Grit(94)

traits are polygenic: Christopher F. Chabris et al., “The Fourth Law of Behavioral Genetics,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 24 (2015): 304–12.

at least 697 different genes: Andrew R. Wood et al., “Defining the Role of Common Variation in the Genomic and Biological Architecture of Adult Human Height,” Nature Genetics 46 (2014): 1173–86.

as many as twenty-five thousand different genes: “A Brief Guide to Genomics,” National Human Genome Research Institute, last modified August 27, 2015, http://www.genome.gov/18016863.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale: The Wechsler tests are now published by Pearson’s Clinical Assessment.

in the last fifty years: Information on the Flynn effect comes from personal communications with James Flynn from 2006 to 2015. For more information on the Flynn effect, see James R. Flynn, Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).See also Jakob Pietschnig and Martin Voracek, “One Century of Global IQ Gains: A Formal Meta-Analysis of the Flynn Effect (1909–2013),” Perspectives on Psychological Science 10 (2015): 282–306. In this analysis of 271 independent samples, totaling almost four million people from thirty-one countries, a few key findings emerged: IQ gains are ubiquitous and positive over the past century; gains have varied in magnitude by domain of intelligence; gains have been less dramatic in recent years; and, finally, candidate causes include, in addition to social multiplier effects, changes in education, nutrition, hygiene, medical care, and test-taking sophistication.

the social multiplier effect: William T. Dickens and James R. Flynn, “Heritability Estimates Versus Large Environmental Effects: The IQ Paradox Resolved,” Psychological Review 108 (2001): 346–69.

Grit and age: These data are originally reported in Duckworth et al., “Grit,” 1092.

more conscientious, confident, caring, and calm: Avshalom Caspi, Brent W. Roberts, and Rebecca L. Shiner, “Personality Development: Stability and Change,” Annual Review of Psychology 56 (2005): 453–84.

“the maturity principle”: Ibid., 468.

“doesn’t come overnight”: Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 347.

“you’re late, you’re fired”: Bernie Noe, head of school, Lakeside School, Seattle, in an interview with the author, July 29, 2015.

interest without purpose: Ken M. Sheldon, “Becoming Oneself: The Central Role of Self-Concordant Goal Selection,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 18 (2014): 349–65. See psychologist Ken Sheldon’s work on enjoyment and importance as the two components of what he calls autonomously motivated goals. Ken points out that all of us have responsibilities we must fulfill out of obligation or necessity. But no matter how much we think we care about externally motivated goals, their accomplishment rarely fulfills us in the way that interesting and purposeful goals do. A lot of the people in Ken’s studies are highly educated and very comfortably upper-middle-class yet sorely lacking in autonomously motivated goals. They tell Ken they feel like they’re in the passenger seat of their own lives. By following these individuals over time, Ken’s learned that they’re less likely to accomplish their goals; even when they do achieve them, they derive less satisfaction from having done so. Recently, I collected data from hundreds of adults, ages twenty-five to seventy-five and found that Ken’s measure of autonomous motivation correlates positively with grit.





CHAPTER 6: INTEREST


“follow your passion”: Indiana University, “Will Shortz’s 2008 Commencement Address,” CSPAN, http://www.c-span.org/video/?205168-1/indiana-university-commencement-address.

“to follow my passion”: Princeton University, “Jeff Bezos’ 2010 Baccalaureate Remarks,” TED, https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_gifts_vs_choices.

“won’t be able to stick with it”: Taylor Soper, “Advice from Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos: Be Proud of Your Choices, Not Your Gifts,” GeekWire, October 13, 2013, http://www.geekwire.com/2013/advice-amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-proud-choices-gifts.

asks the same questions: Hester Lacey, “The Inventory,” published weekly in the Financial Times.

“I love what I do”: Hester Lacey, journalist for the Financial Times, in an interview with the author, June 2, 2015.

fits their personal interests: Mark Allen Morris, “A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Vocational Interest-Based Job Fit, and Its Relationship to Job Satisfaction, Performance, and Turnover” (PhD dissertation, University of Houston, 2003).

happier with their lives: Rong Su, Louis Tay, and Qi Zhang, “Interest Fit and Life Satisfaction: A Cross-Cultural Study in Ten Countries” (manuscript in preparation).”

perform better: Christopher D. Nye, Rong Su, James Rounds, and Fritz Drasgow, “Vocational Interests and Performance: A Quantitative Summary of over 60 Years of Research,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (2012), 384–403.

very real constraints: See Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2012). Cal points out that getting very good at something and therefore making yourself valuable to others often precedes identifying what you do as your passion.

“strength of [our] interest”: William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology; and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1916), 114.