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Abstract
Psychology has struggled for years to define the traits and tendencies that make an individual successful. Past research has focused on intelligence. Recently, there has been a focus on perseverance or “grit”. We set out to examine the extent to which grit exhibits state-like facets and the relation between manipulations of grit and performance. Results from the first experiment provide evidence that reflecting on failures results in higher grit scores than reflecting on success. The second experiment extends the failure–grit relationship to explore how this relation might modify performance: Encouraging individuals to reflect on failures resulted in a significant reduction in error rates on a cognitive task requiring perseverance. Together, these results provide support for the idea that grit exhibits state-like tendencies, and that encouraging individuals to reflect on failures may result in improved behavioural outcomes.
We wish to thank Ingrid Olson for helpful guidance in study design and analysis as well as providing helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
We wish to thank Ingrid Olson for helpful guidance in study design and analysis as well as providing helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplementary material
Supplementary content is available via the ‘Supplementary’ tab on the article's online page (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2014.995104).