Management Division, Columbia Business School, New York, NY 10025;
Management Department, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Oct 2;115(40):9980-9985. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1803561115. Epub 2018 Sep 17.
Prior studies linking grit-defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals-to performance are beset by contradictory evidence. As a result, commentators have increasingly declared that grit has limited effects. We propose that this inconsistent evidence has occurred because prior research has emphasized perseverance and ignored, both theoretically and empirically, the critical role of passion, which we define as a strong feeling toward a personally important value/preference that motivates intentions and behaviors to express that value/preference. We suggest that combining the grit scale-which only captures perseverance-with a measure that assesses whether individuals attain desired levels of passion will predict performance. We first metaanalyzed 127 studies ( = 45,485) that used the grit scale and assessed performance, and found that effect sizes are larger in studies where participants were more passionate for the performance domain. Second, in a survey of employees matched to supervisor-rated job performance ( = 422), we found that the combination of perseverance, measured through the grit scale, and passion attainment, measured through a new scale, predicted higher performance. A final study measured perseverance and passion attainment in a sample of students ( = 248) and linked these to their grade-point average (GPA), finding that the combination of perseverance and passion attainment predicted higher GPAs in part through increased immersion. The present results help resolve the mixed evidence of grit's relationship with performance by highlighting the important role that passion plays in predicting performance. By adequately measuring both perseverance and passion, the present research uncovers grit's true predictive power.
先前将坚毅（定义为对长期目标的坚持和热情）与表现联系起来的研究存在相互矛盾的证据。因此，评论员越来越多地宣称坚毅的影响有限。我们提出，这种不一致的证据之所以出现，是因为先前的研究强调了坚持，而在理论上和经验上都忽略了激情的关键作用，我们将激情定义为对个人重要价值观/偏好的强烈感觉，这种感觉激发了表达这种价值观/偏好的意图和行为。我们建议将坚毅量表（仅捕捉坚持）与评估个人是否达到渴望的激情水平的衡量标准相结合，这将预测表现。我们首先对使用坚毅量表评估表现的 127 项研究（=45485）进行荟萃分析，发现参与者对表现领域的热情更高时，效果大小更大。其次，在一项与主管评估工作表现相匹配的员工调查中（=422），我们发现通过坚毅量表衡量的坚持和通过新量表衡量的激情实现的组合预测了更高的绩效。最后一项研究在学生样本中测量了毅力和激情的实现（=248），并将其与他们的平均绩点（GPA）联系起来，发现毅力和激情实现的组合通过增加沉浸度在一定程度上预测了更高的 GPA。本研究结果通过强调激情在预测表现中的重要作用，有助于解决坚毅与表现关系的混合证据问题。通过充分衡量毅力和激情，本研究揭示了坚毅的真正预测能力。
