The significance of self-control. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Self-control is among the most widely studied constructs in the social sciences. For instance, more than 3% of peer-reviewed psychology articles in the past year were referenced by the key word “self-control” or closely related terms. The report by Moffitt et al. (1) in PNAS substantially advances this growing literature by demonstrating robust predictive associations between childhood self-control and a wide range of consequential life outcomes in a large, nationally representative sample of New Zealanders.