Grit
Sustained perseverance and consistency of interest towards long-term goals despite setbacks.
What drives it
It describes the capacity to keep going on a single goal over years. For identification, it is mostly a new label for the persistence side of conscientiousness.
How it shows
Work
Sticks with a project or career over years, recovers from failures without changing direction, does deliberate practice, finishes what they start. Low grit shows as frequent project switching and new enthusiasms dropped. Grit can also show as grinding on long after the evidence says to stop.
Relationships
Long-term commitment to partners and friends; sticking with a family project after early difficulties.
Self
Notice how often you change direction and whether your interests are stable over years.
What tells it apart
Conscientiousness: Conscientiousness covers order, duty and self-discipline broadly; grit adds stable interest in one long-term goal. In practice they are hard to separate; check whether the person persists without external structure on one goal.
Sunk cost fallacy: Sunk cost is continuing because of past investment; grit is persistence towards a goal still worth pursuing. Ask whether the person can name a future reason to continue.
Growth and fixed mindset: Mindset is the belief about whether ability changes; grit is the behaviour of persisting. Watch actions over years, not beliefs.
A test
Look at the person's track record on long-term goals and how they responded to major setbacks.
Questions to carry
- Across years, what happened to the long-term goal after the biggest setback, and what kept it going or ended it?
- Which goal have I kept for years, and what keeps me at it now, interest or habit?
How strong the research is
mixed. A meta-analysis (Credé, Tynan and Harms, 2017) found grit correlates very highly with conscientiousness and adds little predictive power; the perseverance facet does most of the work and the passion facet predicts little.
Where it comes from
Angela Duckworth and colleagues, 2007.