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Innate Intelligence vs. True Grit

by Winston Sieck updated September 11, 2021

grit

My dad used to say, “It’s not the dog in the fight, it’s the fight in the dog.”

He had several other antiquated gems for expressing that core idea – success is often less about natural talent than it is about persistence in pursuit of one’s goals.

Emily Hanford describes a study about the role of perseverance in achievement on MindShift. The findings bring us back to those oft-spoken words of wisdom from our dads.

The original research, conducted by Angela Duckworth and colleagues, uses a simple measure of “grit” and shows it to be of equal importance to intelligence for explaining success in a variety of intellectual tasks.

The results fit in well with other studies of talent and expertise that commonly conclude that intrinsic interest in the discipline, a burning desire to achieve, and dedication to thoughtful practice over an extended time are essential to top performance.

Image credit: aallingh

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Filed Under: Learning Skills Tagged With: general, intelligence

About Winston Sieck

Dr. Winston Sieck is a cognitive psychologist working to advance the development of thinking skills. He is founder and president of Global Cognition, and director of Thinker Academy.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Quinn Bond says

    February 14, 2017 at 5:13 pm

    Good piece. Also look at the ACE (Acquired Childhood Experience) score and cross with the GRIT score to give a more complete picture of potential.

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