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Asians, Mormons Succeed More In Life: 'Triple Package Of Traits' A Fraud?

By George Houston | Update Date: Apr 21, 2016 05:31 AM EDT

Two Union College psychology professor fascinated by the theory of "The Triple Package" exposed the hollowness perpetuated by the said authors of the 2014 controversial bestseller.

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld both made a case in their book "The Triple Package" which set them to put forward a triad of cultural traits dubbed as the "triple package" which is "a tendency toward impulse control, personal insecurity, and a belief in the superiority of one's cultural or ethnic group combine to increase the odds that individuals will attain exceptional achievement."

The book also gives a nod to these aforementioned ethnicities: Cubans, East Asians, Indians, Jews, Lebanese, Mormons, Nigerians and Persians as ones who will belong to the group of highly prosperous individuals in the future, according to Eureka Alert!

This hypothesis set Joshua Hart and Christopher Chabris, the two university professors for a further investigation into if this popular theory will make the grade when scrutinized scientifically.

"One might argue that these facts make their theory undeserving of attention in psychological science," Hart and Chabris echoed in unison.

"We believe, on the contrary, that the wide dissemination and public discussion of Chua and Rubenfeld's theory are affirmative reasons for investigating it," they added.

In the duo's first scientific inquiry, Hart and Chabris pulled in 430 test subjects to answer a lengthy succession of questions handed out online. The survey run from looking for the participants' cognitive ability, personality traits, personal insecurity, impulsivity, ethnocentrism, and demographic variables.

At the end, the output of participants was a considered a success in itself as it dwelled in their own account of how much they yearly earn, the awards that they have received, and their utmost educational attainment.

"The Triple Package" theory, however, failed to connect to personal insecurity and success as the university study discovered that the former was in no way a boost but more related to a lesser amount of success.

Hart and Chabris explained, "In every analysis, success was predicted significantly by both parental education and participant cognitive ability. In three analyses, impulse control was an additional positive predictor of success; however, this effect was eliminated when we included the negative effect of personal insecurity, suggesting that the effect of impulse control is due to the fact that individuals' higher in impulse control also tends to be more emotionally stable."

Personal insecurity again was a constant negative association in the second experiment, wherein 828 participants again were subjected to the same questionnaire resulting in a meager relation to the triple package hypothesis - in which impulsivity, ethnocentricity, and insecurity were unsuccessfully connected to one's professional success.

Hart and Chabris noted that parental education and the participants' rational way of thinking were components to the measure of success.

Separately, Chua was associated with a controversy stemming from the way she raised her daughters, according to, in which the public clamored for child-abuse against the author, according to Wall Street Journal.

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