Inventor Thomas A. Edison once famously said, "Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration." But that doesn't mean effort actually causes creative achievement.
In the ongoing education debate on the importance of talent and practice, new studies presented at the American Psychological Association's annual conference here last week suggest grit may not do as much to boost creative achievement as it does for academics.
Well-known studies by developmental psychologist Angela L. Duckworth and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania have found that a person's "grit"—a measure of conscientiousness and perseverance—could predict everything from graduation rates at West Point to National Spelling Bee champions. Those findings have sparked intense interest among educators in nurturing student motivation, particularly at some schools like the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, charter schools that serve at-risk students.
But Magdalena G. Grohman, the associate director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas, argues that grittiness is not the end-all, be-all for student success. "When you look at it, these [areas studied by Ms. Duckworth] are well-defined areas and the rules for achievement are well-defined in those areas," she said. "We know what to do to get good grades, what to do to stay in military school, and what to do to win in contests such as spelling bees. The rules are pretty clear on what the achievement is and what success is in these domains. But what about creative achievement?"
In two separate analyses of college undergraduates by Ms. Grohman and her colleagues, students filled out detailed questionnaires on personality, extracurricular activities, and grades, as well as data on prior creative activities and accomplishments. Students' ratings on field surveys of grit and openness to experience were compared to their academic and extracurricular records.
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Ms. Grohman found that neither grit nor two related characteristics of consistency and perseverance predicted a student's success in various types of creative endeavors, including visual and performing art, writing, scientific ingenuity, or even creativeness in everyday problem-solving."These are 'no results' that we are actually excited about," Ms. Grohman said during a presentation on creativity. "Creative achievement and grit, intellectual creativity and grit, everyday creativity and grit: no effects whatsoever."
Rather, a student's openness to new experiences was most closely associated with his or her likelihood of accomplishing creative works, she found.
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