Grit

by Angela Duckworth

  traits are polygenic: Christopher F. Chabris et al., “The Fourth Law of Behavioral Genetics,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 24 (2015): 304–12.

  at least 697 different genes: Andrew R. Wood et al., “Defining the Role of Common Variation in the Genomic and Biological Architecture of Adult Human Height,” Nature Genetics 46 (2014): 1173–86.

  as many as twenty-five thousand different genes: “A Brief Guide to Genomics,” National Human Genome Research Institute, last modified August 27, 2015, http://www.genome.gov/18016863.

  Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale: The Wechsler tests are now published by Pearson’s Clinical Assessment.

  in the last fifty years: Information on the Flynn effect comes from personal communications with James Flynn from 2006 to 2015. For more information on the Flynn effect, see James R. Flynn, Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).See also Jakob Pietschnig and Martin Voracek, “One Century of Global IQ Gains: A Formal Meta-Analysis of the Flynn Effect (1909–2013),” Perspectives on Psychological Science 10 (2015): 282–306. In this analysis of 271 independent samples, totaling almost four million people from thirty-one countries, a few key findings emerged: IQ gains are ubiquitous and positive over the past century; gains have varied in magnitude by domain of intelligence; gains have been less dramatic in recent years; and, finally, candidate causes include, in addition to social multiplier effects, changes in education, nutrition, hygiene, medical care, and test-taking sophistication.

  the social multiplier effect: William T. Dickens and James R. Flynn, “Heritability Estimates Versus Large Environmental Effects: The IQ Paradox Resolved,” Psychological Review 108 (2001): 346–69.

  Grit and age: These data are originally reported in Duckworth et al., “Grit,” 1092.

  more conscientious, confident, caring, and calm: Avshalom Caspi, Brent W. Roberts, and Rebecca L. Shiner, “Personality Development: Stability and Change,” Annual Review of Psychology 56 (2005): 453–84.

  “the maturity principle”: Ibid., 468.

  “doesn’t come overnight”: Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 347.

  “you’re late, you’re fired”: Bernie Noe, head of school, Lakeside School, Seattle, in an interview with the author, July 29, 2015.

  interest without purpose: Ken M. Sheldon, “Becoming Oneself: The Central Role of Self-Concordant Goal Selection,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 18 (2014): 349–65. See psychologist Ken Sheldon’s work on enjoyment and importance as the two components of what he calls autonomously motivated goals. Ken points out that all of us have responsibilities we must fulfill out of obligation or necessity. But no matter how much we think we care about externally motivated goals, their accomplishment rarely fulfills us in the way that interesting and purposeful goals do. A lot of the people in Ken’s studies are highly educated and very comfortably upper-middle-class yet sorely lacking in autonomously motivated goals. They tell Ken they feel like they’re in the passenger seat of their own lives. By following these individuals over time, Ken’s learned that they’re less likely to accomplish their goals; even when they do achieve them, they derive less satisfaction from having done so. Recently, I collected data from hundreds of adults, ages twenty-five to seventy-five and found that Ken’s measure of autonomous motivation correlates positively with grit.

  CHAPTER 6: INTEREST

  “follow your passion”: Indiana University, “Will Shortz’s 2008 Commencement Address,” CSPAN, http://www.c-span.org/video/?205168-1/indiana-university-commencement-address.

  “to follow my passion”: Princeton University, “Jeff Bezos’ 2010 Baccalaureate Remarks,” TED, https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_gifts_vs_choices.

  “won’t be able to stick with it”: Taylor Soper, “Advice from Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos: Be Proud of Your Choices, Not Your Gifts,” GeekWire, October 13, 2013, http://www.geekwire.com/2013/advice-amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-proud-choices-gifts.

  asks the same questions: Hester Lacey, “The Inventory,” published weekly in the Financial Times.

  “I love what I do”: Hester Lacey, journalist for the Financial Times, in an interview with the author, June 2, 2015.

  fits their personal interests: Mark Allen Morris, “A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Vocational Interest-Based Job Fit, and Its Relationship to Job Satisfaction, Performance, and Turnover” (PhD dissertation, University of Houston, 2003).

  happier with their lives: Rong Su, Louis Tay, and Qi Zhang, “Interest Fit and Life Satisfaction: A Cross-Cultural Study in Ten Countries” (manuscript in preparation).”

  perform better: Christopher D. Nye, Rong Su, James Rounds, and Fritz Drasgow, “Vocational Interests and Performance: A Quantitative Summary of over 60 Years of Research,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (2012), 384–403.

  very real constraints: See Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2012). Cal points out that getting very good at something and therefore making yourself valuable to others often precedes identifying what you do as your passion.

  “strength of [our] interest”: William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology; and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1916), 114.

  “engaged” at work: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for Business Leaders Worldwide (Washington, DC: Gallup, Inc., 2013).

  food could be this good: Julie & Julia, dir. Nora Ephron, Columbia Pictures, 2009.

  “I was hooked, and for life”: Marilyn Mellowes, “About Julia Child,” PBS, June 15, 2005, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/julia-child-about-julia-child/555.

  “I could really fall in love with”: Rowdy Gaines, Olympic gold medalist swimmer, in an interview with the author, June 15, 2015.

  “I’m glad I went this way”: Marc Vetri, chef, in an interview with the author, February 2, 2015.

  writing a cookbook for Americans: Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme, My Life in France (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).

  “zero interest in the stove”: Ibid., 3.

  “to find my true passion”: Mellowes, “About Julia Child.”

  “No Career Direction”: “Fleeting Interest in Everything, No Career Direction,” Reddit, accessed June 17, 2015, https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/1asw10/fleeting_interest_in_everything_no_career.

  “They’re holding out for perfection”: Barry Schwartz, Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, in an interview with the author, January 27, 2015.

  around middle school: Douglas K. S. Low, Mijung Yoon, Brent W. Roberts, and James Rounds. “The Stability of Vocational Interests from Early Adolescence to Middle Adulthood: A Quantitative Review of Longitudinal Studies.” Psychological Bulletin 131 (2005): 713–37.

  with the outside world: Much of the content in this chapter on the development of interests comes from an interview between the author and Ann Renninger, Eugene M. Lang Professor of Educational Studies at Swarthmore College, on July 13, 2015. For an in-depth review, the interested reader is referred to K. Ann Renninger and Suzanne Hidi, The Power of Interest for Motivation and Engagement (London: Routledge, 2015).

  “to force an interest”: Rob Walker, “25 Entrepreneurs We Love: Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com,” Inc. magazine, April 2004, 150.

  “one piece of information led to another”: Mike Hopkins, NASA astronaut and colonel in the U.S. Air Force, in an interview with the author, May 12, 2015.

  “I started wanting to make that”: Vetri, interview.

  “I’ll always need you”: Marc Vetri, Il Viaggio Di Vetri: A Culinary Journey (New York: Ten Speed Press, 2008), ix.

  “at the things they love”: Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (New York: Penguin, 2011), 213.

  120 people who achieved: Benjamin Bloom, Developing Talent in Young People (New York: Ballantine, 1985).

  “the
early years”: Ibid. I would like to point out here that while interest typically precedes the effortful practice we will discuss in the next chapter, it’s also been shown that investing effort into an endeavor can reciprocally increase passion. See Michael M. Gielnik et al., “ ‘I Put in Effort, Therefore I Am Passionate’: Investigating the Path from Effort to Passion in Entrepreneurship,” Academy of Management Journal 58 (2015): 1012–31.

  Encouragement during the early years: For related work, see Stacey R. Finkelstein and Ayelet Fishbach, “Tell Me What I Did Wrong: Experts Seek and Respond to Negative Feedback,” Journal of Consumer Research 39 (2012): 22–38.

  “perhaps the major quality”: Bloom, Developing Talent, 514.

  erode intrinsic motivation: Robert Vallerand, Nathalie Houlfort, and Jacques Forest, “Passion for Work: Determinants and Outcomes,” in The Oxford Handbook of Work Engagement, Motivation, and Self-Determination Theory, ed. Marylène Gagné (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014), 85–105.

  injured physically and to burn out: Jean Côté, Professor of Psychology at Queen’s University, in an interview with the author, July 24, 2015. See also, Jean Côté, Karl Erickson, and Bruce Abernethy, “Play and Practice During Childhood,” in Conditions of Children’s Talent Development in Sport, ed. Jean Côté and Ronnie Lidor (Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology, 2013), 9–20. Côté, Baker, and Abernethy, “Practice and Play in the Development of Sport Exercise,” in Handbook of Sport Psychology, ed. Gershon Tenenbaum and Robert C. Eklund (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007), 184–202.

  different motivational needs: Robert J. Vallerand, The Psychology of Passion: A Dualistic Model (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2015). Vallerand has found that passion leads to deliberate practice, and that autonomy support from teachers and parents leads to passion.

  “I just wanted to make my own”: Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor for the New York Times, in an interview with the author, February 28, 2015.

  “my first crossword”: Elisabeth Andrews, “20 Questions for Will Shortz,” Bloom Magazine, December 2007/January 2008, 58.

  “I sold my first puzzle”: Shortz, interview.

  “what I was supposed to do”: Jackie Bezos, in an interview with the author, August 6, 2015. Jackie also told me that Jeff’s early love of space has never waned. His high school valedictory speech was about colonizing space. Decades later, he created Blue Origin to establish a permanent presence in space: www.blueorigin.com.

  “because they’re so diverse”: Shortz, interview.

  “call them short-termers”: Jane Golden, founder and executive director of the Mural Arts Program, in an interview with the author, June 5, 2015.

  “it’s a basic drive”: Paul Silvia, associate professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, in an interview with the author, July 22, 2015.

  enduring interests: Paul J. Silvia, “Interest—the Curious Emotion,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 17 (2008): 57–60.

  “how eager to learn”: See www.templeton.org.

  “they’re not sure what it’s all about”: Silvia, interview.

  “How to Solve the New York Times Crossword Puzzle”: Will Shortz, “How to Solve the New York Times Crossword Puzzle,” New York Times Magazine, April 8, 2001.

  “with a slightly new turn”: James, Talks to Teachers, 108.

  CHAPTER 7: PRACTICE

  grittier kids at the National Spelling Bee: Duckworth et al., “Grit.”

  “be better than the last”: Lacey, interview.

  world expert on world experts: Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). See also, K. Anders Ericsson, “The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development of Superior Expert Performance,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, ed. K. Anders Ericsson et al. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006). K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römer, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Psychological Review 100 (1993): 363–406.

  their rate of improvement slows: See K. Anders Ericsson and Paul Ward, “Capturing the Naturally Occurring Superior Performance of Experts in the Laboratory,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 16 (2007): 346–50. See also Allen Newell and Paul S. Rosenbloom, “Mechanisms of Skill Acquisition and the Law of Practice,” in Cognitive Skills and Their Acquisition, ed. John R. Anderson (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981), 1–56. Grit paragons tell me, in so many words, that if you had a magnifying glass, you’d see that learning curves are not smooth at all. Instead, there are “mini” plateaus—getting stuck on a problem for hours, days, weeks or even longer, and then suddenly a breakthrough. Ninety-six-year-old MacArthur Fellow and poet Irving Feldman put it to me this way: “Learning isn’t an evenly rising slope, but a series of leaps from plateau to plateau.”

  ten thousand hours of practice: Ericsson et al., “The Role of Deliberate Practice.”

  “make a mature dancer”: Martha Graham, “I Am a Dancer,” on Edward R. Murrow’s This I Believe, CBS, circa 1953. Republished on NPR, “An Athlete of God,” January 4, 2006, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5065006.

  “seasoned press dispatcher”: Bryan Lowe William and Noble Harter, “Studies on the Telegraphic Language: The Acquisition of a Hierarchy of Habits,” Psychological Review 6 (1899): 358. Also relevant is John R. Hayes, “Cognitive Processes in Creativity,” in Handbook of Creativity, ed. John A. Glover, Royce R. Ronning, and Cecil R. Reynolds (New York: Springer, 1989), 135–45.

  is just a rough average: See K. Anders Ericsson, “The Danger of Delegating Education to Journalists: Why the APS Observer Needs Peer Review When Summarizing New Scientific Developments” (unpublished manuscript, 2012), https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.hp.html.

  “not doing deliberate practice”: K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University, in conversation with the author, December 2005.

  intentionally seek out challenges: Ericsson et al., “The Role of Deliberate Practice.”

  “I’d try to hold 1: 14”: Gaines, interview.

  “that needs problem solving”: Roberto Díaz, president and CEO of the Curtis Institute of Music, in an interview with the author, October 7, 2015.

  “every single piece of my game”: An additional 15 percent of his time, he says, is for playing pick-up, either one-on-one or three-on-three, so that the microrefinements he has worked on can be integrated into team play. And, finally, the last 15 percent is for organized games. “Kevin Durant,” The Film Room Project.

  “there we were, stuck”: Ulrik Juul Christensen, executive chairman of Area9 and senior fellow at McGraw-Hill Education, in an interview with the author, July 15, 2015.

  first studied in chess players: Herbert A. Simon and William G. Chase, “Skill in Chess: Experiments with Chess-Playing Tasks and Computer Simulation of Skilled Performance Throw Light on Some Human Perceptual and Memory Processes,” American Scientist 61 (1973): 394–403. See also: Ericsson et al., “The Role of Deliberate Practice.”

  “and corrected them”: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: With an Introduction and Notes (New York: MacMillan Company, 1921), 14.

  “no gains without pains”: Benjamin Franklin, “The Way to Wealth,” in Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1839), 7.

  “a small number of practices”: Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), ix.

  “for years on end”: Atul Gawande, “The Learning Curve: Like Everyone Else, Surgeons Need Practice. That’s Where You Come In,” New Yorker, January 28, 2002.

  “that’s what magic is to me”: David Blaine, “How I Held My Breath for 17 Minutes,” TED video, filmed October 2009, http://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_for_17_min. See also Roy F. Baumeiste
r and John Tierney, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strenth (New York: Penguin, 2011).

  pored through published books: Barrie Trinkle, Carolyn Andrews, and Paige Kimble, How to Spell Like a Champ: Roots, Lists, Rules, Games, Tricks, and Bee-Winning Tips from the Pros (New York: Workman Publishing Company, 2006)

  “studying as hard as I can”: James Maguire, American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006), 360.

  deliberate practice predicted: Angela Duckworth et al., “Deliberate Practice Spells Success: Why Grittier Competitors Triumph at the National Spelling Bee,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 2 (2011): 174–81. Getting quizzed also predicted doing well in competition, but when comparing kids who got quizzed the same amount of time to each other, I found that those who did more deliberate practice did better. In contrast, when comparing kids who did the same amount of deliberate practice to each other, I found that more quizzing produced no advantage.

  benefits to being quizzed: Henry L. Roediger and Jeffrey D. Karpicke, “The Power of Testing Memory: Basic Research and Implications for Educational Practice,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 1 (2006): 181–210.