The Welfare Trait: How State Benefits Affect Personality

by Adam Perkins

The welfare state has a each generation living under its protection has lower work motivation than the previous one. In order to fix this problem we need to understand its causes, lest the welfare state ends up undermining its own economic and social foundations. In The Welfare Trait , award-winning personality researcher Dr Adam Perkins argues that welfare-induced personality mis-development is a significant part of the problem. In support of his theory, Dr Perkins presents data showing that the welfare state can boost the number of children born into disadvantaged households, and that childhood disadvantage promotes the development of an employment-resistant personality profile, characterised by aggressive, antisocial and rule-breaking tendencies. The book concludes by recommending that policy should be altered so that the welfare state no longer increases the number of children born into disadvantaged households. It suggests that, without this change, the welfare state will erode the nation's work ethic by increasing the proportion of individuals in the population who possess an employment-resistant personality profile, due to exposure to the environmental influence of disadvantage in childhood.

Genres: Psychology, Politics, Sociology, Economics, Nonfiction

211 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2015

Reviews

[Maru Kun]

A book reviewed for the Adam Smith Institute by Adam Sabisky, who was the second eugenicist to be appointed as an advisor to 10 Downing St in the post-war period (Dominic Cummings being the first). Regrettably for future historians of the rise of fascism in 21st century Britain, the Adam Smith Institute has deleted the review.

Andrew Sabisky: Boris Johnson's ex-adviser in his own words.

[Bob Duke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was interested to read this book due to having read about the cancellation of the talk that the author was scheduled to deliver about it at the LSE. I have been somewhat alarmed about the rising tide of censorship in academia so I elected to read this book to find out what was so offensive. It basically argues that the welfare state has been responsible for propagating an anti-social mind set that is corrosive to many of the values that are essential to the function of modern society. He does not argue for the abolition of the welfare state but for its reformation. People are not to be rewarded for raising dysfunctional children but instead more resources are to be put into early childhood education. Here he cites the work of the American economist and Nobel laureate James Heckman who argues that for every dollar placed in early childhood education the return is several multiples of that in terms of reduced policing, prison, health and other expenditures. The author backs up with data the anecdotal experience of my own life. I once lived in Farmers Crescent which has often been described as the worst street in New Zealand. However this was from 1965 to 1970 when people living on benefits were rare. My childhood there was a happy one and I had no sense of deprivation. Changes in this street are very much the same as what the author describes.

[Celine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sweeping generalisations based on a few anecdotes and studies (most of which are outdated and limited in scope). Relying repeatedly on the same obscure, post-war case studies to analyse the complex currents of the contemporary welfare system and the ‘welfare trait’ reveals a messy and complacent engagement with the topic. The absence of a rigorous academic framework, inconclusive data and a pattern of assumed causality made it difficult to get through what should have been an interesting book.

Having said this, I do agree with some of the book's conclusions - most notably that our welfare system is flawed in its current state, and that policy should be altered to avoid the worrying erosion of our nation's work ethic. It also echoes some of my own frustrations and the challenges I have encountered working in the social sector.

In particular, Adam Perkins puts forth a convincing argument in regards to how state benefits can enhance negative personality traits: "The crucial point to realise here is that a person with relatively low scores on conscientiousness and agreeableness is able to behave diligently and cooperatively, but will only do so when subject to some suitable powerful extrinsic incentive, such as the fear of destitution. If a welfare state is implemented that removes the fear of destitution, it can be viewed as a noble thing, but it is also a personality filter, preferentially stripping the workforce of those individuals with low levels of work motivation who, in pre-welfare eras, would have bitten the proverbial bullet, suppressed their antisocial urges and buckled down to the challenge of working for a living."

Overall, it is difficult to take the book's methodology seriously - even though the thesis put forth is an interesting one that deserves more robust scholarly focus.

[Who · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very simple idea, expounded endlessly by the author. What surprised me was the environmentality of Perkin's argument - far more nuanced than the typical dysgenic arguments about welfare. Perkins has many critics, by his research is sound

[Sichu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting idea, but the evidence is rather scant. Sure, once you control for intelligence, conscientiousness is the important moderator. Sure personality traits are heritable(.3 as a lower bound), sure traits like low agreeableness and conscientiousness are related to criminality. These things are well known. R/K theory? Really. Density dependent selection isn't the most important thing. Mating is a hugely complicated process and to say automatically that when we put people on welfare, they have more kids than they would have if they wasn't on welfare takes more evidence than what the book provides. Especially since he is talking about people with anti-social traits and lack "responsibility", they might have kids anyway even if they don't have the resources to support them. Of course, the arguments comes back full circle because the modern state does provide for kids that their parents can't support. So in that way he could be right. It's sort of saying that the kids of Ivy league professors are more likely to be high on conscientiousness and intelligence, we don't really need peer reviewed papers to tell us this. In a way this parallels the discussion about dysgenics. But we need not to even question his data, we can accept his data. Let's see say for some reason what he terms employment resistant personality people does end up having more children than people without this. Are we not sure we are not selecting for some other demographics trend? It is well known that education correlates negatively with the amount of offspring. Since what he terms the employment resistant personality is less likely to be educated and lacks degrees, maybe we just seeing this demographic shift in action. In a way that is completely independent of welfare. I just feel like the evidence he has gathered is too premature for a book. A intriguing thesis, but in dire need of more study.