In 2009, a team of researchers in Chicago aimed to evaluate a weekly school initiative for teenage boys known as Becoming a Man. They selected 18 schools situated in some of the city’s most perilous areas. Some boys were randomly given the opportunity to participate, while others were not, allowing for a comparative analysis of the two groups. By the conclusion of the academic year, the participating boys had experienced a 45 percent reduction in arrests for violent offenses.
Four years later, the study was repeated with a new group of boys. This time, the reduction reached 50 percent. The findings from both experiments were published collectively in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
What could explain this change? Many might assume the boys developed better self-control, resilience, or the presence of a supportive mentor. However, the researchers found no evidence that any of these factors accounted for the results. Their most compelling explanation was much simpler: the boys learned to pause before reacting.
It begins with a ball.
### The Ball in the Fist
Imagine a classroom in Chicago. A set of teenage boys forms pairs. In each pair, one boy receives a ball and encloses it in his fist. The other boy has 30 seconds to retrieve it.
Nearly every boy attempts to grab, yank, and twist it free. Then the group leader highlights the one tactic that none tried: simply asking.
Why not? Most boys respond with something like “he would have thought I was a punk.” So, the leader turns to the boys holding the ball. What would they have done if someone had asked nicely?
“I would have given it,” they commonly respond. “It’s just a stupid ball.”
This activity is part of Becoming a Man, or BAM, organized by the Chicago charity Youth Guidance. It incorporates elements from cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, which assists individuals in “thinking about their thinking,” as stated in the paper. Boys gathered in groups of about eight, for one hour each week, during school hours. The group leaders were college-educated men, frequently from neighborhoods akin to those of the boys, who required no special training in psychology.
### Same Result, Four Years Apart
Rather than relying on the boys’ accounts, the researchers scrutinized police and educational records. The first trial involved 2,740 boys in grades 7 to 10. The second trial, conducted from 2013 to 2015, tracked 2,064 ninth and tenth graders over two years.
During the program’s operation, overall arrests decreased by 28 percent in the first trial and by 35 percent in the second. Arrests for violent crimes dropped by 45 and 50 percent, respectively. The similarities in the two results were so close that the differences could easily be ascribed to chance. This is significant: numerous youth programs appear effective once but fail to undergo further testing.
Only about half of the boys offered a spot attended even one session, so these statistics reflect estimates for those who participated.
### Not Grit, and Not a Mentor
When teenagers veer off course, society often gravitates toward a limited set of explanations. The researchers investigated these, utilizing school surveys regarding grit, social competencies, and whether students had an adult at school to confide in. “We find no positive evidence that these effects are due to changes in emotional intelligence or social skills, self-control or ‘grit,’ or a generic mentoring effect,” the authors assert.
They concede that their “data on mechanisms are not ideal,” with grit gauged through merely two questions. Consequently, grit and mentoring weren’t excluded from consideration; however, nothing indicated they played a role.
Reflect back on the ball. No one in that setting was learning to suppress his anger or put in more effort. They were learning to pause and reconsider their instinctual reactions.
### The Moment Before a Fight
The researchers contend that this instinct is crucial and is not exclusive to these boys. We all frequently act on autopilot since thoroughly analyzing every situation requires mental effort.
For a boy in a high-risk neighborhood, one instinctive response is to retaliate strongly when provoked. On the streets, that can prevent him from appearing as an easy mark. The issue arises when this instinct is triggered in other contexts. For example, being scolded by a teacher, the authors note, “may at first glance feel like one’s reputation is being challenged, just as it would on the street.”
To explore this notion, the team organized a game with approximately 490 boys from the second trial. Imagine one of them seated in an empty classroom with a researcher. An envelope containing $10 is presented to him. He is informed that another student somewhere in the building is also participating. The two will communicate via a walkie-talkie.
The walkie-talkie crackles. His partner, the voice informs him, has chosen to take $6 of his money. Then it is his turn. The partner now possesses $10 of his own. How much of it does the boy wish to claim?
In reality, there was no other student. The voice was merely a researcher reading from a script.
Boys who had not participated in BAM made their decisions in approximately 1.1 seconds.