Research Summaries: Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals

Today’s research summary is based on this paper which Angela Duckworth co-authored with Chris Peterson and colleagues, and where she first introduced her concept of grit and operationalized it by introducing the Grit Scale. Monkey Grit (Photo credit: Wikipedia) One common thread running thorough Angela’s research is a (harmonious) obsession with finding out what leads to great achievement. A lot of earlier research in psychology has focused on the role of talent/ intelligence in high achievement, and that role is well established. Terman, for example, studied a group of highly gifted children in a famed longitudinal study which found that those who rose to prominence were more likely to exhibit “Perseverance, Self-Confidence, and Integration toward goals”, rather than mere high IQ. So, cognitive factors are just a part of the picture, and do not explain the whole picture. The other factors that  could influence high performance have been variously named as non-cognitive, personality or motivational factors. Among these, the Big Five personality trait of Conscientiousness keeps emerging in research linking personality with high achievement and work outcomes. However, conscientiousness may be multi-faceted with the achievement oriented facets that make one work hard, try to do a good job, and completes the task at hand, be more closely related to job performance than the dependability oriented facets that make one self-controlled and conventional. Thus Angela...
Source: The Mouse Trap - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: motivation Research Summaries Angela Duckworth grit Source Type: podcasts