Self-Control and Grit - Determinants of Success in Big Projects That Span Long Periods of Time

Zeal Required in Blogging to Make it a Success
http://nraoblogs.blogspot.com/2016/04/zeal-required-in-blogging-to-make-it.html

After publishing the above blog post, I searched for "determinants of zeal" and came across this paper.


Summary of

Self-Control and Grit: Related but Separable Determinants of Success

Angela Duckworth (1) and James J. Gross (2)

1 University of Pennsylvania and 2 Stanford University

Current Directions in Psychological Science
2014, Vol. 23(5) 319–325

Abstract

Other than talent and opportunity, what makes some people more successful than others?  The two important determinant are self-control and grit. Self-control is the capacity to regulate attention, emotion, and behavior on the goal related activity in the presence of temptation. Grit is the tenacious pursuit of a dominant superordinate goal despite setbacks. Self-control and grit are strongly correlated, but not perfectly so. Some people with high levels of self-control capably handle temptations but do not consistently pursue a dominant goal. Likewise, some exceptional achievers are prodigiously gritty but succumb to temptations and divert their attention to other activities during various periods of time. Self-control and grit are related but distinct concepts. Self-control entails aligning actions with any valued goal despite momentarily more-alluring alternatives. Grit,
in contrast, entails having and working assiduously toward a single challenging superordinate goal through thick and thin, on a timescale of years or even decades. Although both self-control and grit entail aligning actions with intentions, they operate over different timescales.


Why are some people more successful than others? Talent and opportunity are obvious answers. But
even people who have comparable levels of talent and opportunity often enjoy strikingly different levels of success.


The determinants of extraordinary achievement is a topic of interest even in  the earliest days of psychology. Galton (1869) identified “self-denial” in the face of “hourly temptations” and
“zeal [and] the capacity for hard labour” as determinants of extraordinary achievement. What Galton termed “self-denial” is now referred to as self-control. Galton’s conception of zeal and the capacity for hard work corresponds to grit, a newer construct defined as passion for and perseverance toward especially long-term goals (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007).

Self-Control: Resisting the Hourly Temptations

Self-control is related constructs of ego strength, effortful control, and Big Five conscientiousness, and is associated with positive life outcomes (de Ridder, Lensvelt-Mulders, Finkenauer, Stok, & Baumeister, 2012; Hofmann, Fisher, Luhmann, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2014; Roberts, Jackson,
Fayard, Edmonds, & Meints, 2009). Prospective longitudinal studies have confirmed that higher levels of self-control earlier in life predict later academic achievement and attainment (Duckworth & Carlson, 2013; Mischel, 2014),  employment, earnings, savings, and physical health (Moffitt
et  al., 2011).

Self-control is required when there is a conflict between two possible action tendencies (i.e.,  impulses)—one corresponding to a momentarily alluring goal and the other corresponding to a more valued goal whose benefits are deferred in time, more abstract, or otherwise more psychologically
distant (Maglio, Trope, & Liberman, 2013).

In general, the capacity to exercise selfcontrol appears to improve from infancy through adulthood,
in parallel with the maturation of prefrontal brain areas and metacognitive sophistication.

Grit: Passion and Effort Sustained Over Years

Grit and related constructs are associated with lifetime educational attainment (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009) and professional success (Baum & Locke, 2004; Locke & Latham, 2013; Vallerand, Houlfort, & Forest, 2014; Wrzesniewski, 2012). Prospective longitudinal studies have shown that grit predicts the completion of challenging goals despite obstacles and setbacks.

Related research has identified harmonious passion (i.e., autonomous internalization of a passionate
activity into one’s identity) as a predictor of deliberate practice and, in turn, performance (Vallerand et al., 2014). Many other studies of expert performers in diverse domains have found that thousands of hours of extremely effortful deliberate practice are prerequisite for achieving world-class levels of skill (Ericsson & Charness, 1994).

A Hierarchical Goal Framework

Self-control and grit are   are highly correlated (e.g., rs > .6 in Duckworth et al., 2007), and both
predict success outcomes over and above intelligence (Duckworth et al., 2007; Duckworth & Seligman, 2005; Moffitt et al., 2011).

How are self-control and grit similar, and how are they different? The authors proposed that both their similarities and their differences can be understood within a hierarchical goal framework.

Goals have to be organized hierarchically, with lower order goals serving higher-order goals. Lower-order goals are more numerous, context specific, short-term, and substitutable, whereas higher-order goals are typically fewer in number, more abstract, more enduring, and more important to the individual. At any level in the goal hierarchy, goals are more likely to be activated if they are
appraised as feasible and desirable (Atkinson, 1964). Individuals can have multiple higher order goals having goal hierarchies.  This multiplicity of goals can lead to conflicts in time for striving for goal oriented action.

Within this framework, self-control refers to the successful resolution of a conflict between two action impulses in favor of a more valued goal that is realized after some period—one action that corresponds to a goal that is more valued in the moment, and another that corresponds to a goal that is of a greater enduring value.


In the same framework, grit entails having a dominant superordinate goal (e.g., producing useful new insights into the psychological determinants of success) and tenaciously working toward it in the face of obstacles and setbacks, often for years or decades. This superordinate goal sits at the top of a well-organized goal hierarchy in which lower-order goals are tightly aligned with the superordinate goal, and these lower-order goals in turn give rise to effective actions that advance the individual
toward the superordinate goal.

Gritty individuals either are able to actively suppress rival superordinate goals or lack competing superordinate goals altogether.

Superordinate goal impels gritty individuals, when faced with setbacks, to find a way forward by “sprouting” new lower-order goals (or actions) when a current lower-order goal (or action)
is blocked.  In other words, in a gritty individual’s domain of passionate interest, goals or actions deemed unfeasible are met with the response of an active search for—or even invention of—viable alternatives.

Viewed in this light, it is evident that self-control and grit both involve the defense of valued goals in the face of adversity. Where they principally differ is in  the nature of the “enemy,” and the timescale that is involved. Self-control is required to adjudicate between lower-level goals entailing necessarily
conflicting actions. In contrast, grit entails maintaining allegiance to a highest-level goal over long stretches of time and in the face of disappointments and setbacks.

The alternative to grit is following a series of different superordinate goals in rapid succession by giving up on a superordinate goal very quickly as soon as the means in the present plan to the end of that goal have been blocked at a lower level. It follows that self-control is more tightly coupled with success at lower order goals, whereas grit  is more tightly coupled with exceptional achievements
that often take decades—or even an entire lifetime—to accomplish through successful completion of many lower order goals.

Directions for Future Research

What are the characteristics of individuals who have high versus low levels of self-control or grit, both in terms of the types of goals they hold (Dweck & Leggett, 1988) and in terms of the processes they engage in to defend these goals against challenges (Fishbach, Dhar, & Zhang, 2006)?

Do individuals who exemplify grit but not self control have stronger approach-motivation systems, and do individuals who exemplify self-control but not grit have stronger avoidance systems? What are the main and interactive effects of self-control and grit with respect to specific success outcomes? It seems likely that there may be synergistic effects: High levels of both self-control and grit may lead to greater success than either alone

The proposed framework implies that self-control is a skill or capacity, which, like other skills and capacities, might be improved with training and practice (Diamond, 2012; Mischel, 2014;
Oettingen, 2012). Grit, in contrast, is as much about motivation as volition (Achtziger & Gollwitzer, 2008).


Very generally, we assume that commitment to a superordinate goal is a function of that goal’s feasibility and desirability, and thus that the diverse psychological antecedents to such valuations (e.g., growth mindset, optimism, attribution style, locus of control, counterfactual style, core self-evaluation, intrinsic motivation, interest, approaches to happiness) are logical targets for intervention and inquiry.

Conclusion

Much of human behavior is goal-directed (Locke & Latham, 2013).  Hence human behavior can be studied as a a series of actions every day to achieve higher order goals that are achieved with a hierarchical framework of lower order goals that may be relevant for even hour, minute and second.

A hierarchical-goal perspective on self-control and grit advances the understanding of the related but distinct psychological mechanisms that underlie these two key determinants of success.


References

Papers quoted in the post are prefixed by *.

*Achtziger, A., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2008). Motivation and volition in the course of action. In J. Heckhausen & H. Heckhausen (Eds.), Motivation and action (pp. 273–295). Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.

*Atkinson, J. W. (1964). An introduction to motivation. Oxford, England: Van Nostrand.

*Baum, J. R., & Locke, E. A. (2004). The relationship of entrepreneurial traits, skill, and motivation to subsequent venture growth. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 587–598.

*de Ridder, D. T. D., Lensvelt-Mulders, G., Finkenauer, C., Stok, F. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2012). Taking stock of self-control: A meta-analysis of how trait self-control relates to a wide range of behaviors. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16, 76–99.

*Diamond, A. (2012). Activities and programs that improve children’s executive functions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 335–341.

*Duckworth, A. L., & Carlson, S. M. (2013). Self-regulation and school success. In B. W. Sokol, F. M. E. Grouzet, & U. Muller (Eds.), Self-regulation and autonomy: Social and developmental dimensions of human conduct (pp. 208–230). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

*Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 1087–1101.

*Duckworth, A. L., & Quinn, P. D. (2009). Development and validation of the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 166–174.

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

*Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256–273.

*Ericsson, K. A., & Charness, N. (1994). Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition. American Psychologist, 49, 725–747.

*Fishbach, A., Dhar, R., & Zhang, Y. (2006). Subgoals as substitutes or complements: The role of goal accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 232–242. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.2.232



*Galton, F. (1869/2006). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. (Original work published 1869)

*Hofmann, W., Fisher, R. R., Luhmann, M., Vohs, K. D., & Baumeister, R. F. (2014). Yes, but are they happy? Effects of trait self-control on affective well-being and life satisfaction.
Journal of Personality, 82, 265–277.

 *Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (Eds.). (2013). New developments in goal setting and task performance. New York, NY: Routledge.

*Maglio, S. J., Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2013). The common currency of psychological distance. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 22, 278–282.

*Mischel, W. (2014). The Marshmallow Test: Mastering selfcontrol. New York, NY: Little, Brown.

*Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H. L., . . . Caspi, A. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 108, 2693–2698.

*Oettingen, G. (2012). Future thought and behaviour change. European Review of Social Psychology, 23, 1–63.

*Roberts, B. W., Jackson, J. J., Fayard, J. V., Edmonds, G., & Meints, J. (2009). Conscientiousness. In M. Leary & R. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 369–381). New York, NY: Guilford.

*Vallerand, R. J., Houlfort, N., & Forest, J. (2014). Passion for work: Determinants and outcomes. In M. Gagne (Ed.), Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination theory (pp 85–105). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

*Wrzesniewski, A. (2012). Callings. In K. S. Cameron & G. M. Spreitzer (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of positive organizational scholarship (pp. 45–55). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.