Two previews ago, I got a pretty smart attendee who wanted to know whether my investment courses are good for students who lack the ability to deal with detail, and may not be able to focus in class. Each signup earns me almost $1,000, but because my investment portfolio depends on how good my students are, I told him that my course is unsuitable for such a person because this person is not conscientious.
Investment courses require attention to detail, some mathematical aptitude, and is, thus, a function of two things - IQ and conscientiousness. You need to combine your smarts with the ability to delay gratification to enjoy the fruits of your investments.
Investment course trainers are never worried about students who lack conscientiousness because conscientious people will self-select to study investing.
Anyway, I've been sort of obsessed with the idea of conscientiousness for quite a while because I strongly believe that anyone who can crack the problem of conscientiousness would be able to become a millionaire many times over. In fact, I think a lot of gurus who claim that kids can be taught grit, perseverance, and the ability to delay gratification, are already making millions of dollars without really channelling academic theories that are peer-reviewed and proven to work across different contexts.
To really get a grasp of all these attempts at hacking the human mind, you can read Jesse Singal's book entitled The Quick Fix that highlights the crisis faced by psychology academics because a lot of studies published by famous academics are not getting replicated and verified by others. Power posing by Amy Cuddy is a particularly infamous study that a local guru has championed but now getting debunked, ruining the dreams of folks who want to fake it until they make it in the corporate world.
Another academic Angela Duckworth, the academic who discovered the academic definition of grit, is also currently under fire, but that's really not her fault. Grit, which is composed of a person's ability to persist despite hardship and maintain their consistency of personal interests, was initially found to play a large role in personal success, now has been discovered to lag IQ by a factor of over 10 in determining academic success.
Sadly the idea has taken a life of its own in mainstream media and hardworking academics have tried to play grit down as it is too similar to conscientiousness.
Right now, millions of dollars await anyone who can crack the code of conscientiousness and design an intervention that exists as a magical elixir to make your kids grittier.
This is exactly what I did today back in NUS.
I signed up my son Durendal to study under the NUS Psychology department Unbeknownst to the academics, this study is consequential for my kids, as it will determine whether they can handle their legacies while I am still alive.
If you are a parent with kids this age, why not volunteer for this study?
I'm super proud of my alma mater for working so hard to crack the conscientiousness puzzle.
But I get dibs on starting a business on this!
Re iq & grit, the counterpoint is that acad success doesn't necessarily mean personal or even financial success.
ReplyDeleteCorrelation is +ve but not as close to 1 as many may think.
In real life, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to achieve personal success. But you better have grit.
I think the civil service is one place where there's plenty of conscientiousness, but not so IQ. Or more likely a suppression of IQ.
Won't be surprised if you have a large proportion of civil servants among your students, where they can finally free their IQ together with conscientiousness.