Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Nature Genetics
46 (2014): 1173–86.
as many as twenty-five thousand different genes
:
“A Brief Guide to Genomics,” National Human Genome Research Institute, last
modified August 27, 2015, 
http://www.genome.gov/18016863
.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
:
The Wechsler tests are now published by Pearson’s Clinical Assessment.
in the last fifty years
:
Information on the Flynn effect comes from personal communications with James Flynn from 2006 to 2015. For
more information on the Flynn effect, see James R. Flynn, 
Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).See also Jakob Pietschnig and Martin Voracek, “One Century of Global IQ
Gains: A Formal Meta-Analysis of the Flynn Effect (1909–2013),” 
Perspectives on Psychological Science
10 (2015): 282–306. In
this analysis of 271 independent samples, totaling almost four million people from thirty-one countries, a few key findings emerged: IQ
gains are ubiquitous and positive over the past century; gains have varied in magnitude by domain of intelligence; gains have been less
dramatic in recent years; and, finally, candidate causes include, in addition to social multiplier effects, changes in education, nutrition,
hygiene, medical care, and test-taking sophistication.
the social multiplier effect:
William T. Dickens and James R. Flynn, “Heritability Estimates Versus Large Environmental Effects:
The IQ Paradox Resolved,” 
Psychological Review
108 (2001): 346–69.
Grit and age
:
These data are originally reported in Duckworth et al., “Grit,” 1092.
more conscientious, confident, caring, and calm
:
Avshalom Caspi, Brent W. Roberts, and Rebecca L. Shiner, “Personality
Development: Stability and Change,” 
Annual Review of Psychology
56 (2005): 453–84.
“the maturity principle”
:
Ibid., 468.
“doesn’t come overnight”
:
Shaywitz, 
Overcoming Dyslexia
, 347.
“you’re late, you’re fired”
:
Bernie Noe, head of school, Lakeside School, Seattle, in an interview with the author, July 29, 2015.
interest without purpose
:
Ken M. Sheldon, “Becoming Oneself: The Central Role of Self-Concordant Goal Selection,” 
Personality
and Social Psychology Review
18 (2014): 349–65. See psychologist Ken Sheldon’s work on enjoyment and importance as the two
components of what he calls autonomously motivated goals. Ken points out that all of us have responsibilities we must fulfill out of
obligation or necessity. But no matter how much we think we care about externally motivated goals, their accomplishment rarely
fulfills us in the way that interesting and purposeful goals do. A lot of the people in Ken’s studies are highly educated and very
comfortably upper-middle-class yet sorely lacking in autonomously motivated goals. They tell Ken they feel like they’re in the
passenger seat of their own lives. By following these individuals over time, Ken’s learned that they’re less likely to accomplish their
goals; even when they do achieve them, they derive less satisfaction from having done so. Recently, I collected data from hundreds of
adults, ages twenty-five to seventy-five and found that Ken’s measure of autonomous motivation correlates positively with grit.
CHAPTER 6: INTEREST
“follow your passion”
:
Indiana University, “Will Shortz’s 2008 Commencement Address,” CSPAN, 
http://www.c-span.org/video/?
205168-1/indiana-university-commencement-address
.
“to 
follow 
my 
passion”:
Princeton 
University, 
“Jeff 
Bezos’ 
2010 
Baccalaureate 
Remarks,” 
TED,
https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_gifts_vs_choices
.
“won’t be able to stick with it”
:
Taylor Soper, “Advice from Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos: Be Proud of Your Choices, Not Your
Gifts,”