Do Grittier People Have Greater Subjective Well-Being? A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The present study conducted a meta-analysis to examine the relation between grit and subjective well-being (SWB). The association between grit (i.e., overall grit, perseverance of effort, and consistency of interest) and SWB (i.e., positive affect, negative affect, happiness, depression, life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and school satisfaction) were synthesized across 83 studies and 66,518 participants. The results based on a random-effects model showed a substantial correlation between overall grit and SWB (ρ = .46, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [.43, .48]), followed by perseverance of effort (ρ = .38, 95% CI = [.33, .43]) and consistency of interest (ρ = .23, 95% CI = [.17, .28]). The moderator analysis indicated that the correlations between overall grit/consistency of effort and SWB become weaker as age increased, and these links were stronger in affective well-being than in cognitive well-being. Moreover, grit explained unique variance in SWB even after controlling for conscientiousness. Implications and directions for further research are discussed.

The influence of grit on nurse job satisfaction: Mediating effects of perceived stress and moderating effects of optimism

“…Positive personality traits are motivation to promote job satisfaction ( Sinniah et al, 2022 ), and grit as a personality strength affects people’s subjective well-being and is a significant predictor of job satisfaction in particular ( Goodman et al, 2017 ). A meta-analysis ( Hou et al, 2022 ) has shown that grit was positively associated with job satisfaction, suggesting that more extraordinary grit was associated with greater job satisfaction. A study ( Dugan et al, 2019 ) of US salespeople also has shown a significant relationship between grit and job satisfaction, with gritty salespeople performing better and having higher job satisfaction than their less gritty counterparts.…”

Disentangling the personality pathways to well-being

“…This finding aligns with others works that have demonstrated how human flourishing occurs when habits are persistently regulated to be in congruence with self-transcendent goals and values, thus resulting in a well-integrated personality 62 . Other constructs related to motivational persistence and perseverance, such as grit , have also been consistently associated with positive emotional experiences 84 .…”

Validation of L2 grit among Chinese EFL high school students and its enduring effect on achievements: A bifactor model approach

“…Grit has also been found to be relevant to job performance ( Ion et al, 2017 ; Mueller et al, 2017 ) and teacher effectiveness ( Robertson-Kraft and Duckworth, 2014 ). In their meta-analysis with 83 studies involving 66,518 participants, Hou et al (2021) has revealed the positive relation of grit with subjective well-being.…”