Desempenho no ENEM de vestibulandos a partir da perspectiva evolucionista e do autocontrole

Abstract

Among the various variables associated with academic performance, the appreciation of future results has contributed to explaining the performance of young people and adolescents. According to the literature, young people who prefer future rewards perform better, while those who look down on the future tend to perform poorly. The preference for the higher-value, delayed option of a reinforcer may be a prototype of self-control behavior. In some studies of young people, the tendency to devalue the future is seen by psychology as dysfunctional. However, preferring the closest reward over the later reward can be adaptive in some contexts, especially when analyzed from an evolutionary perspective. The objective of this research was to verify whether high future discount rates and fast life history strategies were related to poor grades in ENEM 2019. Through an online questionnaire, 66 participants, enrolled in ENEM 2019, between 18 and 20 years old, from the metropolitan region of Belém, from public and private institutions, answered the task of monetary choice, questions about life span, perception of the future, lifespan estimation, Life History Strategy Scale (Mini-K), questions on sociodemographic and performance. The analysis was performed using the R software and consisted of hypothesis tests and multiple linear regression. The results did not show the expected relationships between future discount rates and life history strategies and performance in ENEM 2019. However, the predictor of future perception showed a significant positive relationship with performance, and participants who studied in private institutions had significantly higher performance. Participants with more means tended to attend private institutions, and in turn, these tended to perform better in ENEM. This research confirms that academic performance is the result of many factors, which will not always be individual, such as self-control, but may involve other factors, such as the institution in which the young person was trained. This may require an expansion in the way of conducting research and thinking about interventions.