The Sandpaper Theory of Success: Grit

We all know the importance of IQ on academic success, but the problem is that it takes so long to measure. To get around that problem, psychometricians have boiled the traditional IQ test down to three questions. Take a few minutes and answer the World's Shortest IQ Test [1]:

1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? _____ cents
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? _____ minutes
3. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? _____ days

The Right Stuff

The history of IQ testing is extremely interesting [2]. The purpose of testing someone's IQ is to predict how well that person will perform on some important (future) task. For instance, a Harvard admission officer would like to admit only the students who are most likely to graduate. The officer needs information today that will help her reliably place her bet. Moreover, she doesn't want to be fooled by any surface features that may seem to be related to graduation rate (e.g., the applicant's family name). In other words, the admission officer needs a measure today that will highly correlate with the outcome of graduation, which will most likely take place in four to five years. If she has 37,000 applications for only 2,000 slots, how will she choose? What information is the most reliable? 

High-profile colleges and universities turned to intelligence testing in an effort to become more egalitarian. The name and content of those intelligence tests may have changed over the years, but the intent behind them has always been the same: Find a scientifically valid measure that correlates with academic success. Once that has been established, then decision makers will have an easier time allocating their scarce resources (e.g., admission to Harvard).

While the goal may be clear, its implementation is far from it. First of all, there isn't universal agreement on what counts as "academic success." Is it merely graduating? Or does the student have to earn all "A's"? Does the student have to obtain a high-paying job straight out of school to be considered a success? Because of this ambiguity, there may be some behavioral measures that correlate better with certain definitions of success than others. So now what? Where does that leave IQ testing?  

"Get a hold of yourself!"  

For the sake of moving the conversation forward, let's assume that academic success is rigorously defined as the student's final GPA. The association between IQ and final GPA, unfortunately, is modest (r = .32). That means that only about 10% of the variance is explained by differences in IQ. Said a different way, 10% of the differences in the outcome measure (i.e., final GPA) can be explained by differences in IQ. A third way to think about it is if we consider all of the students with the exact same IQ; their final GPAs are going to be fairly different from each other. How might we explain the differences in GPA for kids who all have roughly the same IQ? 

Because IQ is an imperfect predictor, scientists decided to expand their search and consider various other factors. What other traits can we measure to predict success? Angela Duckworth and the collaborators in her lab decided to focus on two very important personality traits: grit and self-control [3]. Grit can be thought of as persistence in the face of adversity and self-control as the ability to delay gratification in the service of long-term goals. How well do grit and self-control stack up against IQ? 

According to one of their studies [4], the correlation between IQ and final GPA was r = .32, whereas the correlation between final GPA and their measure of self-control was r = .67. A perfect correlation (r = 1.00) means that you can predict the outcome of an event every single time. Thus, the measure of self-control was twice as good at predicting academic success as IQ. That's pretty interesting given our infatuation with "IQ."

The STEM Connection

Given that grit and self-control are more strongly associated with academic success than IQ, what does that mean for education? 

First, I think the time is ripe to banish the word "smart" from our vocabulary. Why? Because it does not motivate people toward higher levels of academic achievement. For example, suppose I told you that you are smart. Now what? Are you going to seek out challenging assignments that stretch you in a new direction? Or are you going to play it safe and only accept assignments that are within your comfort zone? That way you can continue to collect confirmatory evidence that you are smart. Alternatively, what if I labeled you as gritty. How might that affect your behavior? You might take pride in the fact that you tackled a highly challenging task, faced obstacles head on, and stuck it out until you experienced a breakthrough. Being called "gritty" moves you toward learning opportunities in a way that being labeled "smart" does not.

Second, these findings suggest that students should be given long-term assignments that are extremely difficult. In so doing, however, we should ensure that failure is an acceptable step along the way. For example, when I write a computer program, I am grateful when I fail quickly because then I can correct my mistakes and improve the overall quality of the program [5]. 

Finally, we should strongly consider adding character strengths as part of our standard curriculum. Like the growth mindset, these qualities are malleable and can be taught. Some charter schools go so far as to weave character development into the very fabric of their school [6]. When students see the implications of their behavior (i.e., by quitting or not) on their classmates, the lesson comes to life and is thereby encoded as an episodic memory. 

For each of us, grit and self-control appear in various quantities. They may fluctuate from time-to-time, and they may largely depend on the task at hand. But the main take-away from this nascent literature is that, while IQ is important for life-long success, there are other factors that strongly shape the course of one's life in school (and beyond).


Share and Enjoy!

Dr. Bob

For More Information

[1] Frederick, S. (2005). Cognitive reflection and decision making. Journal of Economic perspectives, 19(4) 25-42.

[2] Gould, S. J. (1996). The mismeasure of man (Rev. ed.). New York: W.l. Norton.

[3] Watch Angela Duckworth's TED talk.

[4] Duckworth, A. L. & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ predicting academic performance in adolescents. Psychological Science, 16, 939-944.

[5] Fail Fast has become a mantra in Silicon Valley. 

[6] Read about the KIPP Academy in Tough, P. (2013). How children succeed. Random House (cf. Chapter 2).