, Columnist
Want to Be a Better Student? Be Patient
An ingenious new research paper shows the link between patience and academic achievement.
Learning patiently.
Photographer: MIGUEL MEDINA/AFPThis article is for subscribers only.
Plenty of results from social psychology fail to replicate, but there is one that is not only enduring but also becoming more important: Patience really matters.
Economists have once again entered the fray, this time with a study that tries to determine how patience is correlated with better educational outcomes. The results are impressive, albeit unsettling. In Italy, differing degrees of patience account for two-thirds of the achievement variation across the country’s regions. In the US, differing degrees of patience account for one-third of the variation in educational outcomes across states, a smaller amount but still notable.