The study that led to the saying 'EQ is more important than IQ for a child's success' was not reproducible!

Thank you for visiting. I am a science-loving mom raising a 2-year-9-month-old son who is just starting to talk a little and a 6-month-old daughter.

The established theory that EQ is more important than IQ in early childhood

This may be sudden, but are you familiar with the Marshmallow Test?

In this experiment, 600 four-year-old children were each given a marshmallow and told, 'If you can wait 15 minutes without eating it, I will give you two,' before the adult left the room.

When researchers followed up on the children who participated in the study, they found that the children who were able to wait for the marshmallow scored 210 points higher on the SAT (a college admission test in the US) than those who did not.

Based on this study, the theory that it is more important to cultivate EQ (emotional intelligence, including self-control) than IQ in early childhood became mainstream, and I believed it too.

It turns out it wasn't reproducible

However, there is a follow-up to this, and it turns out that this study was not reproducible!

I didn't know that... I just found out yesterday and am completely shocked 😶

When they increased the number of subjects to 900 and verified the reproducibility using children from more diverse backgrounds,

rather than whether or not they could wait for the marshmallow, it was found in 2018 that the higher the parents' income, the more it correlated with the child's social success 😅 (So it was the parents' income after all!)

Correlation and causation

Wow, this is a great example of how correlation and causation are different, isn't it? 🤔

If someone tells you that 'having self-control leads to social success,' anyone would think there is a causal relationship there, but

what was derived from the replication study was

These are two separate causal relationships, and 'having self-control' and 'achieving social success' were just correlated. (I see, that makes sense. Interesting ☺️)

In the end, the educational environment is what matters

And here, I think it's shortsighted to just think, 'So it's all about money after all.'

The fact that parents have a high income might mean that the parents are naturally teaching their children the tips and ways of thinking to succeed socially, and

Being financially stable also means there is a high possibility of being mentally stable as well.

In other words, what this replication study suggests is that rather than whether a child can behave with self-control and discretion, being in a good educational environment in the long term is what matters.

In short, EQ or IQ at a young age doesn't tell us anything!
Children have endless potential!

That is how this science-loving mom sees it.

Best regards.

📕 Reference Book

The book that taught me there is more to the marshmallow experiment ☟

Hiroyuki-san, who was a so-called "hopeless" child, has become a huge social success.

His parenting theories are truly interesting❗️

While there are points where I think, "I see, that's true!" such as "things schools don't teach that parents need to teach," there are also parts where I think, "That's too extreme 🤣."

It is by far the most interesting parenting book I have read recently. Highly recommended.

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