The Winning Edge

Passion and perseverance may be more important to success than mere talent. In a world of instant gratification, grit may yield the biggest payoff of all.

By Peter Doskoch, published on November 01, 2005 - last reviewed on August 19, 2009

Grit, most likely, can be taught, or at least encouraged. But one impediment to growing grit may be—surprisingly—the seemingly innocent act of parents praising a child's intelligence. In one fascinating series of studies, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck and her colleagues showed that children who were praised for their intelligence cared more about their grades than about learning during subsequent tasks. And after experiencing a failure, these children were less persistent than their peers who had been praised for their effort. "When you praise kids' intelligence and then they fail, they think they're not smart anymore, and they lose interest in their work," Dweck explains. "In contrast, kids praised for effort show no impairment and often are energized in the face of difficulty."

In another study, seventh graders were categorized according to whether they felt that intelligence is fixed or malleable. Students who viewed intelligence as something that can be cultivated earned progressively higher grades during the next two years, whereas those who had a fixed view of intelligence did not improve. "When you have a malleable view of intelligence, you believe in learning and you believe in effort," Dweck says. "When you have the fixed view, you don't."

Based on these findings, Dweck and colleagues designed a program (the Brainology Workshop) that explains to kids that learning creates new neuronal connections in the brain and that they themselves can foster this process. When seventh graders whose grades had been declining took the workshop, their marks shot right back up. Among a control group that received only the study skills, grades continued to fall. The program is currently being tested in New York City schools.

The data demonstrate the need for parents and teachers to praise effort rather than ability. But it also explains why so many prodigies fail to flourish as adults: The adoration showered upon them in childhood rests on their remarkable abilities rather than on their hard work.

The need for grit is generally hidden from the young until they head off to college or enter the workforce. That's when it first becomes necessary to chart one's own course and set one's own goals. Before then, achievement hinges largely on doing your homework—and that's chosen by others and assigned to you. Nonetheless, says Duckworth, perseverance clearly matters for kids. Gritty youngsters get better grades than their peers. And, as a study of participants in the National Spelling Bee revealed, kids who ranked high in grit were more likely to reach the final round of the competition, for the simple reason that they had worked harder than their rivals to prepare for the event.

Global Grit

Some argue that grit is engrained in the American psyche. In his book The Hypomanic Edge, Johns Hopkins psychiatrist John Gartner observes that the U.S. and other countries founded by immigrants tend to have high rates of people with mild mania. These folks tend to be energetic risk takers—precisely the type of person likely to undertake a bold endeavor like immigration. Moreover, such people "are able to persist when others might get depressed," notes U.C. Davis psychologist Dean Keith Simonton.

Today the Pacific Rim countries may best exemplify grit. Think of Japan's astounding rebirth following its defeat in World War II, transforming itself from a near-feudal empire to a modernized republic and economic powerhouse. Or the long hours and Spartan conditions that welcome laborers in China's many factories. The writings of Confucius teach that people can reach perfection through practice and effort. Many Chinese folktales focus on feats of persistence—for example, a boy who grew up in such poverty that he couldn't afford oil for his lamp but who nonetheless worked very hard and succeeded in becoming a government official.

Parental expectations are uniformly high in Asian cultures: Even though children in Japan outperform American children on most educational measures, their parents tend to say, "My kids can do better." By contrast, a large proportion of American parents report that they are satisfied with their kids' academic performance, lackluster though it may be by international standards.

Of course, hard work isn't the same as grit, and perseverance in response to parental obligations or social norms doesn't come close to suggesting the lit-from-within passion that drives most innovators. But external motivators like family expectations and internal motivators like passion often work together, in symbiosis. "It's possible," says Duckworth, "to do something because your parents say you should do it but then gradually learn to love it."

When giftedness expert Ellen Winner of Boston College visited China in the late 1980s, she was "absolutely astonished" by an after-school program in which first graders were required to choose an art form such as calligraphy or traditional ink and brush drawing—and they were to continue practicing it for six years. "I asked a teacher, 'What happens if a child changes his mind or says that he didn't choose the right thing?' She looked at me like I was crazy and said, 'That never happens.'"

At first Winner was horrified that children were expected to stick with something that had been thrust upon them at such an early age: "It was like an arranged marriage. But then I thought, 'There's something really great about this, because these kids are really gaining mastery. And when they see that they're becoming good, they develop motivation.'"

In a global marketplace where innovation is more critical to viability than ever before, there's an urgency to identifying and, eventually, cultivating, the elements of success. Duckworth, Dweck and a host of others are demonstrating that grit is an important contributor.