Angela Duckworth Grit Analysis

In my group book, “Grit” by Angela Duckworth, perseverance was stressed as one of the two important aspects of being gritty, alongside passion. The idea of grit stemmed from the fact that people who put in time and effort into something that evokes a passion in

Angela Lee Duckworth defines grit as “passion and perseverance to pursue long term goals” (Duckworth and Winkler, True Grit). Grit is putting your mind towards a goal and not to give up, no matter what obstacle that stands in front of you. By becoming a gritty individual, a person gains courage within their self. Having courage, people manage fear of failure and being true within oneself to aim for things they would have never thought they could achieve. Grit is to aspire and succeed in ones future goals in college. Grit is to help maintain effort and interest over time, also to stay committed in spite of adversity. In Duckworth’s studies she showed how gritty people are more likely to become successful than talented people. In a study conducted

Grit, what is this? Is it success, is it failure, or is it talent? As Angela Duckworth said “Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day-in and day-out. Not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years. And working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” Grit is a combination of strength, persistence, focus, and dedication that helps a person to maintain the optimism and discipline needed to persevere in their goals even if they are head to head with failure. Grit does not depend on talent, IQ, or success. Grit is the ability to fail and learn from your mistake, in order to come back next

The significance of grit is discussed in a 2013 article published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. To introduce this article the author prompts Angela Lee Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania, who has been studying grit for the past 11 years, to define “resilience in learning.” This opens up discussion about how differently words such as grit or resilience can be interpreted, and identifies some distinct similarities within individual definitions. Resilience can refer to an overall positivity in a person, as the ability to “bounce back” from a failure or disappointment, or can even be attributed to children who thrive despite an at-risk environment. In the end, regardless of personal definitions, resilience is associated with individuals who succeed.

Throughout Grit, Angela Duckworth argues that grit is the single most important factor in determining success of an individual. She splits the argument into three parts: the concept of grit and why it matters, the proper use and understanding of the goal hierarchy, and how an individual can develop grit. Duckworth’s argument is important because it replaces the traditional viewpoint of success being determined by talent to one which sees success as a result of passion and perseverance.

In the video titled Learned helplessness (PsychYogi, 2014), Martin Seligman conducted a study in which he took three groups of dogs and put them in harnesses. He gave each group a lever that would either stop a charge that electrocuted the dogs, or do nothing. Group one was the control group and did not get electrocuted. The dogs in groups two and three were the experimental groups. Group two had control over the electric shocks and could stop them with the lever. Group three also received the shocks every time group two did, except group three had no control over their own lever. Every time group two pushed their lever to stop the shocks, group three’s shocks also stopped. Group three never knew when their shocks would stop. The dogs in group two learned that the lever would stop the shocks, so the more times they were shocked, the less time it took them to push the lever. Group three was the only group to have symptoms of depression due to learned helplessness (Psychyogi, 2014).

When discussing grit, it is important that one understands both sides of the argument. The persistence to complete a goal and the ability to endure adversity is the core of what it means to have grit. Growing up, children were often told the common phrase, “If at first, you don't succeed try, try, again”. This quote is often used to teach children to never give up, a way to ensure that they can triumph over adversity and grow upon their grit. The discussion of grit has grown over the past couple of years with advocators of grit like, Angela Duckworth, having written books and doing lectures on this topic. The same can be said for critics of grit, like David Denby, who has done articles for “The New Yorker”, criticizing the value of just

After reading the novel Grit by Angela Duckworth I am now truly inspired. Throughout the novel she talks about her experiences and different ways to succeed in life. The four concepts she talked about were interest, practice, purpose and hope. These can all be used everyday. Especially in college and even later on in life. The two that stuck out to me the most were practice and purpose.

Angela Duckworth in the book Grit, makes the claim that in order to have grit, you must have passion for what you care about. She explains that having passion for something means each day you will wake up thinking of the same questions you fell asleep thinking about. She also states that in achieving success, having aligned, unified, and ultimate goal. She uses an example of the Hall of Fame baseball player Tom Seaver. He had an overall goal to be the best pitcher of all time and the other aspects of his life were dedicated to that goal. “Pitching determines when I eat, when I go to bed, and what I do when i'm awake.” (63). Tom has baseball as his passion and he is obsessed for it. He is willing to give up other things in his life for the overall

Grit (n.) courage and resolve; strength of a character. Marcus Crede, an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State University, effectively points out Angela Duckworth’s lack of Logos. In the article, “MacArthur 'Genius' Angela Duckworth Responds To A New Critique Of Grit”, “Duckworth admits to the charge of badly describing the size of her outcomes”. As a result, Duckworth used misleading outcomes of her findings to exaggerate the effect of Grit when looking at the broader populations of people. The authenticity of Duckworth’s findings is questionable, however, it is arguable whether Grit itself is unique. Crede challenges Duckworth as he tests Grit and conscientiousness which results between eighty and ninety percent correlation. In

where there would be a teacher and a subject on two opposing sides of a wall. Whenever the subject made an incorrect answer, they would receive a shock, this experiment was rigged so that the subject would actually be shocked be rather made extremely convincing screams of pain and the subject was told to give the wrong answer to the teacher. When the voltage reached passed 200 v, the teacher would become more reluctant to go further with the experiment due to the pain that the subject was going through, but the teacher didn’t know that the test was rigged. After it got past 475 V, about 65% of the teachers would hold the switch to shock the subject under the pressure from the men in the white coats recording the experiment and in most cases were reluctant to press on the button by themselves. This experiment no only proves that many people will do dangerous and immoral things under the pressure of authority, but also supports the idea that many people would not commit these acts underneath their own free will due to human

On the flip side, I think it is interesting to see how the experimenter could control people without using fear. During the experiment, many subjects wanted to discontinue the experiment. Despite all the opposition, they still obeyed the experimenter’s orders. That makes me wonder: what caused them to continue the experiment? Since there was no harm being done to teachers, they did not fear for themselves.

Have you ever set a long-term goal and were so determined to meet that goal no matter what happened? Angela Duckworth states, “Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in and day out. Not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years and working really hard to make that future a reality”. Sticking with a long-term goal, when you seem to have hit every bump in the road possible means that you contain grit. In class, we discussed how talent is inversely related to grit. Angela Duckworth did a study and made high school students take her grit test. In this test, she realized that the more grit that the student possessed, the higher chance that student would graduate.

Once the experiment moves along, the test subject realizes that the confederate keeps getting shocked but that they can’t stop the test. Their nonverbal behavior suggest that they are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the situation. For example, they begin to hunch in their seat as they must continue to press the lever, and their tone of voice sounds as if they are hesitating and stressed. Others covered their face but continued when the experimenter tells them “the experiment requires you to continue” and so they did. Some of the test subjects laughed and it was either nervous laughter or joyful. Others crossed their arms and legs as if they were trying to comfort themselves. It’s clear that many of the participants are very put off by the continued instructions to continue because they are told “you have no other choice”, and that this point many have reached learned

Growing up, children are often told the common phrase, “If at first, you don't succeed try, try, again…” (W.C. Fields). This is used to teach children to never give up, a way to ensure that they can triumph over adversity and grow upon their grit. Although, people usually forget the second part of that quote, “…Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” (W.C. Fields). The second half of the quote is a full contrast to the first half, this is telling children to give up and just stop trying. Those who give up are often thought of having no grit. Some wonder if grit is necessary for society, to be more specific if grit is something that should be taught in school, I feel that it should not. Students switch interests so often that it is hard for them to stick with the same interests as time passes. When a student is enthused about a subject, I see grit as a way for one to express their interests. When one’s passion is put to the test and it feels like there is no progress or no more enjoyment left in that passion is when true grit is shown. Those who support the idea of grit, like Angela Duckworth, believe that grit is a big factor in how one succeeds.