801322

review-article2018
EDRXXX10.3102/0013189X18801322Educational ResearcherEducational Researcher

Reviews/Essays

What Shall We Do About Grit? A Critical Review of

What We Know and What We Don’t Know
Marcus Credé1

Grit is a construct that is widely studied by educational researchers and that has generally been enthusiastically received
by educational practitioners. This essay highlights that many of the core claims about grit have either been unexamined or
are directly contradicted by the accumulated empirical evidence. Specifically, there appears to be no reason to accept the
combination of perseverance and passion for long-term goals into a single grit construct, nor is there any support for the
claim that grit is a particularly good predictor of success and performance in an educational setting or that grit is likely to
be responsive to interventions. I describe avenues for future research on grit that may help to clarify if grit can contribute
to our understanding of success and performance. These avenues include examinations of possible configural relationships
between passion and perseverance, whether grit or grit facets represent necessary but not sufficient conditions for
performance, interactions between ability and either grit or the facets of grit in the prediction of performance, possible
polynomial relationships between grit or grit facets and performance, and improvements in the manner in which grit is
assessed. Alternative predictors of performance that are more strongly related to success and performance and that may
be more responsive to interventions are also discussed.

Keywords: achievement; construct validity; factor analysis; grit; higher education; interventions; measurements; meta-
analysis; predictive validity; psychology; psychometrics; testing; validity/reliability

G
rit is a widely studied and popular psychological con- essay aims to alert educational researchers and practitioners to
struct popularized by Duckworth via academic journal the fact that these four primary claims about grit either remain
articles (e.g., Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, untested or are directly contradicted by empirical evidence.
2007; Duckworth & Quinn, 2009), a widely viewed TED talk Further, this essays highlights, where possible, how different
(Duckworth, 2013), as well as a best-selling book (Duckworth, research approaches might help to clarify the true contribution
2017) and numerous talks and interviews (e.g., Scelfo, 2106). of grit to our understanding of success and achievement.
Interest in grit has been particularly notable among educational
researchers because of the specific claims made about the con- Grit = Passion + Perseverance
struct: (a) that grit represents perseverance and passion for long-
term goals, (b) that grit is not only an excellent predictor of The first claim—one central to the construct validity of grit—is
success and performance but also the secret to success that grit represents perseverance of effort and consistency of
(Duckworth, 2017), (c) that grit “beats the pants off” other pre- interest (sometimes also referred to as passion for long-term
dictors of success (Duckworth, quoted in Scelfo, 2016), and (d) goals and hereafter simply referred to as passion). This defini-
that interventions designed to raise the grit level of students are tion, while intuitively appealing, lacks theoretical clarity because
likely to be successful. The apparent acceptance of these claims it allows at least three different possible conceptualizations of the
led the U.S. Department of Education to recommend that grit structure of the construct. The first possibility, and the one
be taught in schools (Schechtman, DeBarger, Dornsife, Rosier, implicitly accepted by almost all grit researchers, is that grit is a
& Yarnall, 2013)—a recommendation that is being followed by
at least one national group of charter schools (KIPP, 2017). This 1
Iowa State University, Ames, IA

Educational Researcher, Vol. 47 No. 9, pp. 606­–611

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X18801322
Article reuse guidelines: [Link]/journals-permissions
© 2018 AERA. [Link]
606    EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
higher order construct comprised of two first-order facets: perse- solution offered by Duckworth and Quinn (which contains pre-
verance and passion. At first glance, this claim may not appear to cise values for a and b, see Figure 1 on p. 168 of Duckworth &
be particularly problematic; it is certainly likely to hold an intui- Quinn, 2009) cannot be used to infer support for a higher order
tive appeal for educators who recognize that many students in model.
their classes and institutions have struggled because of a lack of Third, the aggregation of facet-level scores into an overall
perseverance and/or a lack of passion for long-term goals. But score is only supported if such an aggregation does not result in
why should perseverance and passion be combined into a single a loss in criterion validity (see Johnson et al., 2012, for a discus-
grit variable? Can we combine any two moderately correlated sion). However, our recent meta-analysis of the grit literature
psychological variables and call the resultant variable something (Credé, Tynan, & Harms, 2017), based on data from 88 samples
that has psychological meaning? and over 66,000 individuals, demonstrates that overall grit scores
A scientific claim that a variable—here grit—represents the do not predict success and performance as well as a model in
combination of two or more constructs—here perseverance and which perseverance and passion are considered separately. In
passion—must find strong empirical support beyond mere intu- other words, researchers would be able to predict success and
itive appeal. Luckily there is a sophisticated and growing litera- performance much better if they kept perseverance and passion
ture that discusses the types of evidence that researchers should separate rather than combining them to form a single grit score.
marshal when making the argument for a higher order construct Because the higher order view of grit does not appear to be
such as grit. For example, Johnson, Rosen, Chang, Djurdevic, supported, researchers may consider two alternative conceptual-
and Taing (2012) describe seven types of evidence that should be izations of the structure of grit. The first alternative conceptual-
presented when arguing for a higher order construct, while my ization is that grit represents the unique combination of high
colleague and I outline the specific types of factor analytic results levels of perseverance and (simultaneously) high levels of pas-
that would constitute support for a higher order construct sion. This person-centered approach would, in turn, imply that
(Credé & Harms, 2015). Broadly speaking, a proposed higher grit does not exist on a low-to-high continuum and that an indi-
order construct is supported under three broad conditions: (1) vidual with high levels of perseverance but low levels of passion
the facets are strongly and relatively uniformly correlated with (or vice versa) should not be described as having moderate
each other, (2) a higher order model exhibits fit that is better (or amounts of grit. Instead, individuals would be described as hav-
at least no worse) than all plausible alternative models of how the ing grit or not having grit—although the “not gritty” group
facets are related to each other, and (3) aggregating across facets could certainly be divided into further subgroups (e.g., low on
to form a higher order construct does not diminish our ability to passion, low on perseverance, and low on both passion and per-
predict outcomes relative to simply retaining the facets as stand- severance). This conceptualization of grit is hinted at by
alone constructs. Duckworth et al. (2007), who describe particularly successful
The theoretical higher order structure was formally examined historical figures as being characterized by “zeal and with capac-
by Duckworth and Quinn (2009) via confirmatory factor analy- ity for hard labor” (quote from Galton, 1892 on p. 1088 of
sis and is also implied by the aggregation of perseverance scores Duckworth et al., 2007). To my knowledge, this person-centered
and passion scores to form an overall grit score—a scoring approach to understanding grit has never been tested; doing so
approach that was explicitly endorsed by Duckworth et al. should be relatively straightforward using latent class analysis,
(2007, p. 1091). While widely accepted, this higher order view other cluster analytic approaches, or even Necessary Condition
of the structure of grit does not appear to be correct for three Analysis (Dul, 2016).
important reasons. A third possible conceptualization is that the importance of
First, the higher order view essentially equates individuals perseverance as a predictor of success is contingent on the indi-
with high levels of perseverance and low levels of passion with vidual’s level of passion (and vice versa). That is, perseverance
those individuals who have low levels of perseverance and high may be a modest predictor of success on its own—as we sug-
levels of passion. That is, both individuals would be described as gested in our meta-analysis (Credé et al., 2017)—but the rela-
having average levels of grit. tionship between perseverance and performance may be
Second, the higher order factor analytic model tested by significantly stronger when passion is high. This, of course,
Duckworth and Quinn (2009) is unidentified at the higher would represent a moderation effect that would best be tested
order level. What this means, in essence, is that the authors tried using standard regression-based or structural equation-based
to solve the equation a * b = x, where a and b represent the paths methods for testing interaction effects. To my knowledge, the
from the lower order facets to the second order construct and x possible interaction between perseverance and passion in deter-
is a constant (here the correlation between perseverance and pas- mining success has also not been tested.
sion). Most readers will recognize that for any given value of x, a A final important problem with the claim that grit is a com-
and b can take on an infinite number of combinations of values. bination of perseverance and passion is that grit scores and per-
That is, there is no unique solution for a and b, and factor ana- severance scores are so strongly correlated with one of the Big
lytic software will typically inform the user of this problem in the Five personality traits—conscientiousness—as to suggest that
output. Further, the fit of this model will always be identical to overall grit and perseverance as currently assessed are simply a
the fit of the most plausible alternative model in which the per- relabeling of conscientiousness. This apparent “old wine in new
severance and passion are simply kept as separate albeit corre- bottles” phenomenon suggests that enthusiasm for grit may
lated variables. This, in turn, means that the factor analytic largely be based on the jangle fallacy, which is the belief that two

December 2018    607

very similar things are distinct merely because they have differ- group of writers. More importantly, these unsuccessful authors
ent names. The apparent isomorphism with conscientiousness may have sacrificed success in other fields to their persistent pur-
and strong overlap with other related constructs such as self- suit of their passion for writing. Focusing only on those who
control (see Muenks, Wigfield, Yang, & O’Neal, 2017) also succeeded provides a distorted perspective on the importance of
severely limits the contribution of grit to our understanding of perseverance and passion as a predictor of success in this specific
success because the influence of conscientiousness on success has discipline.
a very long prior research tradition and is generally well under- The empirical data collected by Duckworth and colleagues
stood (e.g., see meta-analytic reviews by Porapat, 2009, 2014). also offers only limited support for the claim that grit is a good
This finding was reinforced both in our meta-analysis (Credé predictor of success—notwithstanding some of the more hyper-
et al., 2017), in which we estimated that overall grit and perse- bolic claims about the predictive value of grit made to members
verance were correlated with conscientiousness at r = .84 and of the media (e.g., Scelfo, 2016). Indeed, in many of the samples
r = .83, respectively, and a study of 2,321 pairs of twins (Rimfeld, collected by Duckworth herself, grit scores are often shown to be
Kovas, Dale, & Plomin, 2016), which found that perseverance only very weak predictor of success, while other variables such as
and conscientiousness exhibited a genetic correlation of r = .86. admissions test scores, cognitive ability, or physical ability are
The relationship of passion with conscientiousness is also strong much better predictors (e.g., Eskreis-Winkler et al., 2014). The
(r = .61; Credé et al., 2017) but not so strong as to suggest that generally weak relationship between grit and performance was
passion is entirely redundant with conscientiousness. also confirmed by our recent meta-analytic review of the grit
literature (Credé et al., 2017), which also noted that two of the
stronger claims about the effectiveness of grit as a predictor of
Grit as a Predictor of Success and Performance
success appear to be based on a statistical misunderstanding.
The second core claim is that grit is an excellent predictor of suc- The proponents of grit have not only claimed that grit is an
cess and performance and that it is a defining feature of high excellent predictor of success but also that grit is a better predic-
achievement. In support of this argument, the proponents of grit tor of success than other variables such as cognitive ability,
marshal two lines of evidence. The first line of evidence is repre- admissions test scores, or physical fitness (e.g., Scelfo, 2016).
sented by interviews with professionals in various industries and This too does not appear to be correct. The meta-analytic esti-
prior work on high achievement and genius by the likes of mate of the relationship between overall grit and academic per-
Galton (1892), Cox (1926), and Howe (1999). These sources all formance (r = .18) is much weaker than the correlation that has
emphasized that qualities like hard work, passion, and persever- been observed for other variables. For example, meta-analytic
ance were critical features of successful individuals. The second reviews have shown that admissions test scores (r = .40 to r =
line of evidence is based on correlational data that Duckworth .60, Kuncel & Hezlett, 2007), study skills and study habits (r =
and her co-authors collected in a variety of military, occupa- .40; Credé & Kuncel, 2008), academic adjustment (r = .39,
tional, educational, and social settings (e.g., Duckworth et al., Credé & Niehorster, 2012), class attendance (r = .41, Credé,
2007; Duckworth & Quinn, 2009; Eskreis-Winkler, Duckworth, Roch, & Kieszczynska, 2010), and effort regulation and meta-
Shulman, & Beal, 2014). These data are also presented as sup- cognition (r = .23 to r = .40, Credé & Phillips, 2011) are much
porting the value of grit scores as good predictors of success. better predictors of college and graduate school achievement,
A closer look at these two lines of evidence suggests that the while cognitive ability is a much better predictor of job perfor-
support for grit as a defining feature of success is limited. The mance (r = .24 to r = .58, Schmidt & Hunter, 2004). My col-
first problem is simply that historical accounts of high achieve- leagues and I (Credé et al., 2017) have also demonstrated that
ment and genius are susceptible to what is referred to as survivor- grit explains almost no incremental variance in performance
ship bias (see Smith, 2014). That is, while it may be correct that after controlling for conscientiousness. Researchers examining
many past high achievers were characterized by high levels of the incremental value of grit scores over other predictors of per-
perseverance and passion, we are unable to know from this evi- formance should always control for conscientiousness because of
dence if perseverance and passion were predictors and causes of its apparent isomorphism with grit.
success. Perhaps there was a similar group of individuals (per- Where does this leave researchers who are interested in fur-
haps a much larger group) who also had high levels of persever- ther exploring the relationship between grit and performance or
ance and passion but who did not achieve or who perhaps even success? A number of possibilities present themselves. First,
failed spectacularly and devastatingly because their high levels researchers might consider whether grit interacts with ability in
perseverance or passion were manifested in an inability to ask for determining performance. That is, perhaps grit becomes a better
help or change course even when such behavior might have been predictor of success among individuals who have the level of
functional or appropriate. For example, it is true that many suc- innate ability or skill that is required to excel at a particular task.
cessful fiction authors such as J.K. Rowling and William Golding For example, becoming an expert musician may require high lev-
labored for years on their manuscripts and persevered through els of innate musical talent combined with high levels of grit;
many rejections from publishers and editors, but there are prob- either one alone is not sufficient for developing expertise. This
ably far more aspiring authors who labored with similar perse- possibility has been hinted at by Duckworth in her arguments
verance and passion but who never succeeded in getting their for a polynomial relationship between ability and grit/effort
manuscript published or who failed to become successful (specifically effort squared; see Duckworth, Eichstaedt, & Ungar,
authors. Unfortunately, we seldom hear from this much larger 2015). In other words, grit and ability might both be necessary

608    EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER

but not sufficient conditions for success and performance. It is improve the criterion validity of grit scores for academic perfor-
also possible that noncognitive attributes such as grit are particu- mance. Fourth, researchers may consider developing observer
larly important for individuals at the lower end of the ability rating forms such as those used by Robertson-Kraft and
spectrum. Findings described by Heckman and Rubinstein Duckworth (2014) or even situational judgment test items for
(2001) and Lindqvist and Vestman (2011) suggest that noncog- the measurement of grit in order to reduce the influence of
nitive attributes may help individuals who did not graduate from socially desirable responding. Self-ratings are likely to be of only
college to avoid various negative behaviors and outcomes such as limited value because they require high levels of self-awareness
frequent switching of jobs, low wages, and even drug use and from respondents.
criminal activity. Exploring this possibility will require research-
ers to explore the use of moderated regression, Necessary
The Impact of Grit Interventions
Condition Analysis (Dul, 2016), or other configural relation-
ships between grit, ability, and success. Despite the very modest relationship of grit scores with perfor-
A second possibility is that the value of grit is situationally mance and the lack of evidence that grit scores reflect much
determined such that grit interacts with situational characteris- beyond conscientiousness, proponents of grit may still believe
tics in determining success or performance. In other words, grit that interventions designed to enhance grit will have some
may be particularly valuable in situations characterized by high value. The questionable validity of combining perseverance and
levels of adversity, ambiguity, and complexity such that almost passion into a single construct suggests that research on the effi-
all individuals will initially fail to perform well. That is, indi- cacy of such interventions should examine interventions
viduals must overcome the initial experiences of failure and per- designed to increase perseverance and interventions designed to
sist for lengthy periods of time before a high level of performance increase passion separately. However, evidence from the person-
can be attained. ality literature suggests that interventions designed to increase
A third possibility is to investigate whether alternative opera- perseverance—a construct that appears to be isomorphic with
tionalizations of grit may result in stronger relationships with conscientiousness—are likely to be of limited value. A recent
criterion. The existing grit scales are psychometrically unsatisfac- meta-analysis of the literature on interventions designed to
tory because of the complete confounding of the perseverance change personality (Roberts et al., 2017) found that clinical
and passion scales with positively worded and negatively worded interventions designed to increase conscientiousness have only
items, respectively. Negatively worded items are psychometri- small effects (d = .19 and d = .06 for pre-post intervention and
cally problematic because they are known to be more difficult to treatment-control group comparisons, respectively). Interventions
answer (Swain, Weathers, & Niedrich, 2008), especially for indi- designed to increase skills that are related to conscientiousness,
viduals with lower levels of reading ability (e.g., Marsh, 1986), such as study skills, have had somewhat greater success (d = .45;
and also because they can lower the reliability and validity of see meta-analysis by Hattie, Biggs, & Purdie, 1996), but in gen-
scale scores (Woods, 2006) and artificially create distinct factors eral interventions designed to change perseverance are likely to
(e.g., Schmitt & Stults, 1985). It may therefore be better to require long-term investment by institutions and the involve-
either have positively and negatively worded items for both sub- ment of well-trained and skilled teachers and trainers. It may
scales or to only have positively worded items. It is also worth also be useful to design interventions in a way that highlights
noting that the short grit scale (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009) is which situations may require students to respond with persever-
particularly poorly aligned with the theoretical conceptualiza- ance and in which situations perseverance may be less adap-
tion of grit because the items make almost no mention of main- tive—in much the same way that the literature on self-regulated
taining interest and passion despite failures and setbacks—a core learning has emphasized the need to adapt learning approaches
element of the definition of grit (see Duckworth et al., 2007). to the demands of the situation (see Zimmerman, 1990).
Revisiting the measurement of grit may help researchers arrive at Interventions designed to increase passion face a more theoreti-
a more accurate understanding of the role of grit in determining cal obstacle inasmuch as it is unclear whether a general increase
performance, and there appear to be at least four ways in which in passion is desirable. Passion for academic subjects, music, or
the measurement of grit could be refined. First, negatively sport may increase the likelihood of developing expertise in these
worded items should be eliminated and replaced with positively domains, but passion for other pursuits (e.g., playing of video
worded items. Second, item response theory (IRT) methods may games) may have less desirable consequences. Similarly, it is as
help to develop items that improve on the ability to accurately yet unclear whether an individual’s general level of passion can
measure the grit construct at all levels of the construct. That is, be increased by interventions or whether high levels of passion
it is unclear whether the existing scales are effective at measuring for long-terms goals are even inherently desirable, particularly
very high and very low levels of either of the two facets. for younger children who may benefit more from a general
Importantly, IRT item refinement should be based on a consid- exploration of many different activities rather than the single-
eration of each of the two facets individually because IRT meth- minded pursuit of any one activity. Take, for example, the items
ods are based on an assumption of unidimensionality. Third, it “My interests change from year to year” and “I have been
may be helpful to provide situational contexts for grit items— obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later
ideally, contexts that match the criterion of interest (see Lievens, lost interest.” These reverse-scored items, taken from the original
De Corte, & Schollaert, 2008). For example, asking respondents 12-item grit scale, are designed to assess passion, but it seems
about their level of grit when engaged in academic tasks may questionable whether any school intervention should aim to

December 2018    609

ensure that children do not change their interests from year to Duckworth, A. L. (2013). The key to success? Grit. Retrieved from
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Duckworth, A. L., Eichstaedt, J. C., & Ungar, L. H. (2015). The
Where Do We Go From Here? mechanics of human achievement. Social and Personality Psychology
Compass, 9, 359–369.
For all its intuitive appeal, the grit literature is currently char-
Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R.
acterized by a number of serious theoretical and empirical chal- (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long term goals. Journal
lenges ranging from a lack of construct validity, discriminant of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 1087–1101.
validity, and predictive validity. At present there is no empirical Duckworth, A. L., & Quinn, P. D. (2009). Development and validation
support for the idea that grit is the combination of persever- of the short grit scale (Grit-S). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91,
ance and passion or for the claim that grit adds to our under- 166–174.
standing of success and performance. Indeed, the best available Dul, J. (2016). Necessary condition analysis (NCA). Organizational
evidence strongly suggests that grit is largely a repackaging of Research Methods, 19, 10–52.
­conscientiousness—a widely studied personality trait. If grit is to Eskreis-Winkler, L., Duckworth, A. L., Shulman, E. P., & Beal, S.
represent a meaningful contribution to our understanding of (2014). The grit effect: Predicting retention in the military, the
workplace, school and marriage. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 36.
success, researchers should focus on three broad areas. First,
Galton, F. (1892). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and conse-
future work will have to pay particularly close attention to
quences. London, UK: Macmillan.
whether the combination of perseverance and passion into a Hattie, J., Biggs, J., & Purdie, N. (1996). Effects of learning skills
single construct can be theoretically or empirically justified or interventions on student learning: A meta-analysis. Review of
whether the two facets are best studied individually. Second, Educational Research, 66, 99–136.
future work should consider whether grit or grit facets interact Heckman, J. J., & Rubinstein, Y. (2001). The importance of non-­
with ability to predict success or whether grit facets represent cognitive skills: Lessons from the GED testing program. The
necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions for success. Third, efforts American Economic Review, 91, 145–149.
should be made to improve the measurement of grit and grit Hofer, M. (2010). Adolescents’ development of individual interests: A
facets because any empirical investigation of the role of grit product of multiple goal regulation? Educational Psychologist, 45,
requires that grit be measured better than current scales allow. 149–166.
Howe, M. J. A. (1999). Genius explained. New York, NY: Cambridge
Until grit researchers have provided better evidence regarding
University Press.
the role that grit plays in determining success, it seems reason-
Johnson, R. E., Rosen, C. C., Chang, C., Djurdevic, E., & Taing, M.
able to advise educational institutions to focus their often-­ U. (2012). Recommendations for improving the construct clar-
limited financial and instructional resources on variables that ity of higher-order multidimensional constructs. Human Resource
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for success in the 21st century. Washington, DC: U.S. Department University, Department of Psychology, W112 Lagomarcino Hall,
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and other ways to lie with statistics. New York, NY: The Overlook Press.

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