Abstract
In recent years, there has been widespread interest across both the research and public sectors in understanding how to promote children's lifelong success in a range of domains. While a focus on promoting success in children remains salient, equally salient in the research is how children fail—specifically, how children prevail in the face of failure, adversity, and other challenges over time. The chapter explores parenting and family factors that predict grit. This chapter investigates a range of parenting and family factors, including demographic characteristics, parenting behaviors and styles, and family cultural and environmental factors. Based on this research, the chapter provides overarching recommendations to researchers seeking to understand grit in a family context.
TopIntroduction
In 2012, Dr. Paul Tough published the renowned book, “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character,” contributing to widespread interest in why “some children succeed, while others fail” across the research and public sectors. In this book, Tough synthesized research that emphasizes the critical role of “character” in child development, which catalyzed efforts among families, practitioners, and researchers to explore the mechanisms underlying character development and how children succeed more broadly. While Dr. Tough’s focus on promoting success in children remains salient, equally salient is how children fail—specifically, how children prevail in the face of failure, adversity, and other challenges over time.
The purpose of this chapter is to explore parenting and family factors that predict a key element of character— grit, i.e., “perseverance and passion for long-term goals” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007), a construct that has been substantially developed and explored by Dr. Angela Duckworth. This chapter will provide a rationale for the importance of grit; review research on parenting practices and aspects of families’ environment that may promote grit in children; and synthesize findings to provide overarching recommendations to families, professionals, and researchers. Specifically, this chapter will address the following objectives:
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Review the research on grit across developmental contexts to underscore its significance in the empirical research and highlight the rationale for exploring predictors of grit;
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Investigate the role of specific parenting characteristics in predicting children’s grit, including demographic characteristics and parenting behaviors and styles;
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Explore the impact of broader family factors in promoting grit, including cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental factors; and
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Provide overarching recommendations to researchers interested in understanding and cultivating grit in the family context.
TopBackground
Rationale for Investigating Grit
The last decade has witnessed an emergence of numerous research studies on grit, defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007). Grit has garnered widespread attention, largely due to the finding that it accounts for an average of four percent of the variance in lifetime success outcomes and has been found to be more predictive of success than traditional measures of IQ. Moreover, research has found that outcomes associated with grit are wide-ranging and diverse. Grit has been found to be predictive of numerous educational outcomes, including educational attainment in adults, grade point average among Ivy League undergraduates, and ranking in the National Spelling Bee (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007). In addition, grit has been identified as an important predictor of professional success due to its role in predicting retention in United States Military Academy West Point cadets, success among entrepreneurs, and overall career decision self-efficacy (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007; Mooradian, Matzler, Uzelac, & Bauer, 2016; Vela, Sparrow, Whittenberg, & Rodriguez, 2018).
Further, the implications of grit extend far beyond educational or professional success, predicting a range of non-cognitive skills including the Big Five conscientiousness component, forgiveness, and positive well-being (Arya & Lal, 2018; Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007; Walker, 2017). In fact, Eskreis-Winkler, Duckworth, Shulman, & Beal (2014) investigated “the grit effect” by exploring grit in four contexts: the military, the workplace, high school, and marriage. This study found that grit was a more effective predictor of retention in these contexts than more traditional predictors of retention, including intelligence, physical aptitude, the Big Five personality traits, and job tenure.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Mindset: Defined as “beliefs about the capacity to grow one’s abilities” ( Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016 ). Examples include growth and failure mindset.
Grit: Defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals” ( Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007 ). According to the scholars of resilience and grit, “grit is not just having resilience in the face of failure, but also having deep commitments that you remain loyal to over many years” ( Perkins-Gough, 2013 ).
Perseverance of Effort: The second factor measured in the Grit-O, perseverance of effort is conceptualized as the tendency to continue working toward a particular goal ( Muenks et al., 2017 ). Perseverance of effort is also assessed via six items on the Grit-O, each measured using a five-point Likert scale: 1) I have achieved a goal that took years of work; 2) I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge; 3) I finish whatever I begin; 4) Setbacks don’t discourage me; 5) I am a hard worker; and 6) I am diligent.
Resilience: Resilience has been defined as “positive adaptation despite experience of significant adversity or trauma” ( Luthar, 2015 , p. 742). According to scholars of resilience and grit, “grit is not just having resilience in the face of failure, but also having deep commitments that you remain loyal to over many years” ( Perkins-Gough, 2013 ).
Parental Cognitions: Previous research demonstrates that parenting-related schemas and perceptions, reflective functioning abilities, and emotional experiences (i.e., parental cognitions ) may play a role in children’s development of grit.
Failure Mindset: Failure mindset is the belief that failure is “enhancing” rather than debilitating”). Failure mindset is considered a key component of grit--while success across educational, professional, and interpersonal domains remains a critical goal for families, educators, researchers, and practitioners, examining how children fail may be a vital consideration to this line of inquiry ( Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016 , p. 860).
Growth Mindset: Conceptualized as the perception that abilities are “malleable” rather than fixed characteristics that do not change ( Hochanadel & Finamore, 2015 , p.48). According to Duckworth & Eskreis-Winkler (2013) , embracing a growth mindset is an important component of grit.
Consistency of Interests: The first factor measured in the Grit-O, consistency of interests , has been defined in the literature as goal- and action-oriented long-term behavior. This is distinct from an individual or situational interest ( Muenks et al., 2017 ). Consistency of interests is assessed via six items on the Grit-O, each measured using a five-point Likert scale: 1) I often set a goal, but later choose to pursue a different one; 2) New ideas and new projects sometimes distract me from previous ones; 3) I become interested in new pursuits every few months; 4) My interests change from year to year; 5) I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest; and 6) I have difficulty maintaining my focus on projects that take more than a few months to complete.