Children with this one quality are more likely to make money and succeed in life, finds study

Growing up, all everyone ever said was to study hard, follow the rules, and work within the rules to succeed in life. However, some argue that the backbenchers who defied the rules and went against the tide will turn out to win in life. Thus, the question remained, who does better in life? A 40-year study published in the journal Developmental Psychology answered the age-old question in 2015. 

Do rule breakers succeed in life?

The data for the analysis was taken from a Luxembourg MAGRIP Study, which assessed about 3,000 sixth-graders in Luxembourg in 1968. At the time, MAGRIP recorded information on the children's family background, socioeconomic status, IQ, and academic achievements, among other metrics. It also recorded the student's ratings of the level of studiousness and willingness to learn, provided by their teachers. 

Decades later, new research was performed which followed up with 745 people from the study. The new team compared their educational and occupational success across 40 years of their lives while taking their traits like IQ in school into consideration. They examined how the potential traits of the children at school turned out to be in terms of the career choices they made and their income.

Unsurprisingly, the analysis found that those students who were rated as responsible and studious by their teachers turned out to be high achievers in life. However, astonishingly, the students who were considered to be naughty and the rule breakers turned out to be high earners among the two groups.  

Here's what the findings may suggest

As per an IFLS report, the authors of the papers suggest that the rebellious kids may have grown up to become high earners as they could have stood their ground better than their more agreeable peers. People who stand up for themselves can negotiate better salaries and be more demanding at critical junctures of life. 

On the other hand, the authors can't discard the fact that the rebellious kids may have changed their behavior later in the future. 

Furthermore, the authors also suggested that rule breakers earn more because they value competition. Such people worry less about getting along with others and put their interests first.

However, the authors couldn't rule out the fact that some of the high-income earners could have been unethical in life. But the study didn't find any evidence of participants engaging in such behavior, as per a report from Psychology Today. 

What do other studies say?

Several other studies tend to support the that being rebellious has an advantage in life. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that agreeableness was more negatively correlated with income, especially for men. 

Furthermore, in the book “Barking Up the Wrong Tree,” author Eric Barker explores how valedictorians rarely become millionaires or stand-out successes. 

The author once told CNBC that while valedictorians do great in life and hold prestigious jobs, they rarely become people who change the world or billionaires. 

Barker drew his analysis from the research conducted by Karen Arnold, a professor at Boston College. In her report, “Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians” she tracked 81 high school valedictorians and salutatorians after graduation. Her analysis found that about 90% of the subjects proceeded to have good careers with 40% landing a job in the highest tier. However, none of them turned out to be changemakers. 

“Valedictorians aren’t likely to be the future’s visionaries. They typically settle into the system instead of shaking it up,” Arnold wrote.