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The personality psychologists I know tell me that Martin E. P. Seligman, the originator of the idea of "learned helplessness" and the author of helpful books su
by tokenadult 10y ago
The personality psychologists I know tell me that Martin E. P. Seligman, the originator of the idea of "learned helplessness" and the author of helpful books such as The Optimistic Child, advised his student Angela Duckworth to call "grit" by that term as a marketing move to make people pay more attention to the idea. In the psychology literature, people have been writing for a long time about the personality dimension "conscientiousness," and grit is very little distinguishable from that. I'm a homeschooling parent of four children, and it's plain as day to me (and consistent with all the statistics in the research literature) that conscientiousness matters at the margins. Two equally smart children (per IQ test), one conscientious, one less conscientious, will differ in life outcomes. Everyone knows that.
The HUGE question that is well worth investigating is how much parenting or good teaching or anything else can change a young learner's level of conscientiousness. Conscientiousness changes over the course of life, so it isn't completely fixed for anyone. It varies (somewhat) among identical twins, so environmental influences do matter in development of a given degree of conscientiousness. But so far we don't know a lot yet about what kind of parenting or what kind of teaching might work best to develop conscientiousness. That's well worth learning about. Calling it "grit" is regrettable because that prompts people to neglect the prior research literature.
AFTER EDIT: Comments below this comment asked for definitions of "conscientiousness." I'll put a few links here.
http://pages.uoregon.edu/sanjay/bigfive.html http://pages.uoregon.edu/sanjay/bigfive.html
http://http-server.carleton.ca/~tpychyl/011382000/BigFive.html http://http-server.carleton.ca/~tpychyl/011382000/BigFive.ht...
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/popkins.html http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/popkins.html
- pietro 10y agoI lost most of my "grit" in a split second when I was hit by a car at age 17. Until that moment, I was amazingly conscientious, and combined with a very high IQ it was logical to assume that I'd do very well in life. I still have the same IQ, but I can't for the life of me finish an education, save money, or eat the dessert last. Apparently, "grit" is dependent on functions located somewhere in the left frontal lobe [1], and if you damage that particular part of the brain, no amount of training can bring it back to what it was. After years of training and therapy, I'm still essentially a reckless, gifted child. I've learned wonderful tricks to keep me on track in life, but they only get me so far. I suspect that parenting has a similar effect to my training: It teaches the tricks, but doesn't address the underlying reality of sheer, physiological ability. [1]: Probably the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
- grandalf 10y agoOne thing I've wondered about with respect to conscientiousness, is how it is defined. The way the word is informally used, a conscientious person is likely to be deemed conscientious by a supervisor due to obedience, rule following, punctuality, etc. Is there a sense in which someone can be conscientious to his/her own life goals? I think in cases where one's life goals diverge from pleasing authority figures, the word conscientiousness falls short (in informal meaning, at least). Grit, on the other hand, seems to more aptly describe a person's dogged determination to achieve an outcome. I'm not sure which of the above are actually predictors of life outcomes.
- shanemhansen 10y agoThe word I like is perseverance.
- sonabinu 10y agoDitto to that! At the end of the day the one left standing is the one with the endurance. Of course, at the right place and the right time.
- jonahx 10y agoIf it truly is a synonym for grit in prior literature, "conscientiousness" is the regrettable term. "Grit" is far more faithful to common usage. "Conscientiousness" in everyday speech connotes "politeness" and "thinking about others." These qualities have nothing to do with the thing Duckworth (and other business writers) are calling "grit." They're referring to perseverance, never giving up -- the ability to get up and keep going after failing, and to doggedly pursue long-term goals. In popular culture (eg, the film "True Grit") and everyday speech, "grit" conveys this concept perfectly, better than any other word I can think of in English. So whether it was a conscious marketing ploy or not, it's a far more accurate term.
- hyperpape 10y agoI think conscientiousness also means taking care in getting things done. And if you do not persevere, you might be quite nice and polite to people, but you will continually let them down by giving up on things you should be doing. Try the first four sentences of this paper for a literary/philosophical presentation of the idea: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20010216?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.jstor.org/stable/20010216?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con....
- ghaff 10y agoI agree but I'd add that, for me, "grit" has a connotation of toughing it out and completing a task however painful/unpleasant/difficult it is. Conscientiousness is more about reliably doing things you've said you would do on schedule. The two are related but one suggests doing what it takes to make it through a really difficult stretch while the other is more akin to turning in assignments promptly because you stuck to a schedule and didn't go out partying the night before.
- hyperpape 10y agoThat's fair.