Sustained passion and perseverance toward long-term goals is claimed to predict achievement beyond talent and intelligence.
Duckworth's construct became prominent quickly and the critique arrived with it. Credé's meta-analysis found the correlation with performance modest, the two-facet structure unsupported, and grit correlating with conscientiousness highly enough to raise a jangle problem: the question is whether it names anything that established personality measurement did not already capture.
In practice
- A selection process adding a grit measure to a conscientiousness measure gains very little it did not have.
- A programme teaching perseverance to pupils facing structural obstacles has addressed the pupils.
- Possible explanations
- One explanation is compounding: sustained effort on one goal accumulates skill that switching forfeits. Another is selection, since people who stay in demanding settings are those who were already suited to them.
- In its favour
- Grit predicts persistence in some demanding settings, such as military training, and the idea drew attention to effort in a field that had concentrated on ability.
- Against it
- Meta-analysis finds the correlation with performance modest, the two-facet structure unsupported, and the perseverance facet largely redundant with conscientiousness, which was already measured.
- Standing
- Meta-analysis finds grit predicts performance only modestly, and its perseverance facet is largely redundant with conscientiousness, which was already measured. The incremental contribution over existing constructs is small.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Creativity & Work
- Essay
- Protecting the conditions for good work