Poster #206 - Infant Happiness Predicts Childhood IQ and Adult Educational Attainment

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Most parents want their children to grow up to be successful and happy. While considering these goals, they might assume that success will lead to happiness. However, research on adults suggests the reverse: Happy leads to success. The benefits of happiness during childhood are not as widely investigated as they are in adulthood. Notably, although children experience positive affect more frequently than negative affect, negative affect is more widely studied, and little is known about the long-term implications of positive affect experienced during childhood. The broaden and build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2013) suggests happiness during childhood should lead to more success. Specifically, positive affect encourages learning, exploration, and play as children broaden thought processes (e.g., thinking more creatively) that can build long-term skills (e.g., problem-solving) and resources (e.g., expanded vocabulary) that can increase chances of success (Coffey, 2018; Davis & Suveg, 2014). Conversely, negative affect constricts exploration and learning as children focus on eliminating the source of the negative affect. In this study, we compared infant positive and negative affect as predictors of adult success.

One indicator of success may be the level of education attained. Indeed, higher levels of education are linked to a number of beneficial outcomes, such as earning a higher salary, maintaining better personal health, and building better social relationships (e.g., Wolfe & Haveman, 2002). Furthermore, cognitive abilities during childhood (i.e., IQ) are also linked to educational attainment. Drawing on evidence that positive affect promotes exploration and cognitive development, we hypothesized that infant positive affect, but not negative affect, would predict childhood IQ and adult educational attainment. We aimed to minimize the influence of structural factors such as school quality in our analyses by focusing on positive affect during infancy (prior to children’s participation in formal education programs).

Drawing from the Fullerton Longitudinal Study (N = 130), which includes data spanning from infancy to adulthood, we examined parent-reported positive and negative affect during infancy (age 1.5) as predictors of educational attainment in adulthood (age 29) via IQ during childhood (ages 6-8). Given the associations among sex, SES, educational attainment, and IQ, we included sex and SES as covariates. Using structural equation modeling, results indicated that infant positive affect, but not negative affect, directly predicted higher childhood IQ (figure not included), β = .24, p = .006, and adult educational attainment (see Figure 1), β = .20, p = .037, and indirectly predicted educational attainment via childhood IQ (see Figure 2).

This is the first study to demonstrate the importance of infant happiness by using it to predict childhood IQ and adult education attainment 29 years later. Specifically, higher infant positive affect predicted higher childhood cognitive abilities and adult academic success. Negative affect did not predict either. Given the benefits of a higher IQ and more education, early positive affect appears to be a foundational piece for later success that deserves more attention in developmental research. Future research could focus on understanding possible sources of infant happiness (e.g., temperament, attachment, emotion regulation).

Authors

• John K Coffey, Sewanee: The University of the South
  Presenting Author

• Hannah Faulkner, Sewanee: The University of the South
  Non-Presenting Author

• S. Katherine Nelson-Coffey, Sewanee: The University of the South
  Non-Presenting Author

• Olivia Bailey, Sewanee: The University of the South
  Non-Presenting Author