11 ms·

It might be one of the cases where correlation doesn't imply causation. For an objective study, we would need to assign children to groups randomly. Otherwise,

It might be one of the cases where correlation doesn't imply causation. For an objective study, we would need to assign children to groups randomly. Otherwise, we can miss various obscure selection effects. (For example, if children who are more likely to be scouts, are also likely to be from a particular socioeconomic background).

parennoob 10y ago
This is almost certainly the case. Being a scout/guide strongly correlates with parental income in the US at least – I don't know how it is in the UK. But if that is true, the headline might as well be "Being rich provides a mental health boost for life".
- dfsegoat 10y ago
  Have any data to support that? Anecdotally, the Scout Troops in my area are all fairly blue collar.
- fahrradflucht 10y ago
  Here in Germany it is the same. Being a scout/guide strongly correlates with high(er) parental income, high(er) education and having no migratory background. (This is not just anecdotal but are findings that the RDP (Ring of German scout organizations) made a couple years ago.)
- ptero 10y ago
  At least in my area I do not have an impression that scout kids are from richer families than all school kids (which should be a pretty good reference point; a little lower maybe because some of the richer parents take their kids to private schools). I do see scouts take lots of active outside trips which can help with mental balance. Doing white water rafting, being thrown overboard, fighting elements, being cold and wet, seeing occasional physical injuries and the beauty of the stars in a desert can put minor life disappointments into perspective for a long long time. My 2c.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  My scouts (was Scoutmaster for 20 years) definitely did not fit the 'rich kid' profile. Farm kids, rural community, parents working 2 jobs or driving a truck. We went to mountains, deserts, rivers and lakes. We swam in a lake on an island in a lake. We canoed, hiked, camped, cooked, woodworked, laughed and ran. Our Troop tried to keep event costs down to around $15, so everybody could participate. Succeeded for the most part. And we did regular fundraisers so anybody who wanted to go, had a way to get there. Scout Troops can be expensive too. Our district has that kind. That can drive the perception of the demographic. But our Troop was top-rated in our District for years. And not because of money. It was because our youth led a very rigorous program, invested themselves in it, and expected a lot from one another. That's actually the whole point of Scouting - getting the youth invested in something worthwhile. In the process, modeling behaviors and training skills and leadership.
  - moyta 10y ago
    Depends on your troop, I know by far we were the best funded troop in our council, but that was purely due to the area we were able to sell christmas trees in. Without that, we would not have been able to get half our troop to go on trips, or get the proper gear (wool clothing, a good pack, tent, sleeping pad, etc) due to a lack of affordability. I do feel bad for the other troops in our area though, I know at least 2 folded while we were going strong, one got kicked out of the district cause the BSA hates gay scoutmasters, and the other had no place to meet and severe funding issues. Running a troop requires a ton of parental involvement and effort, and outside the Mormons most troops are dying in the US. It is really quite sad, but I get why. None of the gay guys in my troop could participate in leadership due to the BSA's policies at the time, and in a small troop that is lethal, you need every warm body that is willing to do the fundraising, planning, organizing, paperwork, etc. and they are few and far between
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Our Troop required only a little parental involvement. The youth leadership decided most things. The parents were needed to drive, to serve on the committee (one meeting a month). It helps to have a strong Patrol Leader Council. The gay youth in my Troop never had a problem taking leadership roles. The BSA national (read: Mormon) policy was no gay Adult leaders?
- bkmartin 10y ago
  I have observed the opposite in my son's scout troop. None of the kids come from "wealthy" families. Some are very poor in fact. It is all about parental involvement. These kids have parents or grandparents that see the value in having their children involved in an organization focused on character building, team building, being a good citizen, and doing your best in life. Our troop is a beacon of positivity, fun, respect, and focus on doing the right thing.
mcjiggerlog 10y ago
Totally agreed - very flawed study.
- caminante 10y ago
  Did you look at the study? I'm biased to pile on too social science studies but the study in question made efforts to address these considerations. From another article [0]: "On average, scouts and guides were 15 per cent less likely to have developed mental illness or depression by middle age, even those from poorer backgrounds whose initial risk was higher." [0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/11/10/scouts-and-guides-grow-up-to-have-better-mental-health/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/11/10/scouts-and-gui...
  - bencollier49 10y ago
    Wealth correlates with parental involvement but not at 1.0 - in other words, if parental involvement is a confounding variable (most likely given its established effect on mental health), correcting for wealth won't eliminate it.
    - caminante 10y ago
      Who's disagreeing with you? I'm lost as to what you're responding to.
      - bencollier49 10y ago
        "the study in question made efforts to address these considerations" I'd argue that they didn't make enough efforts.
        caminante 10y ago
        Are you assuming that or did you look at the research paper?
TorKlingberg 10y ago
They did try to compensate for such things, but I always wonder if studies can compensate enough. Two households with the same income can have very different socioeconomic status, which may influence both mental health and the amount of scouting.
- mattkrause 10y ago
  They're not using household income though--they're using a score (actually, a pair of scores) that are supposed to capture "class".
mkrum 10y ago
Not only from a socioeconomic point of view, but I would guess that having parents who are involved enough in a child's life to pay for, drive to, and participate in these types of activities is more likely to be a source of a "mental health boost"
- deadringerr 10y ago
  This is probably true, and why Oregon just passed Outdoor School for All [0]. It's not exactly the same as scouts and guides but it is a guaranteed week-long outdoor education to every student in Oregon. [0] http://www.outdoorschoolforall.org/ http://www.outdoorschoolforall.org/
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  This is what I was going to say - suspect this stems from having parents or guardians who cared enough to get you involved in such an activity, and the environment that suggests, rather than scouting directly.
  - redcap 10y ago
    There's a lot to be said for going for a 3-day hike in the wilderness, even if you're accompanied by a parent. Going with a scout group usually means that you wont be relying on the parent as you want to stay as a member of the group of people your own age. You'll start to feel tired and sore at some stage, and it may start to rain. But if you've prepared properly (and the scout motto is "be prepared"), then you should be ok. It's just a matter of getting away from it all, and perhaps embracing the suck as mentioned above.
    - madaxe_again 10y ago
      It's true - but I scouted for years and still turned out neurotic and anxious - but I had dismissive parents who I only spent a few months or so with throughout my childhood.
elcct 10y ago
This is so common nowadays. Looks like clicks are more important than meaningful information and it is sad that such journalism hits thought to be credible entities like BBC.
jjp 10y ago
More details on the study from NewScientist [1] They analysed data from a long-running study of almost 10,000 people across the UK who were born in November 1958. They found that 28 per cent of the study’s participants had been involved in the Scouts or Guides, and that these were 15 per cent less likely to suffer from anxiety or mood disorders at the age of 50 than their peers who didn’t join. Scouts or Guides were not more likely to come from families of any particular social status. However, people from poorer backgrounds do have a relatively higher likelihood of mental illness – but this effect seemed to be reduced or even removed in those who attended Scouts or Guides. [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112209-scouts-and-guides-grow-up-to-have-better-mental-health-at-age-50/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112209-scouts-and-guid... Submitter but not involved in the study
- redcalx 10y ago
  There is a selection bias issue here. E.g. if there were some underling genetic disorder that causes anxiety, then that person is less likely to join a group.
  - moyta 10y ago
    Eh, I would say most new scouts are pretty anxious, and they also potentially come with other issues like asthma that likes to flare up, seizures, diabetes, etc. having had to deal with patrol members with these issues, sometimes 2 having one of these issues at the same time out of a group of 6 or 7. Generally you deal with it as quickly & safely as possible, get the rest of your patrol to rally and do what is needed to get said person into a stable state, while sending one member to alert your assistant scoutmaster so that further help can be at the ready. That doesn't mean you get to shirk off and not go get his asthma meds, or get the guy with hypothermia some wool clothing and figure out a way to get him warmed up in short order (throw 3 people in a sleeping bag, or a warm (but not hot!) shower if you are lucky to have one). If there is one thing I learned, Cotton Kills! (referencing its heat wicking effect when wet)
    - redcalx 10y ago
gr3yh47 10y ago
>It might be one of the cases where correlation doesn't imply causation. This was my first thought. I would bet it has more to do with the kind of parents who would enroll their kids in scouts (either for socioeconomic reasons as you mentioned or maybe just whatever else that means about the type of parents they are)
Lxr 10y ago
This. So many studies fail to even mention this now. Next time you see a study on the health benefits of some new type of exercise for example, it's worth checking that the results aren't explained by the healthy group simply being more inclined to exercise (see also: less sleep leads to a shorter life, anxiety leads to health problems, etc)
gwern 10y ago
Definitely. This is exactly the sort of study you strongly expect the causal conclusion to not obtain and disappear in a randomized study/genetically-sensitive design (anxiety and other mental issues are highly heritable, of course), right up there with such classic sociology non-results as 'children whose fathers leave do worse' or 'children who experience corporal punishment have more behavioral problems' or 'children whose mothers drank during pregnancy are stupider', both because the actual randomized studies of things like early-childhood interventions like Headstart show no effects or fadeout and because there is tons of self-selection in who goes into scouting and who is able to/chooses to stay in it. (Most of the kids who joined with me dropped out at some point, and the more troubled ones dropped out earliest.) Like most of these results, I expect most of the correlation would disappear if you compared siblings, or better yet (but harder to find), discordant twins, or used polygenic scores of genetic risk for anxiety disorders. This study couldn't do it because they took a one-week sample of UK births so no siblings and too few twins, but I'm sure a twin registry or the UK Biobank or someone has asked about extracurriculars like scouting.
- gwern 10y ago
  And oh yes, since scouting tends to be a family thing where if one son is enrolled in Boy Scouts, the other sons will be too, that means any supposed causal effect of Boy Scouts would fall under 'shared environment' estimates from family & twin designs, which measure the influence of all variables influencing entire families such as parenting choices. And shared environment estimates for anxiety and mental health disorders in general are almost always small. So... if taken at face value, the choice of Boy Scouting or not could explain most or all of a family's influence on anxiety! This seems highly improbable, to say the least.
- objectivistbrit 10y ago
  A gwern classic - the second sentence of this wall of text contains 112 words and 14 verbs. I think your tendency to include tons of parenthetical remarks, caveats and every example you can think of, confuses the reader and makes it hard to figure out your essential point.
  - 10y ago
salmonet 10y ago
That's true, but that study will probably never happen. You can expect that to be one of the top comments on any article like this on HN. It's a speed vs. accuracy problem though. The correlation between global temperatures and human CO2 emissions doesn't mean causation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't useful info paired with common sense.
lonewolf_ninja 10y ago
Definitely agree with that. The socioeconomic background does make a difference. In my city, the schools in the lower economic status did not even have a scouts/guides program and the ones that did were mostly in schools where the middle class/upper middle class kids went to.
mattkrause 10y ago
An RCT for this would literally be insane. "Sign up and we might abduct your kid on Thursdays from 7-9pm, as well as 8-10 weekends/year." Please though, give the researchers some credit. Controlling for demographic factors is sort of the bare minimum for something like this--which they attempted to do by including two "social position" factors in the model. They also included some factors relating to childhood (presumably pre-Scouts) mental health, which might also help address selection bias.

parennoob 10y ago

This is almost certainly the case. Being a scout/guide strongly correlates with parental income in the US at least – I don't know how it is in the UK. But if that is true, the headline might as well be "Being rich provides a mental health boost for life".

dfsegoat 10y ago
Have any data to support that? Anecdotally, the Scout Troops in my area are all fairly blue collar.
fahrradflucht 10y ago
Here in Germany it is the same. Being a scout/guide strongly correlates with high(er) parental income, high(er) education and having no migratory background. (This is not just anecdotal but are findings that the RDP (Ring of German scout organizations) made a couple years ago.)
ptero 10y ago
At least in my area I do not have an impression that scout kids are from richer families than all school kids (which should be a pretty good reference point; a little lower maybe because some of the richer parents take their kids to private schools). I do see scouts take lots of active outside trips which can help with mental balance. Doing white water rafting, being thrown overboard, fighting elements, being cold and wet, seeing occasional physical injuries and the beauty of the stars in a desert can put minor life disappointments into perspective for a long long time. My 2c.
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
My scouts (was Scoutmaster for 20 years) definitely did not fit the 'rich kid' profile. Farm kids, rural community, parents working 2 jobs or driving a truck. We went to mountains, deserts, rivers and lakes. We swam in a lake on an island in a lake. We canoed, hiked, camped, cooked, woodworked, laughed and ran. Our Troop tried to keep event costs down to around $15, so everybody could participate. Succeeded for the most part. And we did regular fundraisers so anybody who wanted to go, had a way to get there. Scout Troops can be expensive too. Our district has that kind. That can drive the perception of the demographic. But our Troop was top-rated in our District for years. And not because of money. It was because our youth led a very rigorous program, invested themselves in it, and expected a lot from one another. That's actually the whole point of Scouting - getting the youth invested in something worthwhile. In the process, modeling behaviors and training skills and leadership.
- moyta 10y ago
  Depends on your troop, I know by far we were the best funded troop in our council, but that was purely due to the area we were able to sell christmas trees in. Without that, we would not have been able to get half our troop to go on trips, or get the proper gear (wool clothing, a good pack, tent, sleeping pad, etc) due to a lack of affordability. I do feel bad for the other troops in our area though, I know at least 2 folded while we were going strong, one got kicked out of the district cause the BSA hates gay scoutmasters, and the other had no place to meet and severe funding issues. Running a troop requires a ton of parental involvement and effort, and outside the Mormons most troops are dying in the US. It is really quite sad, but I get why. None of the gay guys in my troop could participate in leadership due to the BSA's policies at the time, and in a small troop that is lethal, you need every warm body that is willing to do the fundraising, planning, organizing, paperwork, etc. and they are few and far between
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Our Troop required only a little parental involvement. The youth leadership decided most things. The parents were needed to drive, to serve on the committee (one meeting a month). It helps to have a strong Patrol Leader Council. The gay youth in my Troop never had a problem taking leadership roles. The BSA national (read: Mormon) policy was no gay Adult leaders?
bkmartin 10y ago
I have observed the opposite in my son's scout troop. None of the kids come from "wealthy" families. Some are very poor in fact. It is all about parental involvement. These kids have parents or grandparents that see the value in having their children involved in an organization focused on character building, team building, being a good citizen, and doing your best in life. Our troop is a beacon of positivity, fun, respect, and focus on doing the right thing.

mcjiggerlog 10y ago

Totally agreed - very flawed study.

caminante 10y ago
Did you look at the study? I'm biased to pile on too social science studies but the study in question made efforts to address these considerations. From another article [0]: "On average, scouts and guides were 15 per cent less likely to have developed mental illness or depression by middle age, even those from poorer backgrounds whose initial risk was higher." [0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/11/10/scouts-and-guides-grow-up-to-have-better-mental-health/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/11/10/scouts-and-gui...
- bencollier49 10y ago
  Wealth correlates with parental involvement but not at 1.0 - in other words, if parental involvement is a confounding variable (most likely given its established effect on mental health), correcting for wealth won't eliminate it.
  - caminante 10y ago
    Who's disagreeing with you? I'm lost as to what you're responding to.
    - bencollier49 10y ago
      "the study in question made efforts to address these considerations" I'd argue that they didn't make enough efforts.
      - caminante 10y ago
        Are you assuming that or did you look at the research paper?

TorKlingberg 10y ago

They did try to compensate for such things, but I always wonder if studies can compensate enough. Two households with the same income can have very different socioeconomic status, which may influence both mental health and the amount of scouting.

mattkrause 10y ago
They're not using household income though--they're using a score (actually, a pair of scores) that are supposed to capture "class".

mkrum 10y ago

Not only from a socioeconomic point of view, but I would guess that having parents who are involved enough in a child's life to pay for, drive to, and participate in these types of activities is more likely to be a source of a "mental health boost"

deadringerr 10y ago
This is probably true, and why Oregon just passed Outdoor School for All [0]. It's not exactly the same as scouts and guides but it is a guaranteed week-long outdoor education to every student in Oregon. [0] http://www.outdoorschoolforall.org/ http://www.outdoorschoolforall.org/
madaxe_again 10y ago
This is what I was going to say - suspect this stems from having parents or guardians who cared enough to get you involved in such an activity, and the environment that suggests, rather than scouting directly.
- redcap 10y ago
  There's a lot to be said for going for a 3-day hike in the wilderness, even if you're accompanied by a parent. Going with a scout group usually means that you wont be relying on the parent as you want to stay as a member of the group of people your own age. You'll start to feel tired and sore at some stage, and it may start to rain. But if you've prepared properly (and the scout motto is "be prepared"), then you should be ok. It's just a matter of getting away from it all, and perhaps embracing the suck as mentioned above.
  - madaxe_again 10y ago
    It's true - but I scouted for years and still turned out neurotic and anxious - but I had dismissive parents who I only spent a few months or so with throughout my childhood.

elcct 10y ago

This is so common nowadays. Looks like clicks are more important than meaningful information and it is sad that such journalism hits thought to be credible entities like BBC.

jjp 10y ago

More details on the study from NewScientist [1] They analysed data from a long-running study of almost 10,000 people across the UK who were born in November 1958. They found that 28 per cent of the study’s participants had been involved in the Scouts or Guides, and that these were 15 per cent less likely to suffer from anxiety or mood disorders at the age of 50 than their peers who didn’t join. Scouts or Guides were not more likely to come from families of any particular social status. However, people from poorer backgrounds do have a relatively higher likelihood of mental illness – but this effect seemed to be reduced or even removed in those who attended Scouts or Guides. [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112209-scouts-and-guides-grow-up-to-have-better-mental-health-at-age-50/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112209-scouts-and-guid... Submitter but not involved in the study

redcalx 10y ago
There is a selection bias issue here. E.g. if there were some underling genetic disorder that causes anxiety, then that person is less likely to join a group.
- moyta 10y ago
  Eh, I would say most new scouts are pretty anxious, and they also potentially come with other issues like asthma that likes to flare up, seizures, diabetes, etc. having had to deal with patrol members with these issues, sometimes 2 having one of these issues at the same time out of a group of 6 or 7. Generally you deal with it as quickly & safely as possible, get the rest of your patrol to rally and do what is needed to get said person into a stable state, while sending one member to alert your assistant scoutmaster so that further help can be at the ready. That doesn't mean you get to shirk off and not go get his asthma meds, or get the guy with hypothermia some wool clothing and figure out a way to get him warmed up in short order (throw 3 people in a sleeping bag, or a warm (but not hot!) shower if you are lucky to have one). If there is one thing I learned, Cotton Kills! (referencing its heat wicking effect when wet)
  - redcalx 10y ago

gr3yh47 10y ago

>It might be one of the cases where correlation doesn't imply causation. This was my first thought. I would bet it has more to do with the kind of parents who would enroll their kids in scouts (either for socioeconomic reasons as you mentioned or maybe just whatever else that means about the type of parents they are)

Lxr 10y ago

This. So many studies fail to even mention this now. Next time you see a study on the health benefits of some new type of exercise for example, it's worth checking that the results aren't explained by the healthy group simply being more inclined to exercise (see also: less sleep leads to a shorter life, anxiety leads to health problems, etc)

gwern 10y ago

Definitely. This is exactly the sort of study you strongly expect the causal conclusion to not obtain and disappear in a randomized study/genetically-sensitive design (anxiety and other mental issues are highly heritable, of course), right up there with such classic sociology non-results as 'children whose fathers leave do worse' or 'children who experience corporal punishment have more behavioral problems' or 'children whose mothers drank during pregnancy are stupider', both because the actual randomized studies of things like early-childhood interventions like Headstart show no effects or fadeout and because there is tons of self-selection in who goes into scouting and who is able to/chooses to stay in it. (Most of the kids who joined with me dropped out at some point, and the more troubled ones dropped out earliest.) Like most of these results, I expect most of the correlation would disappear if you compared siblings, or better yet (but harder to find), discordant twins, or used polygenic scores of genetic risk for anxiety disorders. This study couldn't do it because they took a one-week sample of UK births so no siblings and too few twins, but I'm sure a twin registry or the UK Biobank or someone has asked about extracurriculars like scouting.

gwern 10y ago
And oh yes, since scouting tends to be a family thing where if one son is enrolled in Boy Scouts, the other sons will be too, that means any supposed causal effect of Boy Scouts would fall under 'shared environment' estimates from family & twin designs, which measure the influence of all variables influencing entire families such as parenting choices. And shared environment estimates for anxiety and mental health disorders in general are almost always small. So... if taken at face value, the choice of Boy Scouting or not could explain most or all of a family's influence on anxiety! This seems highly improbable, to say the least.
objectivistbrit 10y ago
A gwern classic - the second sentence of this wall of text contains 112 words and 14 verbs. I think your tendency to include tons of parenthetical remarks, caveats and every example you can think of, confuses the reader and makes it hard to figure out your essential point.
- 10y ago

salmonet 10y ago

That's true, but that study will probably never happen. You can expect that to be one of the top comments on any article like this on HN. It's a speed vs. accuracy problem though. The correlation between global temperatures and human CO2 emissions doesn't mean causation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't useful info paired with common sense.

lonewolf_ninja 10y ago

Definitely agree with that. The socioeconomic background does make a difference. In my city, the schools in the lower economic status did not even have a scouts/guides program and the ones that did were mostly in schools where the middle class/upper middle class kids went to.

mattkrause 10y ago

An RCT for this would literally be insane. "Sign up and we might abduct your kid on Thursdays from 7-9pm, as well as 8-10 weekends/year." Please though, give the researchers some credit. Controlling for demographic factors is sort of the bare minimum for something like this--which they attempted to do by including two "social position" factors in the model. They also included some factors relating to childhood (presumably pre-Scouts) mental health, which might also help address selection bias.