The Matthew Effect

So I just started reading Malcolm Gladwell's new book, "Outliers," at the airport yesterday. I love this guy. If you haven't read "The Tipping Point" or "Blink," I suggest you put them on your Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa list. Anyways, his new book is about success: What makes a person successful? or, more specifically, what makes a person wildly successful? Yes, one must possess a certain degree of innate intelligence or creativity, but what about one's background or circumstances gives one the extra edge? This is something we like to ponder (in a masochistic kind of way) in the Kitchen/Grolemund household: Why are some of our former Harvard classmates getting their books published or making their first million while we are not? Because that's just not fair.

The first chapter of the book is about, of all things, Canadian hockey. Canadian hockey players are the best of the best. The teenagers who play in the Major Junior A League are those who go onto the NHL. So what makes them the best? Turns out a Canadian statistician (and his observant wife) happened upon the answer: their birthdays. Nearly all of the players who make it to the Major Junior A have birthdays between the months of January and April. The hockey cut-off date in Canada is January 1st. So, when they are just starting out as hockey munchkins, these kids with early birthdates miss the cut-off and end up playing on teams alongside kids who are many months younger. And this makes a big difference. By the time coaches start picking which players get to enter elite leagues (at the ripe age of 9 or 10), they inevitably end up choosing the bigger, faster, and stronger kids -- that is, the older children -- on each team. From there, these selected few get to play with other top-notch players, practicing many more hours and playing in many more games per season than their "typical" peers. The "best" get even "better." This pattern holds true across many fields (from soccer to education), and across many countries (from the US to the Czech Republic). Relative age leads to relative success!

As I read/devoured this chapter, my mind went to my planner, where I have listed the birthdates of my friends from Harvard. I quickly scribbled down on a piece of scrap paper what I could recall of who had a birthday in which months. Check out this data (and feel free to add to it):

January: 8 (KL, SR, SS, KS, EH, AM, GG, LB)

February: 1 (KD)

March: 0

April: 6 (KI, SR, SB, BL, PS, HC)

May: 1 (BS)

June: 1 (TM)

July: 1 (KK)

August: 1 (MM)

September: 1 (KC)

October: 2 (LR, DT)

November: 0

December: 1 (JK)

Crazy! The pattern holds true for Harvard! Out of 23 people, 15 have birthdays in the first third of the year. That's 65%! Makes me want to look at the data for a larger set of Harvard students.

So being a few months older than your peers when you enter kindergarten gives you a big advantage... an advantage that can take you all the way to Harvard. As an early childhood teacher, I can say with some degree of authority that when you're 4 or 5, a few months translates to a big gap in maturity. Gladwell touches on this a little in this chapter: Teachers of young children often confuse ability and maturity. The children who are a bit older, and therefore a bit more mature, end up in the "higher group" (in reading, math, etc.) and are pushed more than the average/lower students. This advantage doesn't disappear as the years go on and people are given a chance to "catch up" -- it persists!

I'd have to do more research, but I propose that some of my fall-birthday friends were ALSO older than their classmates. These kids probably just missed the September 1 (or thereabouts) cut-off date in kindergarten, so they probably did 2 years of preschool -- then entered kindergarten at 5 -- and then quickly turned 6 right after the school year began. An even greater advantage than those with a January birthday? Hm.

I also know that one of my January friends skipped a year of school when she was little, and therefore became one of the youngest kids in her new class. But I think that the foundation was laid when she was in her early childhood years, as one of the oldest and brightest in her class.

Gladwell suggests that schools could arrange classrooms according to birth month: January-April in Room 1, May-August in Room 2, September-December in Room 3. That way, children are able to learn alongside children who are (most likely) developing at the same rate. There's also the Danish way of doing it (gotta love those Scandinavians!): Allow no ability grouping in school until the age of 10.

Sociologist Robert Merton labeled this phenomenon the Matthew Effect, after a verse in the Bible: "For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." A somber insight, but apparently a true one.