals that force you to delay on a daily basis? Do they encourage you to wait? And do they make waiting worthwhile?" In life, delaying gratification often pays off - but only to the extent that the provider of said gratification is competent and trustworthy. There are also times when it is genuinely better to take the money and run. Your bank, for example, has little interest in giving you a fair deal, but instead offers financial instruments with superficially attractive terms while burying numerous modifying clauses in the fine print. An employment contract from a major corporation can be similarly unfair. My first cubicle job came with an employment contract that asserted ownership of any intellectual property I produced during my term of employment. One example that springs to mind is Shuji Nakamura, who has been a major innovator in the field of LED diodes (specifically, he's the engineer who made high-intensity blue light available on the cheap, so if you've got a Blu-ray player you should thank him). For this, his grateful employers bestowed upon a bonus of...$180. He sued and eventually ended up getting $7 million.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    Many actions don't have a clear party (parent, teacher, boss, etc.) waiting to reward or punish, though, and the research is specifically about self control. While some people will take advantage of others' responsible behavior, self-sabotaging behavior probably has a greater overall impact on most peoples' lives. Good example, by the way. I hadn't picked up on it reading the article, but the study really does assume an immediate observer is going to be rewarding the child, rather than more abstract forces such as the job market. The latter is hard to duplicate in a self-contained experiment, of course.
tophat02 17y ago
Isn't conformity sometimes appropriate? It seems to me that the trick is knowing when to follow the rules (including your own) and when to bend or break them. Constantly railing against conformity sounds like a teenager attempting to be "edgy".
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  While true, what you want is controlled initiative. You need a person that can follow direction, but can also adjust to a changing situation, or to the absence of instruction. You'll never get that from a conformist, because (in my experience) they are too afraid of failing to start something. They spend too much time analyzing risk and not enough time acting if left to their own devices. Conversely, someone who is too much of a risk taker spends too little time analyzing the risks of an action. The sweet spot is right down the middle, and is extremely rare.
  - Retric 17y ago
    The sweet spot is right down the middle, and is extremely rare. This is a pat phrase that means nothing. If you assume there are extremes on either side of a desired trait you can say it's in the middle, but it's not a useful criteria. PS: What you really want is someone who is more innovative than 95% of people out there, but still capable of functioning within the context of a company.
    - run4yourlives 17y ago
      The right amount of two distinct traits within an individual does in no way imply anything about where the medium distribution of those two traits exists within the general population. You do want someone who processes both conformist tendencies and initiative in about equal percentage share. Yes, that is unlike a vast majority of people.
  - dkarl 17y ago
    The sweet spot is right down the middle, and is extremely rare. The sweet spot is context dependence, which isn't rare at all. A champion boxer submits to his coach's criticism and his trainer's discipline so he can dominate and control other boxers. A smart entrepreneur with an innovative product doesn't gratuitously innovate in his accounting or his contracts. And contrary to what you say, successful risk takers are often obsessive about risk.
jmatt 17y ago
I agree. Here are the choices 1) Do as you are told and get another marshmallow 2) Eat as many marshmallows as you want with no punishment. That doesn't seem to be a very hard choice. I personally like the kid that checks to make sure that no one is looking then eats the inside of the Oreo and returns it. I'm not arguing with the results. I would imagine that on average those that do as they are told and conform do better on average. But I doubt those are the same people that make big discoveries or become successful entrepreneurs. So what happened to the kid that split the Oreo and returned it? That seems like a much more interesting question.
- pbz 17y ago
  Why would you like his behavior? While clever, isn't the same as having an adult as an employee who looks around to make sure nobody's watching while stealing from you just enough so you won't notice? I wouldn't want somebody like that on my team.
  - jmatt 17y ago
    I wouldn't want somebody like that on my team. I would. Who is he harming by eating the middle of an Oreo? You imply that his solution to the problem is wrong because it's deceptive. But it's the testers and parents that put him in that situation. I definitely wouldn't hold it against the kid. I think the solution is more unique and out of the box than just sitting there waiting and getting all worked up over it. Recognizing this behavior as clever and out of the box is similar to saying lazy programmers are good programmers. Everyone knows a truly lazy programmer is no good. It's the inclination to do work in a more efficient way that they are really after. So while the kid being potentially deceptive and stealing is bad, his inclinations and temperament may not be. That being said I imagine I would have been the kid that ate the center of the Oreo and put it back... so I may be biased.
  - silentOpen 17y ago
    The child was only 4 so this sort of unethical behavior may be excusable. Children are still learning right and wrong at that age. Maybe this kid grew up to be a thief or maybe he's just clever and ended up working in computer security or something. ;-P
jhancock 17y ago
I'm not so sure. The vast majority of Internet startups do not require significant creativity and exploration. Not for examples the level required to invent the transistor or the telegraph. Most startups over the last 10 years are massively grunt work. I would guess that successful recent startups are ruled by those with great amounts of self-control.
sketerpot 17y ago
The most successful kids were the ones who found something to distract them from sitting still.

silentbicycle 17y ago

You're mischaracterizing their argument. They're saying that people who are poor at resisting impulsive behavior tend to be less successful because they're more likely to get caught up in problems associated with poor impulse control. Credit card and gambling debt, drug addiction, getting in fights, etc. It's about people who fail since they consistently choose to spend time getting wasted or playing WoW rather than studying, practicing, or other things that pay off in the long-term. This isn't about conformity, because it specifically includes people who have trouble meeting their own goals.

anigbrowl 17y ago
It's interesting. But (regarding parenting): "Have they established rituals that force you to delay on a daily basis? Do they encourage you to wait? And do they make waiting worthwhile?" In life, delaying gratification often pays off - but only to the extent that the provider of said gratification is competent and trustworthy. There are also times when it is genuinely better to take the money and run. Your bank, for example, has little interest in giving you a fair deal, but instead offers financial instruments with superficially attractive terms while burying numerous modifying clauses in the fine print. An employment contract from a major corporation can be similarly unfair. My first cubicle job came with an employment contract that asserted ownership of any intellectual property I produced during my term of employment. One example that springs to mind is Shuji Nakamura, who has been a major innovator in the field of LED diodes (specifically, he's the engineer who made high-intensity blue light available on the cheap, so if you've got a Blu-ray player you should thank him). For this, his grateful employers bestowed upon a bonus of...$180. He sued and eventually ended up getting $7 million.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  Many actions don't have a clear party (parent, teacher, boss, etc.) waiting to reward or punish, though, and the research is specifically about self control. While some people will take advantage of others' responsible behavior, self-sabotaging behavior probably has a greater overall impact on most peoples' lives. Good example, by the way. I hadn't picked up on it reading the article, but the study really does assume an immediate observer is going to be rewarding the child, rather than more abstract forces such as the job market. The latter is hard to duplicate in a self-contained experiment, of course.

tophat02 17y ago

Isn't conformity sometimes appropriate? It seems to me that the trick is knowing when to follow the rules (including your own) and when to bend or break them. Constantly railing against conformity sounds like a teenager attempting to be "edgy".

run4yourlives 17y ago
While true, what you want is controlled initiative. You need a person that can follow direction, but can also adjust to a changing situation, or to the absence of instruction. You'll never get that from a conformist, because (in my experience) they are too afraid of failing to start something. They spend too much time analyzing risk and not enough time acting if left to their own devices. Conversely, someone who is too much of a risk taker spends too little time analyzing the risks of an action. The sweet spot is right down the middle, and is extremely rare.
- Retric 17y ago
  The sweet spot is right down the middle, and is extremely rare. This is a pat phrase that means nothing. If you assume there are extremes on either side of a desired trait you can say it's in the middle, but it's not a useful criteria. PS: What you really want is someone who is more innovative than 95% of people out there, but still capable of functioning within the context of a company.
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    The right amount of two distinct traits within an individual does in no way imply anything about where the medium distribution of those two traits exists within the general population. You do want someone who processes both conformist tendencies and initiative in about equal percentage share. Yes, that is unlike a vast majority of people.
- dkarl 17y ago
  The sweet spot is right down the middle, and is extremely rare. The sweet spot is context dependence, which isn't rare at all. A champion boxer submits to his coach's criticism and his trainer's discipline so he can dominate and control other boxers. A smart entrepreneur with an innovative product doesn't gratuitously innovate in his accounting or his contracts. And contrary to what you say, successful risk takers are often obsessive about risk.

jmatt 17y ago

I agree. Here are the choices 1) Do as you are told and get another marshmallow 2) Eat as many marshmallows as you want with no punishment. That doesn't seem to be a very hard choice. I personally like the kid that checks to make sure that no one is looking then eats the inside of the Oreo and returns it. I'm not arguing with the results. I would imagine that on average those that do as they are told and conform do better on average. But I doubt those are the same people that make big discoveries or become successful entrepreneurs. So what happened to the kid that split the Oreo and returned it? That seems like a much more interesting question.

pbz 17y ago
Why would you like his behavior? While clever, isn't the same as having an adult as an employee who looks around to make sure nobody's watching while stealing from you just enough so you won't notice? I wouldn't want somebody like that on my team.
- jmatt 17y ago
  I wouldn't want somebody like that on my team. I would. Who is he harming by eating the middle of an Oreo? You imply that his solution to the problem is wrong because it's deceptive. But it's the testers and parents that put him in that situation. I definitely wouldn't hold it against the kid. I think the solution is more unique and out of the box than just sitting there waiting and getting all worked up over it. Recognizing this behavior as clever and out of the box is similar to saying lazy programmers are good programmers. Everyone knows a truly lazy programmer is no good. It's the inclination to do work in a more efficient way that they are really after. So while the kid being potentially deceptive and stealing is bad, his inclinations and temperament may not be. That being said I imagine I would have been the kid that ate the center of the Oreo and put it back... so I may be biased.
- silentOpen 17y ago
  The child was only 4 so this sort of unethical behavior may be excusable. Children are still learning right and wrong at that age. Maybe this kid grew up to be a thief or maybe he's just clever and ended up working in computer security or something. ;-P

jhancock 17y ago

I'm not so sure. The vast majority of Internet startups do not require significant creativity and exploration. Not for examples the level required to invent the transistor or the telegraph. Most startups over the last 10 years are massively grunt work. I would guess that successful recent startups are ruled by those with great amounts of self-control.

sketerpot 17y ago

The most successful kids were the ones who found something to distract them from sitting still.