HAVE YOU GOT GRIT?

Let’s face it- sometimes it can be hard to face the world. From climate change to stress at work it can often be overwhelming- so how can we persevere?

Everyone has different ways to deal with it- Hillary Clinton famously spent her down time during the 2016 US Presidential Campaign watching cat videos. But one tactic is to use grit to get through the tough times. But what is grit, how does it develop and how can we use it more in everyday life?

Angela Lee Duckworth, a leading researcher on grit defines grit as ‘passion and perseverance for long-term goals’. She has developed a grit score and has published the test here. Her research found that people with higher grit scores are more likely to succeed in a variety of scenarios, including graduating college or winning a spelling bee. For example, one study showed that in a US elite university grittier people earned higher GPAs than their peers despite having lower SAT scores.

Grittier people being more successful has been attributed at least in part to grittier individuals spending more time practicing than their peers. Linked to this is also Malcolm Gladwell’s famous ‘10,000-hour rule’, whereby practicing a particular skill for 10,000 hours makes you an expert-although it has been pointed out that the quality of the practice is also important.

Interestingly, grit is either not related or is inversely related to talent or IQ. From a biological perspective, resilience is linked heavily with the somatic, automatic and central nervous systems. Neuropeptides (signalling molecules in the brain) try to stop harmful levels of the stress hormone cortisol entering the brain and thus limit the stress response of the brain to a particular event.

It also appears that our grittiness grows with age. Over the past number of years there has been much discussion around ‘Generation Snowflake’, who have been accused of not persevering through life’s challenges. Perhaps it’s more a case that like all young people they are just going through the natural process of developing their grittiness?

There are several tactics we can use from behavioural science to try and increase resilience. Firstly, we can simply try and reframe negative emotions to positive ones when faced with difficult situations. Secondly, building our emotional intelligence will allow us to better manage our emotions and persevere. Finally, increasing self-efficacy- the belief in one’s ability to complete an action- is a critical element to building our grittiness.

Written by: Meadhbh Hayden, Behavioural Researcher at Ogilvy Consulting Behavioural Science Practice

Sources:

Duckworth, A. L. (2013). True grit. The Observer, 26(4), 1–3.

Duckworth, A. L., & Carlson, S. M. (2013). Self-regulation and school success. In B.W. Sokol, F.M.E. Grouzet, & U. Müller (Eds.), Self-regulation and autonomy: Social and developmental dimensions of human conduct (pp. 208–230). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Duckworth, A. L., Kirby, T., Tsukayama, E., Berstein, H., Ericsson, K. (2011). Deliberate practice spells success: Why grittier competitors triumph at the National Spelling Bee. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 174–181.