Grit

[indigo_rose99]

I spent last week at a conference. One of the presenters was Jonah Lehrer. One of the many things he talked about was what it takes to suceed in the world. He talked about studies that indicate no correlation between test scores and success in the real world. And it wasn't just SAT kind of tests, but also football tests, which checkers at grocery stores are the fastest, and things like that. So then the question was, what DOES correlate to success in life?

Then he talked about these marshmellow tests a scientist gave a bunch of 4-6 year old. The idea was that he would offer the child a marshmellow (filming the whole time) but tell her/him that if she could wait 15 minutes, she could have TWO marshmellows. All of the kids agreed to wait, but then the scientist left the room and watched what happened on the camera. It turned out that the kids who could wait,... Well, the length of time they could wait was highly correlated to their success in later life. They called this ability to delay satisfaction "grit." This is a skill that is progressively more valuable as a person ages.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days.

When I first went to college I was assigned a roommate. We'll call her Leanne. She got a much higher score than I did on the SAT. I accepted that she was smarter than I was. But... she wrote papers the night before they were due by staying up all night. She did not return for a second year. I assumed she was not invited to return.

Another one of my classmates, we'll call her C, claimed to be the stupidest among us. I don't know what she made on the SAT. But she always started every assignment the day it was assigned. She got up every day of the week at 6pm. She went to bed every night at 10pm. C had the best grades of all of us. Leanne had no grit. C had a lot of grit. I have no idea what happened to Leanne. C graduated from some impressive college and last I heard was a lawyer doing very well for herself,

My mother told me that studies had shown that post-polios did significantly better in life than the general population. They didn't know why. I think it was post-polios of necessity learned grit and used it every day.

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Comments

[sclatter.livejournal.com]

There's an article about this this the NYT right now.

Also I found the praise chapter in Nurtureshock to be quite relevant. Kids who are praised for being smart tend to become timid and risk averse. "Smart" becomes an integral quality not under their control, like being tall or having blue eyes. Failure proves that they aren't really smart, so they don't try too hard so they always give themselves an excuse. Or they just don't do things that are too difficult. Kids praised for working hard actually perform much better. (Saw *much* of myself in that.)

[raaga123.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I see a lot of myself in that too -- the first half.

[raaga123.livejournal.com]

Were there any suggestions on improving one's grit? Just meaning/wanting to doesn't go as far as one might think.

[indigo-rose99.livejournal.com]

For the children, he talked about teaching them techniques. Pretending it is not a real marshmellow, just a picture of a marshmellow. Or things to distract to distract oneself (singing, focusing on something else).

For the adult? I have no idea. I didn't have the packing space to bring home his book, so I cannot even look there for adult tips.

[(Anonymous)]

I can see how that technique might help the child resist the marshmallow. I wonder if that intervention technique would actually affect their chances of later success, though.

Grit

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

When I first heard about that marshmallow experiment, I knew I would have held out and my brother wouldn't have. (Then I would have given my brother part of my extra marshmallow to make up for all the times he had the guts to ask people with candy bowls, "May my sister and I have some candy?")

I wouldn't call the trait I would have used to get through that 15 minutes grit, though. I'd call it something else. Patience? Greed? Intelligence? Imagination (good at imagining how much I'd like an extra marshmallow in 15 minutes)? Realism (knowing I'm quite likely to still be around in 15 minutes and to still like marshmallows by then)?

In fact, if you asked me whether my brother or I had more grit, I would definitely say my brother did. Yet, by almost any measure of success, I am more successful than my brother.

My first real boyfriend was like C. He told me he wasn't smart, but he made up for it by working hard. He usually went to every office hour his TA's had. And I think he really had average intelligence, but he did like having his brain in the "on" position, so that helped.

Success

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

After your first paragraph, I wondered if the same things that lead to a happy retirement also lead to success. Mostly, it helps to have a good social network. But that turned out not to be your answer.