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ContactSeptember 2013 |Volume 71 | Number 1 Resilience andLearning Pages 14-20

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TheSignificance ofGrit: AConversationwith AngelaLee DuckworthDeborah Perkins-Gough

People who can set long-term goals and stickto them have a leg up on success in school andlife.

For the last 11 years, Angela Lee Duckworth of theUniversity of Pennsylvania has been conductinggroundbreaking studies on grit—the quality thatenables individuals to work hard and stick to theirlong-term passions and goals. In this interview withEducational Leadership, Duckworth describes whather research has shown about the relationshipbetween grit and achievement, and she reflects onthe importance of helping students develop grit andother noncognitive traits.

The theme of this issue, as you know, is"Resilience and Learning." How are grit andresilience related? Is there a difference betweenthe two?

The word resilience is used differently by differentpeople. And to add to the confusion, the wayspeople use it often have a lot of overlap. To give

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you an example, Martin Seligman, my advisor andnow my colleague here at Penn, has a programcalled the "Penn Resiliency Program." It's all aboutone specific definition of resilience, which isoptimism—appraising situations withoutdistorting them, thinking about changes that arepossible to make in your life. But I've heard otherpeople use resilience to mean bouncing back fromadversity, cognitive or otherwise. And somepeople use resilient specifically to refer to kids whocome from at-risk environments who thrivenevertheless.

What all those definitions of resilience have incommon is the idea of a positive response tofailure or adversity. Grit is related because part ofwhat it means to be gritty is to be resilient in theface of failure or adversity. But that's not the onlytrait you need to be gritty.

In the scale that we developed in research studiesto measure grit, only half of the questions areabout responding resiliently to situations of failureand adversity or being a hard worker. The otherhalf of the questionnaire is about havingconsistent interests—focused passions—over along time. That doesn't have anything to do withfailure and adversity. It means that you choose todo a particular thing in life and choose to give up alot of other things in order to do it. And you stickwith those interests and goals over the long term.

So grit is not just having resilience in the face offailure, but also having deep commitments thatyou remain loyal to over many years.

Tell us about one of your studies that showed therelationship between grit and high achievement.

One of the first studies that we did was at WestPoint Military Academy, which graduates about 25percent of the officers in the U.S. Army. Admissionto West Point depends heavily on the WholeCandidate Score, which includes SAT scores, classrank, demonstrated leadership ability, andphysical aptitude. Even with such a rigorousadmissions process, about 1 in 20 cadets dropsout during the summer of training before theirfirst academic year.

We were interested in how well grit would predictwho would stay. So we had cadets take a veryshort grit questionnaire in the first two or threedays of the summer, along with all the otherpsychological tests that West Point gives them.And then we waited around until the end of thesummer.

Of all the variables measured, grit was the bestpredictor of which cadets would stick aroundthrough that first difficult summer. In fact, it was amuch better predictor than the Whole CandidateScore, which West Point at that time thought wastheir best predictor of success. The WholeCandidate Score actually had no predictiverelationship with whether you would drop out thatsummer (although it was the best predictor oflater grades, military performance, and physicalperformance).

Woody Allen once quipped that 80 percent ofsuccess in life is just showing up. Well, it looks likegrit is one thing that determines who shows up.

We've seen echoes of our West Point findings instudies of many other groups, such as NationalSpelling Bee contestants and first-year teachers intough schools. Grit predicts success over andbeyond talent. When you consider individuals ofequal talent, the grittier ones do better.

What research finding on grit has been mostsurprising to you?

Probably the finding that most surprised me wasthat in the West Point data set, as well as otherdata sets, grit and talent either aren't related at allor are actually inversely related.

That was surprising because rationally speaking, ifyou're good at things, one would think that youwould invest more time in them. You're basicallygetting more return on your investment per hourthan someone who's struggling. If every time youpractice piano you improve a lot, wouldn't you bemore likely to practice a lot?

We've found that that's not necessarily true. Itreminds me of a study done of taxi drivers in1997. When it's raining, everybody wants a taxi,and taxi drivers pick up a lot of fares. So if you're a

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taxi driver, the rational thing to do is to work morehours on a rainy day than on a sunny day becauseyou're always busy so you're making more moneyper hour. But it turns out that on rainy days, taxidrivers work the fewest hours. They seem to havesome figure in their head—"OK, every day I needto make $1,000"—and after they reach that goal,they go home. And on a rainy day, they get to thatfigure really quickly.

It's a similar thing with grit and talent. In terms ofacademics, if you're just trying to get an A or anA−, just trying to make it to some threshold, andyou're a really talented kid, you may do yourhomework in a few minutes, whereas other kidsmight take much longer. You get to a certain levelof proficiency, and then you stop. So you actuallywork less hard.

If, on the other hand, you are not just trying toreach a certain cut point but are trying tomaximize your outcomes—you want to do as wellas you possibly can—then there's no limit, ceiling,or threshold. Your goal is, "How can I get the mostout of my day?" Then you're like the taxi driverwho drives all day whether it's rainy or not.

When I look at people whom I really respect andadmire, like psychology professor Walter Mischelor economist Jim Heckman, these people areextremely talented. For every hour that they putinto research, they're getting a lot out of it. Still,they work 17 hours a day. Jim Heckman won theNobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2000, and ifhe were working to get to a cut point, he shouldnow be coasting. But he's not. I think he wants towin another Nobel!

The people who are, for lack of a better word,"ambitious"—the kids who are not satisfied withan A or even an A+, who have no limit to howmuch they want to understand, learn, or succeed—those are the people who are both talented andgritty.

So the inverse relationship between talent and gritthat we've found in some of our studies doesn'tmean that all talented people are un-gritty. That'scertainly not true. The most successful people inlife are both talented and gritty in whatever

they've chosen to do. But on average—and I thinkmany teachers would resonate with this—thereare a lot of fragile gifted and talented kids whodon't know how to fail. They don't know how tostruggle, and they don't have a lot of practice withit. Being gifted is no guarantee of beinghardworking or passionate about something.

Earlier, you said that grit depends on havingfocused, long-term passions. In a 2009 TED Talk,you spoke about how you moved frequently fromjob to job during your 20s, even though you weresuccessful in each one, before you finallycommitted to your passion for educationresearch. How did that transformation happen?

Several things happened. One was that I had thisrealization—a reflective, midlife crisis moment of,"Gee, let me take stock here." I realized that Iwasn't actually going to be really good at anythingunless I stuck with one thing for a long time, and Ihad never done that.

I was a good fourth-year math teacher relative toother fourth-year math teachers. But I was notnearly as good as the master teachers who hadbeen doing it for 25 years. And I would never bethat good, unless I decided to spend 20 moreyears working really hard at it. I realized that justshifting, shifting, shifting every two or three yearswas not going to add up to what I wanted. Ithought, "I'm very ambitious. I want to be world-class at something. And this is not a recipe for it."

The second thing that happened was not so muchfinding my passion as recognizing or rediscoveringmy passion. When I looked at my interests andwhat I had been involved in since high school, Isaw two themes: education and children. Ithought, "I've spent a lot of time thinking aboutchildren and learning. Maybe there's a themethere."

I also recognized that psychology had been a long-standing interest. In my family, my dad didn't letus do anything unless we could pay for itourselves. When I was 16, I had saved enoughmoney to pay for a summer activity. The first timeI was able to afford anything, I went to Yalesummer school. I remember looking at the course

catalog, and it was like a candy shop. I thought,"OK. I could take philosophy. I could takechemistry. It's my money; I can do whatever Iwant." And I chose psychology and nonfictionwriting. Rhetorical writing is essentially what youdo in research, right? You're arguing something:"Here's my evidence. And here are thecounterarguments." So interest in research andpsychology were there very early in my life.

Third, I took an inventory of what I was good at. Ithought to myself, "Well, I write pretty well, and Ilearn well. I can read things. And I have that kindof analytic bent." So I wondered what field I coulduse those abilities in. That drove me to thinkingabout research as a career and wondering how tomarry that with my interest in children andpsychology.

And that's what I do today. I had actually alreadyidentified my interests when I was 16. I got lost alittle bit. But now, 11 years after I started graduateschool, I'm on this path. I have the pleasure ofbeing reasonably good at something and gettingdeeper and deeper into it.

A lot of young people never get to experience that—being into something for enough years withenough depth so that they really know it. Masterteachers know what I'm talking about. So dopeople who are seriously committed to whatevervocation they have, even people who have a reallyserious hobby that they've worked at for years.They reach a level of appreciation and experiencethat novices can never understand.

Students need to hear that message, because somuch of today's conversation is about thechanging economy—how you're going to have allthese different jobs and you have to be flexible.But you know, you also have to be good atsomething.

Your research on grit seems to be related to CarolDweck's work on a growth mind-set. She hasstudied the benefits of teaching kids thatintelligence is not fixed, but is something thatthey can grow. Do you think the same is true ofgrit? And should we help young people see thatthey can develop grit, that it's not just something

you're born with?

Carol Dweck, more than anyone else, is a rolemodel for me. We're collaborating with her on acouple of projects. One thing we've found is thatchildren who have more of a growth mind-settend to be grittier. The correlation isn't perfect,but this suggests to me that one of the things thatmakes you gritty is having a growth mind-set. Theattitude "I can get better if I try harder" shouldhelp make you a tenacious, determined, hard-working person.

In theory, the work that Carol has done to showthat you can change your mind-set would also berelevant to changing your grit. We're developingan intervention, inspired by her work, to look atmaking students aware of the value of deliberatepractice, the kind of effortful practice that reallyimproves skills. In Carol's work, she shows kidsscientific evidence of brain plasticity—the fact thatpeoples' brains change with experience. Althoughat first they might respond to frustration andfailure by thinking, "I should just give up; I can't dothis," Carol uses testimonials from other studentsto show kids that those feelings and beliefs, asstrong as they are, can change.

We're using the same kind of format to try tocommunicate information to students aboutdeliberate practice, which is very effortful practiceon things you can't yet do. We're actuallydeveloping an intervention and testing it in middleschools right now. We tell kids that deliberatepractice is not easy. You are going to be confused.You are going to be frustrated. When you'relearning, you have to make mistakes. You need todo things over and over again, and that can beboring. In theory, this intervention can changestudents' grit levels by changing their beliefs. I say"in theory," because we haven't shown it yet.

Teachers have so many good intuitions about this.They work on this every day: How do I get my kidsto try harder? How do I get them to bedetermined, to stick with things? I'm really excitedabout starting a conversation to bring morepeople's ideas into the dialogue because I amguessing that some terrific teachers, basketball

coaches, and guidance counselors have their owntheories that need to be tested. There areprobably going to be more ideas coming out ofeducators than out of scientists on how to helpstudents develop grit.

Do you agree with Paul Tough's thesis in his bookHow Children Succeed that noncognitivecharacter traits are more important to success,or at least as important, as cognitive abilities?

I would probably say "as important," just to be alittle conservative. I think there's been a pendulumswing toward the importance of noncognitivetraits.

Recently I was reading The Big Test by NicholasLemann (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999), whichis the story of how the SAT came to be sodominant in college admissions and howstandardized testing became so prominent. Hewalks you through what happened in 20th-centuryAmerica—there was a very well-intentioned shifttoward a meritocracy and a desire to admit peopleto the most elite schools on the basis of what theycould do, not on the basis of family lineage, lastname, or color of skin. Around the same time,these reliable, easy-to-administer standardizedtests became available. So there was a pendulumswing toward an emphasis on cognitive aptitude,IQ, and so forth.

What we're seeing now is a swing back toward arecognition that these standardized tests,although they serve an important function, arelimited in their ability to pick up things like grit andself-control—as well as many other traits that Idon't study—gratitude, honesty, generosity,empathy for the suffering of others, socialintelligence, tact, charisma. These are qualities Iwant my daughters, who are 10 and 11, to have.Another important quality is being proactive—when a kid thinks, "I care about the whales, andI'm going to start an organization," and thenactually goes out and does that. Then there'shonesty, kindness, and so forth.

None of those qualities is picked up by astandardized test. We're now seeing a pendulumswing away from the single-minded focus on

standardized testing and toward a broader view ofthe whole child. And our research just happens tobe in the swinging pendulum's path, which keepsus very busy.

So you believe that schools are generally movingin this direction?

I think so. We get a fair amount ofcorrespondence from schools, and we also talkwith teachers and parents. We always get thesame reaction—they really do care about thesethings. They recognize that gym is important, thatmusic is important, that empathy is important.These are qualities that policymakers are lessconcerned about. But this message reallyresonates with most people who are in closecontact with children.

From your observations in schools, are thereprograms that are ahead of the curve indeveloping important character qualities,including grit? Are programs like the KIPP schoolseffective?

Some of the high-performing charter schools—forexample, YES Prep and Aspire—are on the cuttingedge in recognizing the power of character. KIPP isthe one I know best. From day one, they have said"character and academics for success in collegeand in life." It was never an either/or question—either we can emphasize math, or kids could beself-controlled. Instead it was, if we emphasizeself-control, students will be successful in math.

A lot of independent schools have never lost theiremphasis on character. The elite independentschools in the United States have maintainedfidelity to character as part of their mission fromthe early days. Unfortunately, public schools arebesieged by budget cuts and reportingrequirements and No Child Left Behind–typedemands. They have to meet all the standards forthe district, for the state, and for the federalgovernment. And they have the fewest resourcesfor incorporating character education. They're notlike these wealthy private schools that have somuch a year to spend on kids and have relativelyfew problematic children.

But despite those disincentives, Upper DarbySchool District, a large urban public school districtnear the University of Pennsylvania, has partneredwith us. We've had a wonderful relationship withthem for the last year. They've really embracedcharacter education. They haven't figured out allof the answers, but they're asking all the rightquestions.

What I'm saying is that there is interest indeveloping traits like resilience and grit across K–12 education. Some of the schools that have themost freedom to work on this are making themost headway. But a lot of the others are trying tocatch up.

How Upper Darby School DistrictBuilds Student Resilience

Upper Darby School District on theborder of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hasstruggled to stretch its shrinking financialresources to serve the needs of itsincreasingly diverse student body. Thedistrict's 12,400 students speak morethan 83 different languages at home; 63percent of the students qualify for free orreduced-price lunch. In the past twoyears, the district has faced budgetdeficits ranging from 9 million to 13million dollars.

Why would a district facing so manydaunting challenges decide to dedicatetime and resources to an ambitiouscharacter education program? Asassistant superintendent for curriculumand instruction Dan McGarry explains,district leaders firmly believe thatcharacter education and positive schoolclimate are the keys to reducing discipline

problems and raising studentachievement.

In his long career as an educator,McGarry has seen the benefits ofcharacter education, and he wasenthusiastic about its potential to addressUpper Darby's challenges. A district teamthat consisted of the director ofcurriculum, the director of specialeducation, the director of pupil services,and McGarry had been researching thetopic for two years by reading about theeffects of Positive BehavioralInterventions and Supports (PBIS) and byreading books like Ross Green's Lost atSchool (Scribner, 2009) and Paul Tough'sHow Children Succeed (Houghton-Mifflin,2012). McGarry decided to build a periodof time into the schedule at both districtmiddle schools to address school climateand culture concerns as well as toimplement character education andcitizenship classes.

A turning point was McGarry's decision tocall Angela Duckworth after reading abouther research on character developmentand grit at the University of Pennsylvania.In that first 90-minute conversation and afollow-up meeting a week later, the two ofthem laid the groundwork for a thrivinguniversity–district partnership.

Duckworth would conduct research onperseverance and grit among UpperDarby's 12th graders, and she and otherresearchers would take the district'smiddle school staff through a series ofprofessional development workshopsbased on a model called PERMA—Positive

Emotions, Engagement, Relationships,Meaning and purpose, andAccomplishments. Administrators,teachers, counselors, social workers, andpsychologists also attended courses inpositive psychology taught by Duckworthand her colleagues at the university.

This comprehensive professionaldevelopment led to a plan. The middleschools designed a daily citizenship classthat covers such topics as how to havegood conversations, be an active listener,build meaningful relationships, set goalsand pursue them, and recognize theconsequences of behavior. Eran Magen,another prominent psychologist at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, has begun towork with both adults and students in thedistrict to develop a curriculum aroundwhat he calls Active Listening. Magenworks with teachers and students inclassrooms for 30 minutes a day. Theplan will be to train all teachers, students,and administrators on the ActiveListening process.

Upper Darby has set the context for thisintensive character development focus inmiddle school by putting a Response toIntervention program for behavior inplace in all its schools, beginning at theelementary level. Every school has athree-tiered system of intervention tosupport positive student behavior.Students who have the greatest behaviorchallenges work directly with a schoolpsychologist, counselor, or social worker.

Upper Darby's intensive character-building program has yielded results at

the elementary level, middle school level,and even in the 9th grade: At this gradelevel, when many students commonlystruggle, retention rates have decreased,discipline problems have fallen, andstudent achievement has risen.

What advice would Dan McGarry giveother school district leaders? First,remember the importance of providingsocial and emotional support. "If publicschools start to devalue social workers,counselors, and school psychologists—ifthey don't understand that these peopleare a key part of the learning situation forkids—then we're in big trouble." Second,schools—especially those facing majorchallenges—should not be afraid to lookinto partnerships with researchuniversities. "The more relationshipsschools can build with outside resources,the better off they're going to be."

—Deborah Perkins-Gough

Audio Bonus

Listen to an excerpt from this interview.

Endnote

Cramerer, C., Babcock, L., Lowenstein, G., &Thaler, R. (1997, May). Labor supply of New York Citycabdrivers: One day at a time. Quarterly Journal ofEconomics, 407–441.

Angela Lee Duckworth is associate professor,Department of Psychology, University ofPennsylvania. Deborah Perkins-Gough is senioreditor at Educational Leadership.

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