How Important Is Self-Control?

George P. Moore, Head of School
If asked what qualities of an 11-year-old are most predictive of happiness or overall life satisfaction twenty years later, what would you suggest? What if you were choosing from the following list: IQ, GPA, openness to new ideas, self-control, or friendliness? The correct answer, as it turns out, is self-control. Self-control is a subset of a larger group of character traits called conscientiousness that also includes honesty, integrity, and perseverance. Dr. Leonard Sax (@unfragilekids) offers this question and summarizes a discussion of this correlation in his book, The Collapse of Parenting. The book provides many intriguing ideas worthy of conversation, but the ideas of self-control and willpower have always fascinated me and connect both to other reading I have done and to our character development work at Dawson.
 
At Dawson, character is one of three points of emphasis in our Mission Statement, and our core virtues of respect, compassion, courage, and integrity reflect our priorities in this area. We are not anticipating an expansion of this list of virtues to include self-control, which in itself is not a personality trait that generates a great deal of excitement! That said, Dr. Sax shared research that showed the importance of self-control: students with low self-control were much more likely to have problems with substance abuse, more likely to be in poor physical health, and more likely to be in financial distress later in life. Keep in mind, we are not talking about how self-control predicts achievement or success, rather how it correlates with happiness and life satisfaction.  
 
I read a book last summer called The Marshmallow Test, by Walter Mischel, who basically makes the same assertion, albeit in a more accessible manner. You may be familiar with the marshmallow test. In the 1960s at the Stanford University Bing Nursery School, Mischel and his students presented children with a simple dilemma. Students could have one marshmallow immediately, or they could have two marshmallows if they waited, alone in a room, for up to 20 minutes. Descriptions of these children’s efforts to earn that second marshmallow are great. Effectively this was a simple test of resisting temptation, of perseverance, and of delaying gratification, all manifestations of self-control.
 
Researchers then followed these children through adolescence into adulthood. Perhaps not surprisingly, as teenagers, the children who were able to wait for two marshmallows as children “exhibited more self-control in frustrating situations; yielded less to temptation; were less distractible; were more intelligent, self-reliant, and confident; and trusted their own judgment.” (pp. 23-24) As adults, those who delayed longer reported “that they were more able to pursue and reach long-term goals, used risky drugs less, had reached higher educational levels, and had a significantly lower body mass index.” (p. 24)
 
I could go on about the findings in each of these books, and I encourage parents and educators to read both of them: They are fascinating. Of course the importance of self-control begs the question, is self-control something that can be taught or developed in our children and in us? Fortunately, the answer from both authors is a resounding “Yes.” Perhaps this does not come as a surprise given what we continue to learn about the brain and how very little of what we used to consider fixed personality or intellectual traits is in fact fixed. We all start from unique points, yet we can all improve our abilities in different areas. If we know something like self-control is important for our children and in ourselves, we should consider how to support its healthy development. I look forward to writing in a future blog about how we as parents and teachers can cultivate this important trait.
 
 
George P. Moore
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