Worldwide Success

A study lead by Timothy Judge, a management professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville suggests that higher levels of self-confidence in young people lead to higher income later in life.  The study to be published in September in the Journal of Applied Psychology uses attitudinal data from 1979 to 1993 collected by the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which represents people from the ages of 14 to 22 in the United States.

This study of about 7,000 people found that those that had high opinions of themselves in their youth, earned more money in their middle age than those that lacked self-confidence.  The difference in income seems to be more prevalent in children of well educated and wealthier parents.  Children from these backgrounds earned dramatically more when they had high self-confidence as children than their less confident counterparts.

Does this mean that we should constantly praise our children so that they can develop strong self-esteem? You may have heard of or engaged in discussions about the sense of entitlement found in recent generations which some people attribute to too much praise, even when it is not warranted.  How many soccer trophies are kids collecting these days just for participating, even though their teams have never won any tournaments?  Is grade inflation another symptom of the constant pressure to raise children’s self-esteem even when their performance does not correspond to expectations?

Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at the San Diego State University warns of the impact of too much unwarranted praise for children:

“This analysis suggests that some level of self-confidence may be beneficial.  However, it’s important that that not cross over into narcissism because when it does, that leads to less success.”

Another warning comes from Roy Baumeister, psychology professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee who is an expert in self-esteem.  He explains that it is possible that children with strong self-esteem have higher abilities than the ones with low self-esteem.  Here are his thoughts on the findings from this study:

“I don’t think we should interpret the finding as ‘Let’s make our kids more conceited.'"

Like anything else in life, raising self-confidence in young people needs to be balanced so that it does not get overdone.  Self-confidence seems to be an important ingredient for success, but too much of it can have negative consequences such as narcissistic behavior, difficulties in coping with disappointments, and a sense of entitlement even when the level of effort and performance does not meet high standards.

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