Ability to forego instant rewards boosts future income

The ability to delay gratification -- sacrificing smaller, instant benefits for the prospect of larger future rewards -- is among the most important factors predicting higher income, say scientists who used artificial intelligence to rank determinants of affluence.

The researchers from Temple University in the US found that education and occupation were the best predictors.

However, ability to delay instant gratification beat factors like age, race, ethnicity and height.

Published in Frontiers in Psychology, the study suggests that interventions to improve this "delay discounting" could have literal payoffs in terms of higher income attainment.

Many factors are related to how much money a person will earn, including age, occupation, education, gender, ethnicity and even height. Behavioral variables are also implicated, such as one relating to the famous "marshmallow test."