The Right Timing Matters: Sensitive Periods in the Formation of Socio-Emotional Skills - Laura Breitkopf, Shyamal Chowdhury, Daniel A. Kamhoefer, Hannah Schildberg-Hoerisch, and Matthias Sutter

Event Date: 18 January 2023

Speaker: Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch, Professor of Economics (Behavioral and Empirical Economics), Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

Time: 4-5:15pm

Location: Please contact Rachel Hill (r.hill@strath.ac.uk) for Zoom details

Abstract: "In a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with about 3,200 children in grades 2 to 5 in Bangladesh we examine the existence of sensitive periods in the formation of socio-emotional skills. In sensitive periods, returns to investments into skills are particularly high. Using a novel design for identifying sensitive periods, we implement the same intervention in different school grades to study its age-specific treatment effects on children's self-control, patience, and prosociality. Our results identify sensitive periods in the formation of self-control and patience around the ages 7 and 8, while prosociality appears to be similarly malleable throughout ages 7 to 11."

Published: 6 December 2022