Disobedient children may be in danger of getting a lump of coal from Santa Claus each holiday season, but when it comes to life, they are winning.

That’s at least according to the findings of a new 745-child study originally reported in Development Psychology.

Apparently children with brat-like qualities go on to make more money than their more obedient counterparts.

According to a report from Yahoo!’s John Johnson, researchers at the University of Luxembourg, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Free University of Berlin came to their findings after tracking data on 745 people in Luxembourg from the ages of 12 to 52.

What they found is that disobedient children, or kids who defied authority, ended up making more money as grownups, in large part due to their bratty tendencies.

“Rule breaking and defiance of parental authority was the best non-cognitive predictor of higher income after accounting for IQ, parental socio-economic status, and educational attainment,” the study read.

The “occupational success” of each child was measured “using an index that ranks careers based on prestige and socioeconomic status,” Quartz added.

Researchers were not certain why it worked out the way it did, but they speculated that rebellious types “might be more aggressive when negotiating salary or raises, and they might thrive on competition more than their peers,” the Yahoo! report stated.

Furthermore, they “might be more willing to break the law or at least engage in iffy behavior to boost their income.”

That’s at least if they make it to adulthood without one of their peers, or a teacher, or a restaurant patron whose had it with their snotty behavior strangling them first.