
Self-control improves your prospects, but it may harm your health - tomaskazemekas
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21657768-self-control-improves-your-prospects-it-may-harm-your-health-no-good-deed
======
odabaxok
reading the first comment from the article, exactly my thoughts:

"The trends for advantaged and disadvantaged subjects are taken from a line
fit to the data points on the chart. A line fitting routing will always
produce a line, even to the random shot pattern of shotgun blast, but it takes
human judgment to decide if the slope actually means anything. Team, look
carefully at the data clouds. They are both shaped like flattened spheres and
are approximately symmetrical. The line fitting routing produces a line
anyway, and from this, articles are published and careers are made. Sorry, but
there is no meaning here, as much as the researcher would like it to be
otherwise. The distributions are nearly the same. The observation and
explanation go out the window."

It would be great to look at the original publication.

~~~
iolothebard
Publish or perish produces a lot of these "conclusions" in my experience.

------
bwblabs
Article is based on _Self-control forecasts better psychosocial outcomes but
faster epigenetic aging in low-SES youth_
([http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/07/08/1505063112.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/07/08/1505063112.full.pdf)),
someone with access who can check N and the significance of change of the
groups?

~~~
stymaar
Given the data found on this chart [http://cdn.static-
economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...](http://cdn.static-
economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-
edition/20150718_STC096.png) (which shows more than a hundred of points, quite
good compared to the size of the sample : “almost 300 black American
teenagers”), I'm really sceptical about the relevance of the results …

~~~
shas3
I think it's The Economist's visualization that is confusing, not the data. I
read the paper, they have 292 subjects. Here's the Tukey plot (which to me, is
less confusing than the scatter plot) from the paper on age in low and high
self-control groups: [http://imgur.com/ijL6nrp](http://imgur.com/ijL6nrp)

Also, according to the authors, 'skin-deep' metrics improved:
[http://imgur.com/lXD3f2L](http://imgur.com/lXD3f2L)

------
TeMPOraL
I'll take that self-control over worse health any day. Health is something you
can at least throw your money at, especially the money you got thanks to self-
control. Knowing you are using only 10% of your potential because of lack of
self-control is depressing.

~~~
pjc50
Health is absolutely not something you can throw money at. I don't understand
where this attitude comes from. And nothing kills your earning potential like
a long-term health condition.

~~~
TeMPOraL
In many cases, it absolutely is. A lot of long-term health improving
strategies, like good diet, going to the gym, ensuring enough sleep, regular
checkups, etc. are much more available when you have the money. So if lack of
self-control prevents you from getting enough money, it also restricts your
ability to take advantage of the above means.

~~~
maccard
I had a relatively good diet, a regular fitness routine, slept well, visited
my doctor, and still ended up unable to walk for 6 months with back pain. That
was with access to private medical insurance, in Europe. Even with
theoretically unlimited money behind my problem, I was unable to get it sorted
quickly. 18 months on and I'm not in bad shape, but I still can't walk for
more than a few hours, and have trouble sleeping sometimes.

------
hellameta
I admit I'm not a researcher but this is seems shotty. First, the abstract
does a better job -
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/07/08/1505063112.shor...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/07/08/1505063112.short).

Second, as some other have pointed out, what exactly is self control? What
exactly do you do with that self control? This seems to me a little like
saying that workers who take 10min breaks from work all have shorter life
spans. Only to forget those 10min breaks are to smoke cigarettes. (I believe
this contrived example is from Naked Statistics).

What's next, "Diet and exercise forecast better physical outcomes but faster
epigenetic aging in low-SES youth"?

The results are interesting, sure, but warrant a lot more research before an
article like this makes any sense.

Thoughts?

~~~
shas3
> Second, as some other have pointed out, what exactly is self control? What
> exactly do you do with that self control?

That is a simplistic criticism. The way you answer this question for yourself
is to (1) look at the paper and how they define self-control (and cellular
aging!), (2) follow the references that they cite for measuring self-control,
(3) review the literature and critique it. Else, your suggestion is that
people in the field of self-control haven't bothered asking your question,
which is unlikely since they are specializing in the study of self-control!

~~~
hellameta
I see this but there was another sentence you left out of your quote that I
was leading to. I'm not criticizing the research - I'm positive I bring no new
line of questioning. What I do want more information on is what happens if
your self control leads you to diet and exercise (which plenty of study shows
improves cellular aging)?

And I would love to read further in detail but I can't afford the access. If
someone has it and can easily answer - please do!

------
citeguised
Could you paste the article on pastebin? I'm getting a paywall.

~~~
pluma
Bookmark this:

javascript:location.href='[https://www.google.com/webhp?#q='](https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=')
\+ encodeURIComponent(location.href) + '&btnI=I'

Instant de-paywall-ification.

~~~
citeguised
Will try, thanks!

------
im3w1l
Could the obesity be related to the fact that they were better at optimizing
for candy intake? Would the same results be there if the reward was something
else?

------
gress
Why is this called "self-control" when what it actually tests is giving up
one's own agency to an authority?

When framed that way it seems less puzzling why it might not be healthy.

(Just to clarify: the experiment involves the subjects doing something they
don't want to do in order to comply with the experimenter)

~~~
marcosdumay
Did you read the PNAS article? If so, what is that order exactly? Was it the
marshmallow test?

------
rebootthesystem
I'm sorry but that graph is just too funny. Let's see, what slope do we want
the red line to have? Here, that fits the conclusion we want to promote. And
the blue line? The inverse of that slope, of course!

Too funny.

------
flipmonk
Self control of what?

~~~
monstruoso
That's a good question. I don't know why you are being downvote. How does self
control correlates to obesity? That can only be the case if we are talking
about a narrow way of self control.

Anyway, the article is doubtful at best.

~~~
techlibertarian
> How does self control correlates to obesity?

Controlling how much you eat and what you can't eat.

~~~
monstruoso
In the context of the article.... self control correlates with an increase in
obesity.

~~~
ejk314
Wasn't the metric for calculating self control was how long you were willing
to wait for an additional marshmallow? Seems like a proxy for measuring self
control that would be biased towards people with a propensity for obesity.

~~~
monstruoso
Those greedy kids and their marshmallows.

