In high schoolers, time preference or ability to delay gratification correlates very well with academic achievement.
Short time preference correlates with poor grades, increased drug use and violent behavior. Long time preference correlates with good grades, low rates of drug use and low rates of violent behavior.
Impulsiveness is the same.
Short time preference correlates very well with impulsiveness. The longer your time preference, the lower your impulsiveness. Impulsiveness also correlates with poor grades, increased drug use and violate. Low impulsiveness or reactivity correlates well with good grades, lower rates of drug use and less violent behavior.
Tests of criminals in prison have shown that criminals imprisoned for violent offenses have shorter time preference than those in for nonviolent offenses.
Time preference or ability to delay gratification is being studied like crazy especially in the context of secondary education. Short time preference along with impulsiveness are seen as serious societal problems in this context. Go read the journal papers out there. Researchers are really worried about this stuff.
Fact of the matter is that short time preference and impulsivity correlate very well with delinquent behaviors in teenagers.
Short time preference and heightened impulsiveness and not nonsense issues that we should laugh off, praise or not care about. It is starting to become apparent that both of these traits are tied to major problems in modern society.
People on this blog are praising short time preference or saying it doesn’t matter.
Tell you what? Which neighborhood would you rather live in? One where:
A. folks are highly impulsive and have short time preferences
or one where
B. people have low impulsivity and long time preferences?
I have lived in both of these type of neighborhoods and trust me Hood B is vastly better than Hood A.
