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Playground bullies do prosper – and go on to earn more in middle age (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Five-decade UK study finds that aggression at school leads to better-paying jobs, while those with emotional instability went on to earn less

Children who displayed aggressive behaviour at school, such as bullying or temper outbursts, are likely to earn more money in middle age, according to a five-decade study that upends the maxim that bullies do not prosper.

They are also more likely to have higher job satisfaction and be in more desirable jobs, say researchers from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.

The paper, published today, used data about almost 7,000 people born in 1970 whose lives have been tracked by the British Cohort Study. The research team examined data from primary school teachers who assessed the children’s social and emotional skills when they were 10 years old in 1980, and matched it to their lives at the age of 46 in 2016.

“We found that those children who teachers felt had problems with attention, peer relationships and emotional instability did end up earning less in the future, as we expected, but we were surprised to find a strong link between aggressive behaviour at school and higher earnings in later life,” said Prof Emilia Del Bono, one of the study’s authors.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

uncomfortable with this being the headline and seems like without further research this could just be one of those confirmation bias things. seems to make some assumptions that we don’t know empirically such as:

teachers in the 1980s were a good judge of character, fairly identifying who bullies whom
that this aggressive behavior at 10 years old continues meaningfully into later life

not denying the scientific accuracy of the study, but the journalist integrity of making this the headline.

edit: you can read the original article here, and yeah the actual text of the summary vindicates my judgment of the Guardian article. the original authors frame it as an analysis of “socio-emotional skills,” not agression per se, because again, these kids are ten, not even in high school yet.