Is grit relevant to well‐being and strengths? Evidence across the globe for separating perseverance of effort and consistency of interests

Abstract

We discuss the multidimensionality of grit, including a conceptual understanding of overall grit and how it may differ across cultures. We suggest well-being and strengths researchers study grit facets separately due to their differential validity.

The sociology of grit

“…As previous grit researchers reported, I expect that having a higher perseverance will show a stronger positive association with subjective well-being than having a higher consistency of interest, drawing on recent cross-cultural findings (Datu, Valdez and King 2016a;Disabato, Goodman and Kashdan 2018). Benefit of having a higher level of perseverance in terms of subjective well-being will remain significant even controlling for the sense of control, showing grit's distinctive utility as a behavioral facet of agency that the sense of control as a subjective facet of agency fails to capture.…”

“…National culture may be another powerful factor that shapes the development of grit, an open question given that research thus far has largely developed within an American context (for a rare example of studying grit across different countries, see Disabato, Goodman and Kashdan 2018). Exposure to or internalizing different cultural norms, values and meanings about grit, success, or exertion of agency may encourage or discourage individual's development of grit, most commonly studied only at the individual level.…”

“…2015 relies on working adults in Japan) in a single nation which makes cross-cultural comparison difficult (for a rare exception that examines the validity of grit crossculturally with online population, see Disabato, Goodman and Kashdan 2018). In addition, we still do not know how social structure, the sense of control and grit are interrelated since these studies have also concentrated on grit's predictive power of life outcomes, demonstrating a disjuncture between psychological and sociological inquiries.…”

“…For example, Datu, Valdez and King (2016a) argued that only the perseverance facet of grit positively predicts academic and wellbeing outcomes of Filipino college students and high school students. Disabato, Goodman and Kashdan (2018) examined the validity of grit in predicting subjective wellbeing and personality strengths across different countries: they found that the overall grit conception was supported in individualistic countries, but not in collectivistic countries including Asian countries. Hence, in addition to examining the hypothetical structures of grit, this study will test if the grit scale can be validated in samples collected from two different countries, the United States and South Korea, emblematic countries of the popular cultural axis of individualism versus collectivism (Hofstede 1980).…”

“…While some studies provided supportive evidence for the relationship between grit and subjective well-being (Salles, Cohen and Mueller 2014;Singh and Jha 2008), other studies found only partial support or a lack of supportive evidence for this association. For instance, Disabato, Goodman and Kashdan (2018) found that subjective well-being shows a stronger positive association with the perseverance dimension than the consistency dimension across different cultural regions. Datu, Valdez and King (2016a) also found only perseverance is positively associated with subjective well-being of Filipino college students and high school students.…”