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).

Ooops!: The Fundamental Attribution Error

Imagine you are walking to work, and you see a poorly-dressed individual asking for spare change. He looks like he hasn't had a bath in days, and he probably slept outside last night. As you approach this person, do either of the following thoughts go through your mind? 

1. This person is homeless because he is lazy and doesn't want to work. He must be an alcoholic and a drug user. 

2. This person has fallen victim to a string of bad luck. At one point he probably had a house, a car, and a job, but then something happened that made him lose it all. Maybe his wife was diagnosed with a terminal condition, he stayed home to care for her, so he lost his job and ran out of money paying for her medical expenses. 

Whose Fault is it Anyway? 

Blaming the Person vs. the Situation

What do you notice about the two scenarios  other than that they are drastically different from one another? You probably noticed that the first scenario places much of the blame on the individual. This person is homeless because of his personal character and the conscious choices that he made. In contrast, the second scenario focuses on situational factors that contributed to his current circumstances. He did not choose to be homeless, nor is he a bad person. His homelessness was merely an outcome of events that he had no control over. He did not want his wife to get sick, nor did he ask to lose his job. 

The two scenarios illustrate two different ways we can explain a person's behavior. As in scenario 1, we can attribute someone's behavior to something internal to the person, such as their personality or their choices. Or, as in scenario 2, we can attribute someone's behavior to something external to the person, such as the situation leading up to the behavior in question. Which type of attribution do you think is more commonly made? An equally important question for you is which type of attribution do you think is more likely to be accurate?

Please answer in the form of a question.

It turns out that people almost always make internal attributions about the behavior of others, and that internal attributions are almost always wrong. The mistake is so common that it has been named the fundamental attribution error (FAE). In a nutshell, the FAE occurs when people mistakenly believe that a person's current behavior is a result of the person's personality, when it is really a result of the person's situation [1]. In other words, we routinely forget to consider the role of the situation in explaining people's behavior. 

One classic demonstration of the FAE involved judging people's intelligence [2]. Specifically, volunteers in a psychology experiment were randomly divided into 2 groups. As in the popular game show Jeopardy!, the first group (i.e., the "Questioners") was asked to compose a bunch of trivia questions, which the second group (i.e., the "Contestants") had to answer. After the Questioners asked the Contestants to answer the question, the experimenters asked each  group to rate how knowledgable the Questioners and Contestants were. Just like in a real game show, the experimenters also had some other people watch the events unfold (i.e., the "Observers") and rate the knowledge of the people serving as Questioners and Contestants. Before looking at the graph, can you predict how knowledgable each group was rated?

Fig. 1: Results from the three groups when asked to rate the Questioner and the Contestant's general knowledgeability.

An interesting pattern of results emerged. The ratings that the Questioners gave to themselves and the Contestants (i.e., the left-most pair of bars) weren't very different, probably because they knew they were randomly chosen to compose the questions and read the answers. But look at the Contestants' ratings (i.e., the center pair of bars). Contestants rated the Questioner as more knowledgable than themselves. The same was true for those who were watching (i.e., the right-most pair of bars). They really thought the Questioners were smart! 

This example illustrates just how fundamental the FAE really is: it is so easy to discount the role of situational circumstances that we often attribute our own behavior to internal rather than external causes. Why else would the Contestants think they were less knowledgable than the Questioners? It turns out that a person has to be highly motivated, and prompted to think very carefully, to avoid falling prey to the FAE.

The STEM Connection

What does this have to do with education? Just knowing about the FAE can make us more empathic towards others, as we are less likely to assume the worst when someone behaves in a less-than-desirable way. In the classroom, knowing about the FAE can make  teachers more empathic towards their students. Why is Johnny tired all the time? It could be that he is lazy, or that he values video games over sleep. Because these explanations largely focus on Johnny's character, that would be a internal attribution. Alternatively, maybe Johnny's parents start fighting after he goes to bed, and he can't sleep because he is overly stressed. Believing that Johnny's exhaustion is attributed to his home life would be an external attribution.

Probably the most important external/internal attribution dilemma in school is about a student's intelligence (or, colloquially, her "IQ"). Is Sally smart or not? If the teacher makes an internal attribution, then being smart is part of Sally's genetic makeup. If the teacher makes an external attribution, then it might sound something like this: Sally is new to fractions. She might not understand them yet, but she will pick it up with my on-going assistance. It is important to recognize which types of IQ attributions we are making, especially when we consider the impact of the Growth Mindset.

The next time you find yourself harshly evaluating another human being, stop and ask yourself: Is this person like this because that's who they are? Or is it because of the situation, which may or may not be under her control? Thinking about the circumstances that might be driving a person's behavior can make a huge difference in how you react to the person. It is almost always more productive to address issues in the environment that can negatively influence behavior than it is to attribute undesirable person to an immutable characteristic of the person.


Share and Enjoy!

Dr. Bob

For More Information

[1] I realize I am encroaching on the field of Social Psychology, which isn't exactly my area of expertise. But I live with a Social Psychologist, and she gave me some extremely useful feedback (thanks, Leslie!).

[2] This task was originally used in Ross, L. D., Amabile, T. M., & Steinmetz, J. L. (1977). Social roles, social control, and biases in social-perception processes. Journal of personality and social psychology, 35(7), 485.

The Shape of an L: Mindset

Let's start by solving a super-easy puzzle. Given the figure below, can you make four equal triangles by re-arranging 3 of the matchsticks without overlapping any of them?

Did you solve it, yet? Yeah, I thought so. It's so easy that I almost didn't share it because I didn't want to insult your intelligence. [1] 

Whether you solved the puzzle or not:

• What thoughts (if any) were going through your head that weren't task related? Did you think about your ability to solve this problem? 
• Did you think about your innate intelligence and what the implication of solving (or not solving!) this problem had?

What makes you think you're so smart? 

This demonstration is meant to help you diagnose your own personal theory of intelligence. Do you believe that you were born with a fixed intelligence that does not change over the course of your life? Or do you instead believe that intelligence is something that changes due to the various experiences in your life? 

Psychologist Carol Dweck refers to these two theories of intelligence as opposing mindsets. The first theory is held by those with a fixed mindset. Those who have a fixed mindset believe their intelligence will not change. It's something that you are born with, like the color of your eyes. Engaging in a challenging task is uncomfortable because the difficulty of it could mean that you are not smart. Thus, people who have a fixed mindset gravitate toward easier tasks that they know they can solve. It also means that they tend to stay away from challenges because failing at something might reveal that they are not smart (or that they are a "loser"). 

The second theory of intelligence is held by those with a growth mindset. Those who have a growth mindset see intelligence as malleable. You can expand your intelligence through experience. A difficult problem isn't seen as a threat; instead, it is seen as a challenge. It might even be perceived as a chance to learn something new. According to a growth mindset, you can get smarter by trying hard, not giving up, and learning from your mistakes.

In a previous post, I mentioned the importance of being well-calibrated in terms of your meta-cognitive awareness. An individual who rightly knows what he does not know is at a supreme advantage because that person is better able to target gaps in his understanding. If you have a fixed mindset, it might be be uncomfortable to admit that you're not knowledgeable or highly skilled. But if you have a growth mindset, then admitting a lack of knowledge is a source of strength and not a weakness.

What if, at the beginning of this post, you held tightly to a fixed mindset? Is it possible to change your mindset? 

Mindset Characteristics

I think it's worth noting a couple of features of mindsets. First, they can change over time. If you grew up thinking that intelligence was a fixed trait, and later become convinced that they are not, then you can switch to a different mindset. In other words, a fixed or growth mindset is not itself a fixed trait. People can change their mindset at any time. 

Second, an individual might hold different mindsets about different domains. So far we have focused strictly on mindsets about intelligence, but you can have mindsets for any skill or characteristic. For example, you might hold a fixed mindset about artistic vision and creativity. Maybe you think that people are born artists. However, you might also have a growth mindset with respect to athletic ability. Maybe you were terrible at baseball the very first time you played. But after you joined a team and practiced with your friends, you became quite good. Not only are mindsets malleable, but they are also domain-specific. 

The STEM Connection

What are the educational implications of a fixed vs. growth mindset? Which mindset do you think educators want their students to adopt? If we surveyed educators, we would probably find that they want their students to gravitate toward challenging tasks, not to feel stupid if they can't solve a problem on the first try, and to learn from their mistakes. All those behaviors are aligned with having a growth mindset in the classroom. On the flip side, educators would probably also agree that the fixed mindset is prevalent in our society.  So what can be done to foster the growth mindset in the classroom? 

Probably the easiest change to make is to praise students for their effort instead of their intelligence. I realize it is fairly common for a teacher to say, "Well done, Bethany. You are extremely smart!" However, the recommendation from the mindset research is to praise the student's effort. So, instead, one should say, "Well done, Bethany. I noticed that you struggled at first. But you never gave up, and that was important because you eventually solved the problem and learned from the mistakes you made along the way." 

In addition, teachers should model problem-solving tenacity for their students. Even though it might be uncomfortable at first (and it goes against the idea that "teacher knows best"), teachers should let their students give them problems that cause them to struggle. I can see an advantage to admitting defeat and coming back another day with the solution. The goal is not to appear to have the right answers. The goal is to show that you don't back down from challenges and that you don't give up until you have tried every approach you can think of to solve a problem. 

It is tempting to think of kids as smart (or not). But we need to overcome that temptation and see them, instead, as starting at out at different baselines and trying hard to progress beyond what they already know. I would much rather see a student struggle and succeed than to fly through a task. Wouldn't you?

Share and Enjoy! 

Dr. Bob

For More Information

[1] If you want to see the solution, just send me a message.