Grit (47 page)

Willingham was the director
:
Warren H. Willingham,
Success in College: The Role of Personal Qualities and Academic Ability
(New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1985). Around the time Warren Willingham was conducting this study, his teenage son Dan went off to college to study psychology. Dan is now a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and, in the spirit of his father's legacy, dedicated to helping kids benefit from advances in cognitive psychology. My favorite of his books is
Why Don't Students Like School?
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).

beyond standardized tests
:
The predictive validity of standardized achievement tests for academic and professional outcomes is well-documented. See the work of psychologists Paul Sackett and Nathan Kuncel in particular. My claim here is not that achievement tests are invalid, per se, but rather that they are an incomplete and imperfect metric for what students know and can do. See Angela L. Duckworth, Patrick D. Quinn, and Eli Tsukayama, “What
No Child Left Behind
Leaves Behind: The Roles of IQ and Self-Control in Predicting Standardized Achievement Test Scores and Report Card Grades,”
Journal of Educational Psychology
104 (2012): 439–51. See also James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, and Tim Kautz, ed.,
The Myth of Achievement Tests: The GED and the Role of Character in American Life
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

“purposeful, continuous commitment”
:
Willingham,
Success in College
, 213.

“winning an important meet”
:
Michael Wines, “Extracurricular Work Spurs Success in College,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 17, 1985.

“productive follow-through”
:
Willingham,
Success in College
, 193. For a review of the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches to measuring qualities like grit, see Duckworth and Yeager, “Measurement Matters.”

at very different rates
:
Brian M. Galla et al., “Cognitive and Noncognitive Determinants of High School Grades, SAT Scores, and College Persistence,”
Journal of Educational Psychology
(under review, 2015).

the Grit Grid
:
Alyssa J. Matteucci et al., “Quantifying Grit from Extracurricular Activities: A Biodata Measure of Passion and Perseverance for Long-Term Goals” (manuscript in preparation, 2015).

extracurriculars of novice teachers
:
Robertson-Kraft and Duckworth, “True Grit”

corresponsive principle
:
Brent W. Roberts and Avshalom Caspi, “The Cumulative Continuity Model of Personality Development: Striking a Balance Between Continuity and Change in Personality Traits Across the Life Course,” in
Understanding Human Development: Dialogues with Lifespan Psychology
, ed. Ursula M. Staudinger and Ulman Lindenberger (Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), 183–214.

“set like plaster”
:
William James claimed in 1890 that by age thirty, personality is “set like plaster.” Quoted in Brent W. Roberts and Wendy F. DelVecchio, “The Rank-Order Consistency of Personality Traits from Childhood to Old Age: A Quantitative Review of Longitudinal Studies,”
Psychological Bulletin
126 (2000): 6.

change after childhood
:
Ibid. Avshalom Caspi, Brent W. Roberts, and Rebecca L. Shiner, “Personality Development: Stability and Change,”
Annual Review of Psychology
56 (2005): 453–84. Brent W. Roberts, Kate E. Walton, and Wolfgang Viechtbauer, “Patterns of Mean-Level Change in Personality Traits Across the Life Course: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies
,” Psychological Bulletin
132 (2006): 1–25.

tendency toward sociability
:
Brent W. Roberts, Avshalom Caspi, and Terrie E. Moffitt, “Work Experiences and Personality Development in Young Adulthood,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
84 (2003): 582–93.

“It's never far from reach”
:
William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College, in an interview with the author, February 17, 2015.

“plain old hard work”
:
William R. Fitzsimmons, “Guidance Office: Answers from Harvard's Dean, Part 3,”
New York Times
, September 14, 2009,
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/harvarddean
.

“all that grit”
:
Fitzsimmons, interview.

dropping precipitously
:
Kaisa Snellman, Jennifer M. Silva, Carl B. Frederick, and Robert D. Putnam, “The Engagement Gap: Social Mobility and Extracurricular Participation Among American Youth,”
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
657 (2015): 194–207.

Harlem Children's Zone
:
For more information on Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone, visit
www.hcz.org
.

“a decent childhood”
:
Geoffrey Canada, founder and president of the Harlem Children's Zone, in conversation with the author, May 14, 2012.

“I actually like kids”
:
Geoffrey Canada, “Our Failing Schools. Enough Is Enough!” TED Talks Education video, filmed May 2013,
https://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_canada_our_failing_schools_enough_is_enough?language=en
.

Bob Eisenberger
:
For a summary of his research, see Robert Eisenberger, “Learned Industriousness,”
Psychological Review
99 (1992): 248–67 and Eisenberger's book
Blue Monday: The Loss of the Work Ethic in America
(New York: Paragon House, 1989).

playing fields for grit
:
Even for those of us who are beyond our high school and college years, there are many activities we can sign up for that offer challenge and support. For example, I've learned a lot about grit from Joe De Sena, founder of the Spartan Race. Here's a story from our interview: “We live in Vermont. It gets very icy. My son is on the ski team. One day, he comes in an hour before lunch. He tells me he came in early because he was cold.” It turns out that the rest of the team was still out practicing. “Okay,” Joe said to his son, “I understand you're cold. But you're on the team, and the team is skiing, so now you're on my team, and my team doesn't take the chairlift.” Father and son then proceed outside and hike up the mountain on foot, the son upset and complaining the whole way. And then they skied down. Lesson over. “Sounds like torture,” I said, half-joking. “The point was not to torture him,” Joe replied. “The point was to show him it could be a lot worse. We never had that issue again because now he had a frame of reference that said, ‘Okay, this is uncomfortable, but it could be a lot worse.' ” Then Joe paused. “You know, I've quit a race before. I learned there's a lot worse than dealing with the pain in front of me. That's a lesson you need help learning. You're not born knowing that.”

“really have
grit
”:
Pete Carroll, interviewed by Eric Wayne Davis,
NFL AM
, posted by the Seattle Seahawks, “Pete Carroll: ‘We're Looking for Grit,' ” February 3, 2014,
http://www.seahawks.com/video/2014/02/03/pete-carroll-were-looking-grit
.

“be great competitors”
:
Pete Carroll, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, in a phone call with the author, May 13, 2013.

“join a great team”
:
Chambliss, interview.

thinking a different way
:
Lee Ross and Richard E. Nisbett,
The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology
(London: McGraw-Hill, 1991). This book sums up all this research beautifully.

James March
:
James G. March, “How Decisions Happen in Organizations,”
Human-Computer Interaction
6 (1991): 95–117.

“I am a West Pointer”
:
Tom Deierlein, cofounder and CEO of ThunderCat Technology, in an email with the author, October 29, 2011.

“they got used to it”
:
Deierlein, in an email to the author, September 17, 2015.

“
the Finnish spirit
”:
Time
, “Northern Theatre: Sisu,” January 8, 1940.

“he can stand worse”
:
Hudson Strode, “Sisu: A Word That Explains Finland,”
New York Times
, January 14, 1940.

asked a thousand Finns
:
Emilia Lahti, “Above and Beyond Perseverance: An Exploration of Sisu” (Masters Capstone, University of Pennsylvania, 2013).

“I wear this jersey”
:
Betty Liu,
Work Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need to Know to Get Ahead
(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2014), 7.

“No one here is insignificant”
:
Thomas II, Amazon review of “Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase,” October 8, 2009,
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Man-Standing-Ascent-JPMorgan/dp/B003STCKN0
.

“grytte”
:
Ben Smith, “Master Howard Dean,”
Observer
, December 8, 2003,
http://observer.com/2003/12/master-howard-dean
.

senior year at Browning
:
Duff McDonald,
Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), 5.

“I call it fortitude”
:
Jamie Dimon, chairman, president, and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, in conversation with the author, April 14, 2015.

“the ultimate thing”
:
Dimon, interview.

“how they treat people”
:
Nick Summers and Max Abelson, “Why JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon is Wall Street's Indispensable Man,”
Bloomberg Businessweek
, May 16, 2013.

“let my kids work for them?”
:
Dimon, interview.

“actually in the arena”
:
Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man in the Arena. Citizenship in a Republic,” address delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, 1910.

“not reasons to quit”
:
JPMorgan Chase & Co.,
How We Do Business
, 2014,
http://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/document/20140711_Website_PDF_FINAL.pdf
.

“that as a compliment”
:
Tim Crothers,
The Man Watching: Anson Dorrance and the University of North Carolina Women's Soccer Dynasty
(New York: Thomas Dunne, 2006), 37.

“final measure of greatness”
:
Ibid., 106.

“It's our culture”
:
Anson Dorrance, head coach of the University of North Carolina's women's soccer team, in an interview with the author, August 21, 2015.

the Beep Test
:
Luc A. Léger, D. Mercier, C. Gadoury, and J. Lambert, “The Multistage 20 Metre Shuttle Run Test for Aerobic Fitness,”
Journal of Sports Sciences
6 (1988): 93–101.

“this is a test of your mentality”
:
Dorrance, in an interview with the author, September 30, 2015.

“language is everything”
:
Dimon, interview.

“making you happy”
:
George Bernard Shaw,
Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy
(New York: Penguin, 1903), 32. The original passage reads: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one . . . the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

the Bugle Notes
:
West-Point.org
, “Bugle Notes,” accessed February 10, 2015,
http://www.west-point.org/academy/malo-wa/inspirations/buglenotes.html
.

“than to make an army”
:
Major General John M. Schofield, former superintendent of the United States Military Academy, address to cadets, August 11, 1879.

“the yelling and screaming”
:
Lieutenant General Robert L. Caslen, superintendent of the United States Military Academy, in an interview with the author, September 4, 2015.

less than 2 percent
:
Data provided by the United States Military Academy.

“allows you to get there”
:
Carroll,
Win Forever
, 183.

“they can demonstrate passion”
:
“Pete Carroll Returns to USC, Full Interview, 2014,” YouTube video, 1:57:42, posted March 20, 2014,
https://youtube/jSizvISegnE
.

“they're helping me to get better”
:
Earl Thomas, “Take Nothing for Granted,” Earl Thomas's blog, January 25, 2014,
http://www.earlthomas.com/2014/01/25/take-nothing-granted
.

“the worst call in NFL history”
:
Don Banks, “The Worst Play Call in NFL History Will Continue to Haunt Seahawks in 2015,”
Sports Illustrated
, July 21, 2015.

“failure is never fatal”
:
“The Wizard's Wisdom: ‘Woodenism,' ” ESPN, June 5, 2010.

“And use it.
Use it!
”:
Greg Bishop, “Pete Carroll, NFL's Eternal Optimist, Is Ready to Turn Heartbreak into Triumph,”
Sports Illustrated
, August 3, 2015,
http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/07/28/pete-carroll-seattle-seahawks-2015-season-super-bowl-xlix
.