Understanding the Mechanisms Through Which an Influential Early Childhood Program Boosted Adult Outcomes

Abstract

A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality traits from an experimental evaluation of the influential Perry Preschool program to analyze the channels through which the program boosted both male and female participant outcomes. Experimentally induced changes in personality traits explain a sizable portion of adult treatment effects.

How Does Household Income Affect Child Personality Traits and Behaviors?

“…We retain the eigenvectors from the covariance matrix of all of these variables and use them to weight the contribution of each variable to the new (single dimensional) index; variables which contribute most are weighted more heavily in this index. Others have used variants of this method to create indices from survey questions in order to label the underlying indices of personality traits (Heckman, Pinto, and Savelyev 2013). We discuss the methods to create the personality traits indices in more detail in Appendix Section D.…”

“…Because of the panel nature of the dataset, we can demonstrate these improvements within the same child and using the same measures over time. The formation of positive personality traits, such as conscientiousness and agreeableness, is crucial in determining long-term socioeconomic standing and may also have strong effects on long-term health, educational attainment, and economic outcomes (see, e.g., Almlund et al 2011; Heckman, Pinto, and Savelyev 2013; Campbell et al 2014; Cunha and Heckman 2008; Cunha, Heckman, and Schennach 2010). …”

“…While existing research suggests that personality traits may be plastic into late adolescence and even into young adulthood, most of the prior evidence on this point is based on observational studies. 4 School-based interventions in early childhood, on the other hand, have shown quite conclusively that personality traits can be altered during childhood and these changes are predictive of adult outcomes (see, for instance, Gertler et al 2014 or Heckman, Pinto, and Savelyev 2013). 5 If income transfers are effective in improving emotional well-being into the adolescent years, as our findings suggest, then the window of opportunity and policy options available to break the intergenerational transmission of low SES are greater than previously thought.…”

Locus of control and the labor market

“…After three years, recipients had a more internal locus of control, which -given the randomized design -can be interpreted as the causal effect of the subsidy. Moreover, experimental evaluations of the Perry Preschool Program indicate that persistent changes in personality, especially in externalizing (aggressive, antisocial, and rulebreaking) behavior, account for much of the long-term effects of the program on adult outcomes (Heckman et al 2013). Thus, there may be a potential for direct intervention to improve outcomes by altering individuals' control perspectives.…”

Early Childhood Education Intervention Programs in the Netherlands: Still Searching for Empirical Evidence

“…The project cost $18,000 per child per year. A second famous experiment is the Perry Preschool Project [42,44,45]. This project started in 1962 with 58 3-and 4-year-olds growing up in a deprived black neighborhood.…”