GRIT

Definition

• Grit is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort towards long-term goals.

Grit
predicts surviving the first arduous summer
of training at West Point and reaching the
final rounds of the Scripps National Spelling
Bee. It also predicts retention in the U.S.
Special Forces, performance among novice
teachers, and graduation from the Chicago
public high schools. Grit predicts each of
these outcomes over and beyond other
measures such as IQ and SAT scores. Gritty
individuals also complete more years of
education and make fewer career changes
in adulthood.

HOW GRITTY ARE YOU? TAKE THE QUIZ!

Research shows that when gritty individuals study, they tend to do deliberate practice. In contrast to rote learning, which many students engage in, deliberate practice involves repetitively working on weaknesses and seeking out constructive feedback. When students engage in deliberate practice, they also concentrate 100%.

Untitled Slide

Gritty people think about achievement in a specific way, attributing achievement to hard work and effort rather than unchangeable factors (i.e., intelligence, talent). Gritty people also find frustration during learning to be less discouraging—to them, frustration is a sign that they are working on areas of weakness and improving.

Can you build grit? Recent studies show.... YES!!!

Intervention: The student participant was then asked to provide advice that could help this younger, struggling student become grittier. This intervention was inspired by past psychological research on the saying-is-believing effect, which documents that when students advocate a specific behavior to others, they themselves become much more likely to enact it. Thus, we expected students who advocated for the importance of gritty behaviors would themselves become grittier.

Intervention: In this grit-building activity, students were prompted to name someone slightly harder-working than themselves and to describe what makes this person hard-working (for examples of what students wrote, see the quotes in the box on the right). After naming and describing a hard-working individual, students were instructed to step into character and act like this person for the remainder of the period.
This intervention was inspired by past psychological research which documents that role-playing can be an incredibly effective way to change behavior.

Conclusion: Grit can be learned and is essential to success. It's not how big your brain is, it's how hard you work.