Science Says That If You Were a Naughty & Rebellious Kid, You’re More Likely To Succeed In Life

Last Updated on 2023-03-30 , 9:13 am

What did your parents use to tell you?

Study hard. Be a good boy/girl, earn that degree and attain a high income.

Well, it turns out that they were wrong.

Really wrong.

Because according to researchers from Luxembourg, “stubborn and rebellious children are more likely to earn more as adults.”

And I’m not even joking.

Research

Researchers, fronted by Marion Spengler from the University of Tueingen, inspected data from the Luxembourg MAGRIP study conducted in 1968.

It observed near 3,000 12-year-olds in terms of schooling, IQ and their home life.

The teachers’ ratings of students at age 12 were examined by a single item on which teachers graded their students according to their studiousness.

In 2008, a different team of researchers went through the same sample of people in the original study, and this time asked them about their “educational and occupational history”.

Thereafter, they compared childhood results with those obtained as adults, in a sample of 745 people over the duration of 40 years.

Revelation

In the end, the results determined that “children who were described as stubborn, defiant and rule-breakers were more likely to earn a higher income and have more job success as adults.”

This could be attributed to the fact that “rebellious children are more competitive and ambitious and value these traits above interpersonal relationships.”

Regrets.

Incidentally, researchers have a separate hypothesis for the results.

‘Another explanation might be that individuals with higher levels of rule-breaking and defiance of parental authority also have higher levels of willingness to stand up for their own interests and aims, a characteristic that leads to more favourable individual outcomes,’ the researchers explained.  

‘We also cannot rule out that individuals who are likely or willing to break rules get higher pay for unethical reasons,’ the researchers continued.

‘For instance, research in the field of organisational psychology showed that employees invest in unethical or deviant workplace behaviour when they are not satisfied with their income and when they have a high level of love of money.’