864 vIII. EMERGING  ISSuES AND  NEW  DIRECTIONS
its impact on educational attainment. How -
ever, it is also possible that the marginal pre -
dictive power of self-  control over economic 
preferences and the Big Five in this study can 
be explained by a more precise measure of 
self- control available in their data relative to 
other noncognitive skills.53
Measures of noncognitive skills rival IQ 
and measures of socioeconomic status in 
predicting longevity.54 B. Roberts et al. 
(2007) reviewed evidence from 34 different 
studies on the predictive validity of the Big 
Five personality measures, relative to that of 
cognitive ability and socioeconomic status. 
Most studies they survey control for relevant 
background factors, including gender and se -
verity of disease. B. Roberts and colleagues 
converted the results of each study into cor -
relation coefficients that can be compared 
across studies. Figure 42.5 presents results 
from their analyses. Conscientiousness is 
a stronger predictor of longevity than any 
other Big Five skill and a stronger predictor 
than either IQ or socioeconomic status.55 In 
general, skills related to conscientiousness, 
openness to experience, and agreeableness 
are associated with longer lives.56 The mag -nitudes of the relationships vary across stud -
ies.
Of the Big Five, conscientiousness and 
agreeableness are most predictive of crimi -
nality. In a sample of at-risk youth, boys who 
engaged in severe delinquent behaviors were 
more than three-  fourths of a standard de -
viation lower in agreeableness and conscien -
tiousness, as measured by mothers’ reports 
at age 12 or 13 than boys who had minor or 
no delinquent behaviors up to that age (John, 
Caspi, Robins, Moffitt, & Stouthamer- 
Loeber, 1994). Noncognitive skills also pre -
dict financial outcomes. For example, house -
holds with a high internal locus of control57 
save more of their income (Cobb-Clark, Kas -
senboehmer, & Sinning, 2016).
There is a growing literature in economics 
on the predictive power of economic pref -
erences and behavioral biases. Falk et al. 
(2016) conducted a comprehensive survey- 
based study of economic preferences across 
the world. They found that contemporane -
ous measures of preferences within countries 
are correlated with savings decisions, labor 
market choices, and prosocial behaviors. 
Furthermore, they present some evidence FIGURE 42.4. Associations with job performance. Source: The correlations reported for personality 
skills come from a meta-  analysis conducted by Barrick and Mount (1991). The correlation reported for 
intelligence comes from Schmidt and Hunter (2004). Note: The values for personality are correlations 
that were corrected for sampling error, censoring, and measurement error. Job performance was based 
on performance ratings, productivity data, and training proficiency. The authors do report the timing 
of the measurements of personality relative to job performance. Of the Big Five, the coefficient on con -
scientiousness is the only one that is statistically significant, with a lower bound on the 90% credibility 
value of 0.10. The value for intelligence is a raw correlation.IntelligenceOpennessConscientiousnessExtraversionAgreeablenessEmotional stability
Correlation0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6