Environmental factors such as social support modulate classic individual-difference findings, including delay of gratification and heritability estimates¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · theoretical r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Longitudinal links between preschool delay of gratification and adolescent academic outcomes disappear after accounting for social support. → Zengilowski 2023 q2 i? Heritability estimates for educational attainment are lower in societies with greater barriers to educational attainment. → Zengilowski 2023 (2)

Evidence¶

Zengilowski 2023¶

Zengilowski, A., Maqbool, I., Deka, S. P., Niebaum, J. C., Placido, D., Katz, B., Shah, P. & Munakata, Y. (2023). Overemphasizing individual differences and overlooking systemic factors reinforces educational inequality. npj Science of Learning 8:13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-023-00164-z

q2 · i? · theoretical · r3

Argumentative review point in this comment: the authors state, citing a preregistered reanalysis, that the delay-of-gratification link to adolescent academic outcomes "disappear after accounting for social support". No effect size is printed in the article text.

"For example, longitudinal links between the preschool delay of grati fication and adolescent academic outcomes disappear after accounting for social support 41."

Zengilowski 2023 (2)¶

Zengilowski, A., Maqbool, I., Deka, S. P., Niebaum, J. C., Placido, D., Katz, B., Shah, P. & Munakata, Y. (2023). Overemphasizing individual differences and overlooking systemic factors reinforces educational inequality. npj Science of Learning 8:13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-023-00164-z

q2 · i? · theoretical · r3

The comment's Empirical section asserts, citing cross-societal genetics work, that "Societies with greater barriers to educational attainment show lower heritability estimates" because structural constraints weigh more heavily. No effect sizes are printed.

"Societies with greater barriers to educational attainment show lower heritability estimates for educational attainment because structural constraints play a larger role in determining outcomes 42,43."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Early ability to delay gratification predicts later academic and social outcomes, but the association is weaker and more context-dependent than originally reported. — a broader claim this one bears on
• Children's wait-times on sustained delay-of-gratification tasks reflect beliefs about environmental reliability in addition to self-control capacity — related
• Educational achievement is highly heritable, and the common environmental variance is attributable to SES effects — related
• A Classical Twin Design model of educational attainment in the TwinLife sample estimates shared environmental influence at 43% and additive genetic influence at 34% — related
• Adjusting published twin-study ACE estimates for assortative mating raises mean heritability by about 17 points and lowers shared environmental estimates by about 16 points — related
• The best-fitting NTFD model estimates heritability of educational attainment at 51% and total shared environmental influence at 26%, disaggregated into twin-specific (16%) and sibling-shared (10%) components — related
• Heritability estimates are population-specific parameters, and the heritability of cognitive skills rises gradually through childhood and adolescence — related