How responsible behaviour in your teenage years can help keep your whole life on the right path

"I wish I worked harder in high school", a sentiment wistfully uttered by many of us when reminiscing. Yet at the time, high school may have seemed like the last stop before adulthood, one final chance to slack off before really having to buckle down. While not taking those years too seriously might sound wise, newly published results from a study that examined the correlations between high school behaviour and future professional success might cause one to… well, be all the more wistful about their efforts.

In the longitudinal study, researchers first collected data on 346,660 US high school students in 1960, then follow up data from 81,912 of those same students 11 years later, and finally, data from 1,952 of them 50 years after high school. The initial 1960 data on high school students captured their demographics, familial economic status, responsibility and interest in school, habits and attitudes toward studying, self-perceived reading and writing skills, maturity, extroversion and actual comprehension levels in reading, writing and mathematics. Then the follow up surveys examined professional markers including educational attainment, annual income and occupational prestige (how society regards a particular profession).

Researchers found a distinct correlation between higher levels of responsibility, interest, and ease with reading and writing in high school, with higher educational attainment and greater occupational prestige in both the 11-year and 50-year follow up data. Furthermore, these factors all cumulated to correlate with higher income in the 50-year follow up.

At first glance at this data, one might assume that the naturally "smarter" and "well off" individuals would attain greater overall education, success and income – those that have a "head start" would be able to get farther ahead. But the researchers adjusted the data for academic comprehension levels, demographics and economic status, and the data still showed that better behaviours in high school resulted in greater future successes. That the correlation maintains through all levels should be encouraging to high schoolers across all levels; no matter where you start, it can definitely be improved on. Furthermore, the researchers believe that this data truly may indicate just how formative those high school years really are; that the habits that are developed at this stage can not only last, but can go a long way toward building a future.

Findings such as these are helpful as many high schools across the country are experimenting with factors such as later start times, online-only learning, and updating literature to reflect greater diversity, all in the name of keeping students invested and performing better. Another factor that needs to be considered is that the original data sampling was from high school students from 1960, a time that had much less opportunity for distraction. Smartphones and social media could be considered the creeping corruptors of our modern times – increased social media use has often been correlated with poorer performance and even less sleep, while cell phone bans in the classroom might actually lead to an increase in academic performance.

In that sense, these findings coupled with the current landscape should be used to motivate high school students (and their parents, peers and teachers) to realize that it isn't too early to instill good academic behaviours and that developing that level of responsibility now could have a positive and productive impact on the rest of their lives.