Non-cognitive Abilities Research Articles

The Regulating Effect of Non-Cognitive Ability on Negative Emotional State of College Students

Non-cognitive abilities; Negative emotions; Life satisfaction

Family Background, Non-cognitive Ability and Academic Performance of Freshmen

家庭背景；家庭资本；非认知能力；学业表现

The Evolution of the Us Family Income-Schooling Relationship and Educational Selectivity

We estimate a dynamic model of schooling on two cohorts of the NLSY and find that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the effects of real (as opposed to relative) family income on education have practically vanished between the early 1980's and the early 2000's. After conditioning on a cognitive ability measure (AFQT), family background variables and unobserved heterogeneity (allowed to be correlated with observed characteristics), income effects vary substantially with age and have lost between 30% and 80% of their importance on age-specific grade progression probabilities. After conditioning on observed and unobserved characteristics, a $300,000 differential in family income generated more than 2 years of education in the early 1980's, but only one year in the early 2000's. Put differently, a $70,000 differential raised college participation by 10 percentage points in the early 1980's. In the early 2000's, a $330,000 income differential had the same impact. The effects of AFQT scores have lost about 50% of their magnitude but did not vanish. Over the same period, the relative importance of unobserved heterogeneity has expanded significantly, thereby pointing toward the emergence of a new form of educational selectivity reserving an increasing role to noncognitive abilities and/or preferences and a lesser role to cognitive ability and family income.

Impact of Long-Distance Swimming “Enei” on Japanese University Students’ Grit

Long-distance swimming for children is recognized for its educational effect. However, there is a lack of understanding about the effects of long-distance swimming on university students. Therefore, this study conducted a questionnaire-based survey on participants of a long-distance swimming practice at a university to clarify the effects of long-distance swimming on their grit. The period of the survey is July 8-14, 2018. The survey was conducted before and after the program and the grit scores were analyzed using the Grit scale. The results showed that the grit and perseverance scores, which are subscale on the grit, were significantly higher post long-distance swimming. This suggests that university students’ grit is impacted by long-distance swimming and increased non-cognitive abilities is one of the effects of the same.

The role of cognitive abilities on financial literacy: New experimental evidence

Financial literacy research focuses on why, how, and when people acquire financial knowledge, shape their financial attitudes, and adapt their financial behaviors. The literature demonstrates that some demographic characteristics highly correlate with financial literacy. However, demographic factors often mask the ultimate determinants of financial literacy acquisition such as risk aversion, time preferences, cognitive and behavioral biases, personality traits, cognitive and non-cognitive abilities, among others. Theory suggests that cognitive ability is one of the fundamental factors in explaining financial literacy. We offer experimental evidence supporting the key role of cognitive ability in financial literacy acquisition. Our experimental setting allows us to (a) overcome particular limitations of the traditional multiple-choice questions survey designs, (b) provide compatible incentives to make participants exert an appropriate level of effort to solve the assigned tasks, and (c) use a well-known measure of cognitive abilities. We find that individuals with higher cognitive abilities are more financially literate. Our main result holds even after controlling for some of the main confounding factors identified in the literature. In contrast to previous studies, we find no role for gender in explaining financial literacy once we control for cognitive abilities.

Do cognitive and non-cognitive abilities mediate the relationship between air pollution exposure and mental health?

Considered as a key component of human capital, mental health has drawn substantial scholarly attention for its effect on people’s health status and economic outcome. When facing the challenge of stress, people’s heterogeneity in cognitive ability and non-cognitive ability causes difference in patterns of coping, resulting in different manifestations in mental health. Previous researches have shown that cognitive and non-cognitive abilities have positively direct or indirect effects on mental health, but few studies research their role of coping with air pollution. We used the China Family Panel Survey (CFPS) and matched individual data with county or district level PM2.5 information from NASA. The study found that air pollution has negative effect on mental health with every increase of 1μg/m3 in PM2.5 deteriorating mental health by 0.038 standard deviation, which is the total effect of air pollution. However, the direct effect of air pollution on mental health will decrease to 0.028 in absolute value when considering mediating effects. By employing different approaches, we found positive mediating effects via cognitive ability and non-cognitive ability. Individuals with high cognitive and non-cognitive abilities are able to accurately diagnose problems and select the optimal coping strategies, thus restoring positive mental health.

Impact of family income in early life on the financial independence of young adults: Evidence from a matched panel data

AbstractThis study investigates whether the family income level in early life influences the financial independence of young adults. Using a large nationally representative U.S. sample (constructed based on the data from the 1999 to 2015 Panel Study of Income Dynamics, its 2009 to 2015 Transition to Adulthood Supplement and its 1997 to 2007 Child Development Supplement), we find that the relationship between one's family income level during adolescence and the financial independence of young adults follows an inverted U‐shape. We find that the college graduation status plays an important role in determining the financial independence of young adults. Once young adults graduate from the college, their financial independence is no longer influenced by their family income level during adolescence. The results show similar patterns after controlling for cognitive and noncognitive abilities and financial behaviours of young adults when they were children or teenagers. The findings of this study have significant implications for policymakers and educators.

Influence Of Non-cognitive Ability Scores On Physical Fitness Improvement: An Examination Using Longitudinal Data

Recently, many activities have been conducted to improve physical fitness owing to the decline in children’s physical fitness observed in Japan. Such activities have led to gradual improvements in physical fitness. With the commencement of a study to examine the educational effect of exercise promotion, this program entered a new stage. Specifically, we focused on motivation, perseverance, and positive attitudes that are emphasized in young children. These non-cognitive abilities are considered indispensable for future social success. A few studies have examined the relationship between physical fitness and non-cognitive abilities. Last year, we also presented findings of a study on the relationship between non-cognitive abilities and physical fitness of children using cross sectional data, and identified the need to examine the longitudinal relationship. PURPOSE: The present aimed to examine the influence of non-cognitive abilities on physical fitness improvement using longitudinal data. METHODS: We conducted physical fitness tests and a non-cognitive ability survey on 264 young children. Data were collected during the same period for 2 years. Participants were classified into the improved and non-improved groups based on the extent of change in their ranking in the class. Differences in non-cognitive ability scores in the first and second year were examined using a three-way ANOVA with physical fitness improvement, sex, and grade as factors. RESULTS: No significant interaction was confirmed between gender, grade, and physical fitness improvement in any year. A significant main effect of sex, grade, and physical fitness improvement was observed in the first year, and of sex and physical fitness improvement in the second year. Girls’ non-cognitive ability score was significantly higher than that of boys. Among 4-year-olds, the non-cognitive ability score was significantly higher in the first year as compared to that in the second year. The non-cognitive ability score of participants in the improved group was significantly higher than that of participants in the non-improved group. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings confirmed that non-cognitive abilities have a positive effect on the extent of improvement in physical fitness.

Human capital and leadership: the impact of cognitive and noncognitive abilities

ABSTRACTWe conduct an economic analysis about the impact of human capital on an individual’s potential of becoming a leader based on data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies Survey (PIAAC). Our human capital indicators include not only traditional measures such as education and experience, but also various measures of cognitive and noncognitive ability. Our cognitive ability measures include numeracy, literacy, and problem solving abilities, and noncognitive ability measures include perseverance, motivation to learn, and social trust. We specifically investigate the effect of measurement error and reverse causality on the estimation results. We find that problem-solving ability is the most important in affecting leadership among cognitive ability measures, and perseverance shows the strongest impact among noncognitive ability measures. As a leader supervises more employees, the role of cognitive and noncognitive ability becomes more critical.

Family, teacher, and student ability development in China

We investigate the impact of family and teacher human capital on the development of cognitive and noncognitive abilities of Chinese middle school students. Our cognitive ability is measured by a standard cognitive ability test, and our noncognitive ability indicators include confidence, college intentions, perseverance, and behavior problems. We specifically solve the endogeneity issue caused by nonrandom sorting by employing Hausman–Taylor estimation method. Our results indicate that family characteristics such as family size, income, and parental relationship are highly predictive of both cognitive and noncognitive abilities. We also find that teachers’ educational background and experience significantly affect the development of cognitive and noncognitive abilities.

States of nature and states of mind: a generalized theory of decision-making

Canonical economic agents act so as to maximize a single, representative, utility function. However, there is accumulating evidence that heterogeneity in thought processes may be an important determinant of individual behavior. This paper investigates the implications of a vector-valued generalization of the Expected Utility paradigm, which permits agents either to deliberate as per Homo economics, or to act impulsively. This generalized decision theory is applied to explain the crowding-out effect, irrational educational investment decisions, persistent social inequalities, the pervasive influence of non-cognitive ability on socio-economic outcomes, and the dynamic relationships between non-cognitive ability, cognitive ability, and behavioral biases. These results suggest that the generalized decision theory warrants further investigation.

The Impact of the Parenting Style on the Formation of Adolescent Human Capital

In the literature on early formation of human capital and the intergenerational correlation of human capital, there is more and more attention to human capital investment within the household by parents’ behavior and interaction with children, while the parenting style has received less attention in empirical economic studies. This paper attempts to fill in this blank by examining the impact of the parenting style on adolescent cognitive and non-cognitive abilities. Based on the data of China Family Panel Studies （CFPS, 2010 to 2014）, and drawing on the mainstream literature of psychology, we select relevant questions and construct two continuous variables that measure the variance on two different dimensions: demandingness” and responsiveness”. Further, we divide the parenting style into four types according to the existing practices in the literature: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and neglecting. As a dependent variable, we use academic performance to measure children’s cognitive abilities, and use the standard CES-D scale as a measure of children’s mental health, which is a proxy variable for non-cognitive abilities. In the regression analysis, we use the leave-out averages of the two dimensions of the parenting style in the community as the instrumental variables. For the first time, we make use of the instrumental variable method to control the possible endogeneity problem. We find that the degree of parental demandingness and the degree of responsiveness both have a positive impact on children’s academic performance, while only the responsiveness has a significantly positive effect on children’s mental health. High demandingness may not be conducive to children’s mental health development. As for the comparison of the four types of the parenting style, we find that for children’s academic performance and mental health, the authoritative type is the best. On the basis of the benchmark regression, we also try a different measurement of academic achievement to verify the robustness of the conclusion. In addition, we also conduct subsample regressions based on gender and urban/rural status, and find that the impacts of the parenting style are different in different sub-samples: from the gender perspective, the impact degree of the parenting style on boys is generally stronger than that of girls; the demandingness only has a significantly positive impact on boys’ academic performance; and girls’ mental health is almost not affected by the parenting style. According to urban and rural subsamples, we find that urban children’s academic performance is only affected by the degree of responsiveness; while in rural areas, demandingness and responsiveness both have a positive effect on children’s academic performance. As far as mental health is concerned, the effect of the parenting style for the mental health of rural children is much weaker than that for urban children.

Toward a Work Motivation Conceptualization of Grit in Organizations

Despite its widespread media acclaim and recognition as a strategic imperative, the role of grit in organizational research remains unclear. This ambiguity resulted from inconsistent empirical findings, thus triggering a pessimistic outlook for the construct across disciplines. To address these issues, we suggest that such confusion and lack of construct and predictive validity stem from not only methodological issues but also a lack of theoretical sophistication. In this article, we address methodological issues, focusing mainly on construct and criterion-related validity, by showing how traditional definitional components of grit are absent in existing measures. Next, we address theoretical issues impeding progress by developing a new work motivation conceptualization of the construct. To do so, we focus primarily on noncognitive ability, purpose-driven long-term goal setting, and task strategy (i.e., short-term goal) adaptation. Finally, we develop an organizing framework examining how, and under what conditions, work-related goal setting manifests, highlighting grit’s distinction from other historically related constructs. Coupled with the assumption that individuals hold higher order organizational goals toward which they are passionate, our organizing framework includes feedback mechanisms accounting for grit’s developmental properties over time. Finally, we acknowledge significant areas for future research and potential practical implications.

Family background, parenting practices, and child outcomes: Chinese migrants’ offspring in Hong Kong

Using data from the 2011 population census and the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics, this paper examines the academic performance and non-cognitive skills of the children of Chinese migrants in Hong Kong aged 14 and below. Our analyses show that the poorer academic performance of Chinese migrants’ children results mainly from disadvantageous family background and parenting practices. Children of cross-border and migrant families do not differ from children of natives in Chinese, mathematics, or English, once parental education and parent–child communication about school life are controlled for. Children from migrant families have significantly higher levels of non-cognitive ability than children of natives. Our analyses also show that parental education is positively associated with Chinese and English performances; parents talking with children about school life significantly improves children’s performance in Chinese, mathematics, and English; and parental migrant status and parenting practices have positive effects on non-cognitive skills.

Are CEOs Born Leaders? Lessons from Traits of a Million Individuals

What makes a CEO? Our study combines a near-exhaustive sample of CEOs of Swedish companies with data on their cognitive and non-cognitive ability and height at age 18. On average, CEOs, particularly large-company CEOs, have much higher trait values than the population and somewhat higher values than people in other high-skill professions. Yet, more than one hundred managers and executives in the corporate sector dominate each median large-company CEO. Only about one tenth of the pay premium large-firm CEOs enjoy over the population can be attributed to the labor market returns to the three traits.

Do Well-off Families Compensate for Low Cognitive Ability? Evidence on Social Inequality in Early Schooling from a Twin Study

This article bridges the literature on educational inequality between and within families to test whether high–socioeconomic status (SES) families compensate for low cognitive ability in the transition to secondary education in Germany. The German educational system of early-ability tracking (at age 10) represents a stringent setting for the compensatory hypothesis. Overall, previous literature offers inconclusive findings. Previous research between families suffers from the misspecification of parental SES and ability, while most within-family research did not stratify the analysis by SES or the ability distribution. To address these issues, I draw from the TwinLife study to implement a twin fixed-effects design that minimizes unobserved confounding. I report two main findings. First, highly educated families do not compensate for twins’ differences in cognitive ability at the bottom of the ability distribution. In the German system of early-ability tracking, advantaged families may have more difficulties to compensate than in countries where educational transitions are less dependent on ability. Second, holding parents’ and children’s cognitive ability constant, pupils from highly educated families are 27% more likely to attend the academic track. This result implies wastage of academic potential for disadvantaged families, challenging the role of cognitive ability as the leading criterion of merit for liberal theories of equal opportunity. These findings point to the importance of other factors that vary between families with different resources and explain educational success, such as noncognitive abilities, risk aversion to downward mobility, and teachers’ bias.

Noncognitive Abilities and Financial Distress: Evidence from a Representative Household Panel

AbstractThis paper provides evidence of how noncognitive abilities affect financial distress. In a representative panel of households, we find that people in the bottom quintile of noncognitive abilities are 10 times more likely to experience financial distress than those in the top quintile. We provide evidence that this relation largely arises from worse financial choices and lack of financial insight by low-ability individuals and reflects differential exposure to income shocks only to a lesser degree. We mitigate endogeneity concerns using an IV approach and an extensive set of controls. Implications for policy and finance research are discussed.Received September 24, 2017; editorial decision September 26, 2018 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

The Influence of Shadow Education on Cognitive Ability and Non-Cognitive Ability

Utilizing a nationally representative data set from China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), this study examines the effects of family factors and extra-curricular tutoring on Chinese students’ cognitive ability and non-cognitive ability. Based on the method of Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Propensity Score Matching (PSM), we find that family socioeconomic status (SES) has a significant positive impact on both cognitive and non-cognitive ability. At the same time, family relationships significantly boost students’ non-cognitive ability. As for shadow education, we concluded that academic tutoring has a positive effect on students’ cognitive ability, but it has no significant positive effect on non-cognitive ability, while the positive effect of interest tutoring on non-cognitive ability is greater than the negative influence effect on cognitive ability.

Fighting Against Learning Crisis in Developing Countries: A Randomized Experiment of Self-Learning at the Right Level

This paper investigates the effectiveness of a globally popular method of self-learning at the right level in improving learning outcomes—the cog- nitive and non-cognitive abilities of disadvantaged pupils—in a developing country, Bangladesh. Using a randomized control trial design, we find sub- stantial improvements in cognitive abilities measured by mathematics test scores and catch-up effects on aspects of non-cognitive abilities or person- ality traits measured by a self-esteem scale. We also find a longer-term impact on cognitive abilities regarding the math scores students obtained on national-level exams compared to the baseline test scores. Moreover, teachers’ abilities to assess students’ performance substantially improve. Our estimates indicate that the program’s benefits exceed its costs. The above findings suggest that self-learning at the right level can effectively supplement the quality of primary education and hence address the learn- ing crisis in developing countries.

Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Abilities of Immigrants: New Perspectives on Migrant Quality from a Selective Immigration Country

Many countries adopt selective immigration policies to boost migrant quality. Recent theoretical work suggests that migrant selection based on observable characteristics (education, language proficiency) is likely to affect migrants’ unobservable characteristics. We contribute to this literature by quantifying traditionally unobservable components of migrant quality in Australia, a high-income, high-migrant share OECD country with a selective immigration policy. Using nationally representative survey data, we proxy migrant quality with standard measures of the Big-Five personality traits and cognitive ability. We find that although first-generation immigrants score significantly lower on English language ability, they outperform non-immigrant Australians in extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to new experiences, traits which are associated with better sociability, norm adherence, and creativity. The migrant premium in non-cognitive ability has been particularly high since Australia introduced selective immigration policies, which admitted migrants regardless of nationality but based on personal attributes. The migrant premium in personality is passed on to the second generation. Whilst the off-spring no longer experiences language penalties, it scores significantly higher on conscientiousness, agreeableness, a trait associated with altruism, and executive function. Despite higher levels of human capital, neither first nor second-generation immigrants outperform non-immigrant Australians in labor-market returns and occupational prestige.