Cognitive skills, personality, and economic preferences in collegiate success

Burks, Stephen V.; Lewis, Connor; Kivi, Paul; Wiener, Amanda; Anderson, Jon E.; Götte, Lorenz; DeYoung, Colin G.; Rustichini, Aldo

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2015.01.007

“…12 Our results mirror those of recent studies that show that both cognitive ability and character skills help to predict outcomes and behavior such as wages, workplace performance, educational attainment, marital status and the extent of job searching (Boudreau et al, 2001;Higgins et al, 2007;Heckman et al, 2006;Mueller and Plug, 2006;Duckworth et al, 2007;Cunha et al, 2010 Lindqvist andVestman, 2011;Burks et al, 2014;. To the extent that these outcomes and behaviors reflect a combination of analytic reasoning and the ability to understand well the intentions and beliefs of others, our results suggest one mechanism by which cognition and character may jointly be driving them.…”

supporting

confidence: 81%

“…Danner et al (2011) find that cognitive ability simultaneously predicts professional success and success at learning an artificial grammar. A link between cognitive ability and learning also exists in educational settings: in particular, cognitive ability helps to predict schooling attainment (e.g., Neisser et al, 1996;Heckman et al, 2006;Cunha et al, 2010;Burks et al, 2014;.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Ability, Character Skills, and Learning to Play Equilibrium: A Level-k Analysis

Gill¹,

Prowse

²

2014

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. In this paper we investigate how cognitive ability and character skills influence behavior, success and the evolution of play towards Nash equilibrium in repeated strategic interactions. We study behavior in a p-beauty contest experiment and find striking differences according to cognitive ability: more cognitively able subjects choose numbers closer to equilibrium, converge more frequently to equilibrium play and earn more even as behavior approaches the equilibrium prediction. To understand better how subjects with different cognitive abilities learn differently, we estimate a structural model of learning based on level-k reasoning. We find a systematic positive relationship between cognitive ability and levels; furthermore, the average level of more cognitively able subjects responds positively to the cognitive ability of their opponents, while the average level of less cognitively able subjects does not respond. Finally, we compare the influence of cognitive ability to that of character skills, and find that both cognition and personality affect behavior and learning. More agreeable and emotionally stable subjects perform better and learn faster, although the effect of cognitive ability on behavior is stronger than that of character skills.JEL Classification: C92, C73, D83

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“…For instance, Meier and Sprenger (2010) find that present-biased individuals are more likely to have excessive credit card borrowings, but their sample is by no means representative of the US population. The same is true for Burks et al (2015), who study the predictive power of time preferences on a special educational performance using a non-student population, but one may have doubts to which extent truck drivers' choices reflect those of the wider population. Second, we study outcomes that are not investigated in other papers that use representative samples.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Time Preferences and Their Life Outcome Correlates: Evidence from a Representative Survey

Horn

¹

,

Kiss

²

2019

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We collect data on time preferences of a representative sample of the Hungarian population in a non-incentivized way and investigate how patience and present bias associate with important life outcomes in five domains: i) educational attainment, ii) unemployment, iii) income and wealth, iv) financial decisions and difficulties, and v) health. Based on the literature, we formulate the broad hypotheses that patience fosters, while present bias hinders positive outcomes in the domains under study. We document a consistent and often significant positive effect of patience in almost all areas (except unemployment), with the strongest effects in escaping low educational attainment, wealth and financial decisions. We find that present bias associates significantly with saving decisions and financial troubles.

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“…Burks et al (2015Burks et al ( , 2012, Golsteyn et al (2014), Sutter et al (2013), Rustichini et al (2012) and Chabris et al (2008). Burks et al (2015) is most closely related to this paper and considers the relation between education outcomes, personality measures and economic preferences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the interpretation of non-cognitive skills – What is being measured and why it matters

Humphries

¹

,

Kosse

²

2017

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW BerlinThis series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin.Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions.

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Cognitive skills, personality, and economic preferences in collegiate success

Cited by 53 publications

References 36 publications

Cognitive Ability, Character Skills, and Learning to Play Equilibrium: A Level-k Analysis

Cognitive Ability, Character Skills, and Learning to Play Equilibrium: A Level-k Analysis

Time Preferences and Their Life Outcome Correlates: Evidence from a Representative Survey

On the interpretation of non-cognitive skills – What is being measured and why it matters

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