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.
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...), someone with access who can check N and the significance of change of the groups?
Given the data found on this chart http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac... (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 …
One of those rare cases where the paper title explains the phenomenon better than the article. If this is based on DNA-methylation, does that mean the 'damage' is heritable?
From a quick scan of the article the chart is based on figure 1. p-value for the more disadvantaged group is 0.017 for the less disadvantaged it's 0.02. There's a 3rd group, 'medium disadvantaged', which has a horizontal line.
The trend is more obvious when the points for the individual groups are separated out, but it does seem to me that a small number of points at the extremes might account for slope - if you removed one or two key points from each group the slopes might go away.
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.
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.
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.
> 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!
I find it's not helpful to derive any result from this study. It's like a study of personality and health. It doesn't help people be the way they are. The best we can think of is to take vacation every once a while to relief stress, or not too anal on things, etc., which are already being said. So, what's the point? Focus on actually solving hypertension and other health problems make more sense to me.
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?
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!
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.
[+] [-] odabaxok|10 years ago|reply
"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|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bwblabs|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stymaar|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hliyan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stoney80|10 years ago|reply
The trend is more obvious when the points for the individual groups are separated out, but it does seem to me that a small number of points at the extremes might account for slope - if you removed one or two key points from each group the slopes might go away.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lewisl9029|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jotm|10 years ago|reply
Plus, depression, obesity, brain degeneration and everything else that self-control can fix should compensate really well...
[+] [-] hellameta|10 years ago|reply
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|10 years ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] azraomega|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] citeguised|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pluma|10 years ago|reply
javascript:location.href='https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=' + encodeURIComponent(location.href) + '&btnI=I'
Instant de-paywall-ification.
[+] [-] WillPostForFood|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomaskazemekas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] im3w1l|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gress|10 years ago|reply
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|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rebootthesystem|10 years ago|reply
Too funny.
[+] [-] flipmonk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monstruoso|10 years ago|reply
Anyway, the article is doubtful at best.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] gfrench27|10 years ago|reply
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