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Contents
- Abstract
- Talent and Achievement
- Personality and Achievement
- Development of the Grit Scale
- The Present Research
- Study 1
- Method
- Participants and procedure
- Development of the Grit Scale
- Results and Discussion
- Study 2
- Method
- Results and Discussion
- Study 3
- Method
- Participants
- Procedure and measures
- Results and Discussion
- Study 4
- Method
- Participants
- Procedure
- Measures
- Grit
- Self-control
- Whole Candidate Score
- Summer retention
- Academic GPA
- Military Performance Score (MPS)
- Results and Discussion
- Study 5
- Method
- Results and Discussion
- Study 6
- Method
- Participants
- Measures
- Grit
- Self-control
- Verbal IQ
- Study time
- Final round
- Prior competitions
- Results and Discussion
- General Discussion
- Limitations
- Implications
Figures and Tables
Abstract
The importance of intellectual talent to achievement in all professional domains is well established, but less is known about other individual differences that predict success. The authors tested the importance of 1 noncognitive trait: grit. Defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, grit accounted for an average of 4% of the variance in success outcomes, including educational attainment among 2 samples of adults (N = 1,545 and N = 690), grade point average among Ivy League undergraduates (N = 138), retention in 2 classes of United States Military Academy, West Point, cadets (N = 1,218 and N = 1,308), and ranking in the National Spelling Bee (N = 175). Grit did not relate positively to IQ but was highly correlated with Big Five Conscientiousness. Grit nonetheless demonstrated incremental predictive validity of success measures over and beyond IQ and conscientiousness. Collectively, these findings suggest that the achievement of difficult goals entails not only talent but also the sustained and focused application of talent over time.
Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental resources…men the world over possess amounts of resource, which only exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use. (William James, 1907, pp. 322–323)
In 1907, William James proposed “a program of study that might with proper care be made to cover the whole field of psychology” (p. 332). James...