Some Contributions of Economics to the Study of Personality

Heckman, James J.; Jagelka, Tomáš; Kautz, Timothy D.

doi:10.3386/w26459

Cited by 52 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 114 publications

(150 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The results of this research support, in the long term, public investment in intervention programs aimed at enhancing the Big Five personality traits that are positively associated with productivity in adulthood. Since noncognitive skills are more malleable later in life than cognitive abilities, efforts in this direction focus on educational strategies designed to foster learning skills and intellectual engagement by shaping students' noncognitive skills between childhood and adolescence (Heckman et al, 2019). A clear understanding of the mechanisms that drive noncognitive skill formation in schooling would sustain later investments in higher education.…”

Section: Concluding Comments and Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies have investigated the impact of intervention programmes that targeted disadvantaged children or low-performing students, showing that adequate mentoring and training practices, either in the classroom or with extracurricular and social activities, can produce persistent improvements in intellectual engagement and behavioural changes (Heckman et al, 2019). These programmes aimed to stimulate emotional awareness and prosocial behaviour (Bierman et al, 2010;Kosse et al, 2020), to encourage internal motivation, perseverance and individual effort in achievement goals (Alan et al, 2019) and to provide problem-solving techniques and study methods that foster self-discipline (Martins, 2017).…”

Section: Concluding Comments and Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Influence of Personality Traits on University Performance: Evidence from Italian Freshmen Students

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

D e s pit e s ev e ral at t e m pt s t o prov ide a de f ini t e pat t e rn re g arding t he e f f e ct s of pe rs onalit y t rait s o n pe rf orm a nc e in hig h e r e du c at ion, t he de bat e ov e r t he nat u re of t he re lat io ns hip is f ar f rom be i ng c onc lu s iv e . T he us e of dif f e re nt s u bje ct pools and s am pl e s ize s , as we ll as the u s e of ide nt if ic at ion s t rat e g ies t hat e it he r do not ade q u at e ly ac c ou nt for s e le c t ion bias o r are u nable t o e s t ablis h c au s alit y be tw e e n m e as u re s of ac ade m ic pe rf orm anc e and no nc og nit iv e s k ills , are pos s ible s ou rce s of het e rog e ne it y . T his pape r inv e s t ig at es t he im pac t of t he B ig F iv e t rait s , as m e asu re d be f ore t he be g inni ng of t he ac ade m ic y e ar, on t he g rade p oint av e rag e ac hie v e d in t he f irs t y e ar af te r t he e nrolm e nt , t ak ing adv ant ag e of a u niq u e and larg e dat as e t f rom a c oh ort of It a li an s t u de nt s in all u nde rg radu at e pr og ram s c ont aini ng de t aile d inf orm at io n on s t u de nt and pare nt al c harac t e ris t ic s . Re ly ing on a robu s t s t rat e g y t o c re dibly s at is f y t he c ondit iona l inde pe nde nc e as s u m pt ion, w e f ind t hat hig he r le v e ls of c ons c ie nt iou s ne ss and ope nne s s t o e xpe rie nc e pos it iv e ly af f e c t s tu de nt s c ore .

show abstract

Section: Concluding Comments and Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Concluding Comments and Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Personality Traits on University Performance: Evidence from Italian Freshmen Students

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In recent years, economists have grown increasingly interested in non-cognitive factors to explain economic behavior. Heckman et al (2019) review the economics literature and conclude that factors such as personality traits and preferences, can explain and predict important life outcomes across a variety of social and economic domains, including labor market outcomes and health. If non-cognitive factors are an important source of behavior, it is essential to develop precise empirical tools to measure them accurately.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring preferences for competition with experimentally-validated survey questions

Fallucchi

Nosenzo

Reuben

2020

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We validate experimentally a new survey item to measure the preference for competition. The item, which measures participants' agreement with the statement "Competition brings the best out of me", predicts individuals' willingness to compete in the laboratory after controlling for their ability, beliefs, and risk attitude (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007). We further validate the explanatory power of our survey item outside of the laboratory, by comparing responses across two samples with predicted differences in their preference for competition: professional athletes and non-athletes. As predicted, we find that athletes score higher on the item than non-athletes.

show abstract

“…Our results are largely driven by grading discrimination in written exams, where teachers may exert discretion by assign partial credits for each question. Using blindly-assigned essay scores, we find no evidence supporting that our results are explained by potential biases from 1 For surveys, see Almlund et al (2011), Farrington et al (2012), Heckman and Kautz (2012), and Heckman et al (2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 55%

Discriminating Behavior: Evidence of Teachers' Grading Bias

Ferman¹,

Fontes

2021

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent evidence has established that non-cognitive skills are key determinants of education and labor outcomes, and are malleable throughout adolescence. However, little is known about the mechanisms producing these results. This paper tests a channel that could explain part of the association between non-cognitive skills and important outcomes: teacher grading discrimination toward student behaviors. Evidence is drawn from a unique data pertaining to students from middle and high-school in Brazilian private schools. Our empirical strategy is based on the contrasting of school-level tests graded by teachers and school-level tests that cover the same content but are graded blindly. Using detailed data on student classroom behaviors and holding constant performance in exams graded blindly, evidence indicates that teachers inflate the grades of better-behaved students while deducting points from worse-behaved ones. These biases are driven by grading discrimination in exams with open questions. Additionally, teachers' behavior does not appear to be consistent with statistical discrimination.

show abstract

Some Contributions of Economics to the Study of Personality

Abstract: NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Cited by 52 publications

References 114 publications

The Influence of Personality Traits on University Performance: Evidence from Italian Freshmen Students

The Influence of Personality Traits on University Performance: Evidence from Italian Freshmen Students

Measuring preferences for competition with experimentally-validated survey questions

Discriminating Behavior: Evidence of Teachers' Grading Bias

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About