Research Shows "grit" more important than IQ

[shallowbay]

Just thoughts I had from the article, as I'm not interested in digging through Psych journals at the moment.

In my opinion, perseverance, "luck", and intelligence are the most important factors to success in that order. What I consider to be luck is just positive variance in a large collection of random events.

I think what she's measuring in "grit" is a mixture of many things, including not only perseverance but self-confidence and luck as well. It seems too difficult to isolate this from luck as people go through up's and downs and their responses to the surveys may change accordingly.

I suppose that, to me, you need that bit of luck to get over the hump and perseverance will give you more opportunities to come out on the right side. However, people experience different events, and I can't particularly blame people for dwindling perseverance in some circumstances that I never encountered, i.e., what I consider luck.

The argument as I see it is to try to somehow standardize this portion of luck in the hope of maximizing potential that may otherwise be lost. It's an issue with many entangled factors and can be very circular in terms of cause and effect, so I can understand why there's so much debate.

 

[CableandThanos]

Interesting to read.

Also, something that most successful people already realize and most unsuccessful people want to deny. Clich

 

[Satsui Ryu]

Success is a combination of so many factors. Its just asinine to say if you just have this you will succeed. In the end most of your success is innate and hard work just makes you reach your potential.

 

[CableandThanos]

Success is a combination of so many factors. Its just asinine to say if you just have this you will succeed. In the end most of your success is innate and hard work just makes you reach your potential.

But isn't that the point, How many people never reach their potential because they either don't have grit, or they are told it is useless?

On a micro level, you end up feeling sorry for your brother who is smart and could do all sorts of things when he puts his mind to it and is motivated.

On a macro level, we tax payers end up paying for people who are lazy slobs who never reached their potential.

 

[Zankou]

On the one hand, nobody doubts that self discipline matters a great deal for many issues. On the other hand, "positive psychology" is notoriously lazy when it comes to mathematics, and the co-author of that paper, Martin Seligman, is the founder of that discipline and something of a constant shill for funding it. If you missed the thread I posted on this earlier, Seligman gets whacked around in the course of a brutal attack on positive psychology:

http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/positive-psychology-academic-demolition-2656959/

 

[MeatheadMike]

Anecdotally, I agree (somewhat). But I would argue that self-driven people intentionally seek out networking opportunities that help them succeed. I doubt many accounts of networking -> success occurred as a result of people having their connections handed to them on a silver platter. Every successful person I have known was connected to people because he made it that way and worked to keep those connections in one way or another. Also, I believe success opens the door for more networking. There's probably a cascading effect.

I think you are missing an important point, this article is discussing a correlation with academic performance.... NOT career success, or success in life, where (as some posters already pointed out) who you know would be much more of a factor. If academic performance was the only indicator of success in life, then there would be no people with higher education who are also unemployed.

Really, all this article proves is that kids who work hard in school will get better grades than smarter kids who are too lazy to do their homework. This is something that most of us already know.

 

[ultramanhyata]

These results may not be equivalent to adults and the money they earn. But I am willing to bet that they are. Do you have any evidence that they may not be?

Do you believe that any adult male, given the proper self-motivation and training, can throw a 90 MPH fastball? If not, why do you refuse to see that a human's cognitive hard-wiring ultimately produces a ceiling beyond which they are unable to comprehend and implement instruction?

A person with Down's Syndrome is obviously never going to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. And the idea that as soon as you get into the "normal" IQ range the sky is suddenly the limit is just pure, baseless nonsense. We all exist on a continuum. And those in the bottom 50 percent are never going to be able to achieve, intellectually, what the best of the upper 30 percent have. There's a reason why some people who are fascinated by the medical profession become LPN's. And not neurosurgeons.

Sorry to have once again dampened your libertarian spirits by illustrating the harsh realities of real life on planet earth.

 

[Rusk]

of course, only males with low T and women with hairy armpits would think otherwise

 

[CableandThanos]

of course, only males with low T and women with hairy armpits would think otherwise

ultramanhyata is one of those 2, I just don't know which one yet!

 

[Rusk]

ultramanhyata is one of those 2, I just don't know which one yet!

in modern world it is possible for him to be both

 

[mantronix]

sounds like bunk research surprised this wasn't studied alongside gusto or moxie

 

[James Keith]

Do you believe that any adult male, given the proper self-motivation and training, can throw a 90 MPH fastball? If not, why do you refuse to see that a human's cognitive hard-wiring ultimately produces a ceiling beyond which they are unable to comprehend and implement instruction?

A person with Down's Syndrome is obviously never going to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. And the idea that as soon as you get into the "normal" IQ range the sky is suddenly the limit is just pure, baseless nonsense. We all exist on a continuum. And those in the bottom 50 percent are never going to be able to achieve, intellectually, what the best of the upper 30 percent have. There's a reason why some people who are fascinated by the medical profession become LPN's. And not neurosurgeons.

Sorry to have once again dampened your libertarian spirits by illustrating the harsh realities of real life on planet earth.

People are born with a different number of muscle fibers.

Meanwhile everyone is born with a large surplus of neurons beyond what they will need to be an "expert" at any task. They just need to put in the hours of deliberate practice to get there.

People with severe mental retardation are obviously exceptions to this.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Do you believe that any adult male, given the proper self-motivation and training, can throw a 90 MPH fastball? If not, why do you refuse to see that a human's cognitive hard-wiring ultimately produces a ceiling beyond which they are unable to comprehend and implement instruction?

A person with Down's Syndrome is obviously never going to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. And the idea that as soon as you get into the "normal" IQ range the sky is suddenly the limit is just pure, baseless nonsense. We all exist on a continuum. And those in the bottom 50 percent are never going to be able to achieve, intellectually, what the best of the upper 30 percent have. There's a reason why some people who are fascinated by the medical profession become LPN's. And not neurosurgeons.

Sorry to have once again dampened your libertarian spirits by illustrating the harsh realities of real life on planet earth.

Well that's certainly true, but I would argue that becoming an LPN is a pretty decent achievement. I also don't think it's much of a shock that the difference between achievement levels for people of similiar intelligence is work ethic. There is certainly not an infinite substitution between intelligence and hard work, but there's some for sure.

Though I don't think this is necessarily a good argument for any specific tax policy. That's not really what the research focused on, and measuring the level of incentives under any specific tax regime is pretty hard to do. If we raise taxes 1%, what is the decrease in incentive for top earners to work (as if they get their money from work at this point anyway)? Probably not 1%, because very few relationships in the real world are linear.

 

[7437]

The article was very explicit with that information. I even quoted it. So let's not pretend that there's some manipulation of data and attempt to mislead people.

If you read the abstract to the study, it's clear that there's much more involved than correlating study time with grades.



http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/12/939.short



Which ignores one of the major outcomes of the study: intelligence was NOT the biggest correlate.

I cant believe I am the forst to point this out, but correlation does not equal causation.

for example In general, 39 percent of people say they'd rather play a tuba than a bass drum in a marching band. But among those who think touring the country in an RV sounds like fun, 54 percent would rather play a tuba than a bass drum in a marching band.

http://www.correlated.org/

 

[Satsui Ryu]

People are born with a different number of muscle fibers.

Meanwhile everyone is born with a large surplus of neurons beyond what they will need to be an "expert" at any task. They just need to put in the hours of deliberate practice to get there.

People with severe mental retardation are obviously exceptions to this.

God I do not know where to start. For one, like success, your muscle fibers are only a small fraction of what makes up athletic ability. As for the second part, no way. Being successful is not a task, its a combination of many different things, many of which are autonomic and you do not even realize you are doing them. Plus there are only so many hours in a day. There are not enough of those hours to teach any random person nuclear physics if they do not have a knack for it.

On a macro level, we tax payers end up paying for people who are lazy slobs who never reached their potential.

Most people who are on welfare are the working poor. You are talking about mainly the disabled and criminals. They are irrelevant to the topic.

 

[James Keith]

God I do not know where to start.

By taking a deep breath? Perhaps some counting?

For one, like success, your muscle fibers are only a small fraction of what makes up athletic ability.

I was responding to a post about a 90 mph fastball. If you haven't got the muscles it isn't happening. There is no such limit with the brain.

If you are arguing about non-genetic factors in "athletic ability", everyone can train those so sports are left with genetic advantages tipping the scales at the top.

As for the second part, no way. Being successful is not a task, its a combination of many different things, many of which are autonomic and you do not even realize you are doing them. Plus there are only so many hours in a day. There are not enough of those hours to teach any random person nuclear physics if they do not have a knack for it.

Did you just cite the theory of the "knack" to explain success?

Expertise is a far more encompassing advantage than you think. And so are "tasks". Making a good elevator pitch/speech/interview, is expertise. Knowing about and understand a market and the psychology of making a sale is expertise. For that matter even high school kids figuring out how to pad their college applications, and college kids figuring out how to pad their med school application. This is expertise that indian kids are busting their ass at gaining while spoiled american kids complain about the "oligarchy".

And the guy who knows nuclear physics spent a serious ton of time to get that expertise. This entire debate is based on naive arguments about shortcuts that don't exist for 99.99% of the world. That geek wasted many hours of his life to build that ability. And it wasn't easy like in Good Will Hunting. He had to struggle and beat his head against the wall. He just did so beyond the point that others gave up. Because unlike them, he probably had nothing to fall back on besides his identity as a "smart person" so he couldn't bear to fail at it.

 

[Satsui Ryu]

I was responding to a post about a 90 mph fastball. If you haven't got the muscles it isn't happening. There is no such limit with the brain.

Are you sure about this? Don't have the time or urge to find it, but someone posted an article here about a study done by I believe MIT saying studying does nothing to help you get smarter. It just packs your head with info while overall cognitive abilities stay the same. The rate at which information is processed and the complexity of information that a person is capable of processing does not change. Your brain is extremely limited as to what it can do.

Expertise is a far more encompassing advantage than you think. And so are "tasks". Making a good elevator pitch/speech/interview, is expertise. Knowing about and understand a market and the psychology of making a sale is expertise. For that matter even high school kids figuring out how to pad their college applications, and college kids figuring out how to pad their med school application. This is expertise that indian kids are busting their ass at gaining while spoiled american kids complain about the "oligarchy".

And the guy who knows nuclear physics spent a serious ton of time to get that expertise. This entire debate is based on naive arguments about shortcuts that don't exist for 99.99% of the world. That geek wasted many hours of his life to build that ability. And it wasn't easy like in Good Will Hunting. He had to struggle and beat his head against the wall. He just did so beyond the point that others gave up. Because unlike them, he probably had nothing to fall back on besides his identity as a "smart person" so he couldn't bear to fail at it.

Yes having expertise is an advantage, but not everything can be taught. And being successful requires so many skills that if you have to focus so much on one you will miss the others. And everyone who succeeds spent serious time on what they do, does that mean you could take Mike Tyson and Albert Einstein, switch their occupations, and turn Tyson into the greatest mind the world has ever known and turn Einstein into one of the greatest knockout artists out there?

 

[ABACA]

Looks like the right is really freaking out over Picketty.

Statistical analysis demonstrates the tendency for capital to accumulate?

Let's rebut this with some research showing resiliency has a positive correlation with success! (Yeah, no shit.)

That this research would then be used to somehow discount the fact, as demonstrated by Picketty, that capital accumulates is as dishonest as it is ridiculous.

To then take it a step further and posit that resiliency is an innate, metaphysical characterstic rather than a characterstic based on material conditions is not only stupid, but mystical in nature.

 

[UpaLoompa]

Interesting to read.

Also, something that most successful people already realize and most unsuccessful people want to deny. Clich

 

[sangreporsangre]

sounds like bunk research surprised this wasn't studied alongside gusto or moxie

Yea, lmao it reminds me of when Mr Burns was addressing the kids at Springfield Elementary, and Principal Skinner asked a question about the importance of "sticktoitiveness", and Burns just said "any real questions?'