Today I will talk about psychology, because I like psychology and also I think learning a little psychology will be more useful to you nerds than reading about the 7th alt-L1 to come out with a nine digit ecosystem fund. Similarly, every media company and their mom came out with their own streaming platform, and then 90% of those platforms were dead on release. For example, there was a streaming platform named Quibi. You’ve probably never heard of it. It was founded in 2018 and raised 1.75 billion from investors. It was sold to Roku for under 100 million just three years later. Similarly, your obscure L1 is more likely than not going to zero, so you might as well learn something useful instead. So today I will talk about grit, a psychological trait that is key to success.
In 2007, UPenn psychologist Angela Duckworth published a paper titled “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals”. This paper has had a large impact in the psychology world, garnering over 6000 citations to date.
The aim of this paper was to discover why individuals accomplished more than others individuals of equal intelligence. This paper proposed that some traits outside of cognitive ability are essential to success regardless of the field, and suggested that one trait to be shared by prominent leaders in every field. This trait is grit.
Duckworth and colleagues defined grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Individuals with this trait persevered for long periods of time towards their goal, refusing to give up despite setbacks, failure, adversity, plateaus in progress, etc.
Previous studies support the idea that grit is a key factor to success. Galton (1892) collected biographical information on prominent individuals in a wide variety of fields: politicians, artists, scientists, athletes, etc. He concluded that ability alone did not lead to success; he believed that high achievers were passionate and hard-working, on top of being talented. Cox (1926) analyzed a similar group of accomplished individuals using their written biographies, and found that estimated IQ was only mildly correlated to how accomplished someone was. A separate analysis rating geniuses on 67 character traits led Cox to conclude the following traits in childhood predicted lifetime achievement: “persistence of motive and effort, confidence in their abilities, and great strength or force of character”.
Both Galton and Cox were describing grit roughly an entire century before Duckworth published her paper.
In order to answer the question of what separates accomplished individuals from others of equal intelligence, Duckworth and colleagues came up with a self-report questionnaire called the Grit Scale, then conducted a series of studies.
The next section will go more in depth about these studies, but a quick summary is provided after this section if you’re lazy. However, it would not be very gritty of you to skip to the summary. If you prefer wealth you will read the whole thing. Yes, I am guilt-tripping you.
Study 1 was conducted to develop and validate a self-report measure of grit in adults over 25, and predictive validity was assessed by association with higher levels of schooling when compared to others of similar age. Study 1 found that adults with more education were higher in grit than less educated adults of the same age.
Study 2 compared grit to the Big Five traits (Google it) to see if grit had incremental predictive validity over Big Five traits. The study found that individuals a standard deviation higher in grit were 35% less likely to frequently change careers. From this, we observe that those individuals were more committed to their careers (a long term goal).
Study 3 compared grit to GPA in undergraduate students, and also compared grit to mental ability using SAT scores. Study 3 found that grittier students significantly outperformed less gritty peers, and especially so when SAT scores were the same among two students. Funnily enough, higher grit was associated with lower SAT scores, suggesting that smarter students may be less gritty than their peers. (Perhaps their natural intelligence leaves them with less experience in overcoming academic obstacles, these students are challenged less often.)
Study 4 looks at predictors of success in the military by looking at West Point cadets. West Point is a very competitive school, and candidates must receive a nomination from a member of Congress or from the Department of the Army. Candidates are then evaluated on academic, physical, and leadership potential. About 1 in 20 candidates drop out after the first summer of training. We can conclude that West Coast Cadets are the cream of the crop among peers in the military world. Duckworth and colleagues hypothesized that grit would predict retention over the first summer, and higher GPA among those who remained a year later. Study 4 successfully found that grit predicted completion of the first summer better than any other predictor, but was less successful in predicting GPA beyond the first summer.
Study 5 was a replication and extension of Study 4, so I’ll skip this one.
Study 6 looked at finalists in the 2005 Scripps National Spelling Bee. This study found that grit predicted advancement to higher rounds of the competition. Finalists with grit scores a standard deviation above the mean were 41% more likely to advance to further rounds. Additionally, gritty finalists outperformed their peers because they studied longer- they put in more hours during the weekend. Gritty students work harder and longer than less gritty peers, and consequently perform better.
Across these 6 studies, individual differences in grit explained success outcomes better than IQ. Grittier individuals attained higher levels of education than their peers. Grittier undergraduates earned higher GPAs than their peers, despite having lower SAT scores. Grit was a better prediction of military cadet success as West Point than West Point’s own internal measure of cadet quality. Grittier spelling bee contestants outperformed less gritty competitors because of increased practice.
So, what can we conclude from all of this?
It’s pretty straightforward. Hard work, consistent effort, and a refusal to give up is a better predictor of success than natural talent. These traits were found more commonly in accomplished individuals at the pinnacle of their fields more than natural talent was.
So my message to you as one crypto enthusiast to another is: don’t give up. And don’t be forced to give up either aka become a forced seller. I’m sure many of your favorite crypto personalities have taken big losses. But they stuck with it, and came out ahead in the long run.
The science suggests that hard work, consistent effort, and a refusal to give up will get you far in crypto, but also everywhere else in life. I am pro-science.
-ct_zpy
hi c