ArticleJournal of personality and social psychology2016
True grit and genetics: Predicting academic achievement from personality.
Article in Journal of personality and social psychology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 455 citations in OpenAlex.
- The relationship between grit, resilience and physical activity: a systematic review.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Pooled it
- Heritability of Functional Literacy: Evidence from a Classical Twin Design.Behavior genetics · 2026Article
- Correlation between Grit score, academic achievement and learning approaches of dental students.BDJ open · 2026Article
- Associations of genetic variants for educational success with risk and time preferences vary by childhood environment.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Bounded personality diversity boosts collective intelligence: a swarm optimization approach.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- A Conceptual Framework to Integrate Research Programs on Self-Regulation in Education.Educational psychology review · 2026Review
- Grit and Chronic Pain: Associations with Distress, Catastrophizing, Interference, and Control.Journal of clinical psychology in medical settings · 2025Article
- Trait and state of grit among middle school students in South Korea: the influence of peer, teacher, and parental variables.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- How parental autonomy support fosters adolescent future orientation: the mediating roles of growth mindset and hope, moderated by peer relationships.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Exploring the impact of growth mindset and grit on college students' athletic performance.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The influence of conscientiousness and context on the emotional response during understanding.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Perceived parenting style and grit as predictors of self-concept of adolescents aged 10-20 in Slovakia.Current issues in personality psychology · 2025Article
- Income and Sex Moderate the Association Between Population Density and Reproduction: A Multilevel Analysis of Life History Strategies Across 23 Nations.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- Genetic associations between non-cognitive skills and academic achievement over development.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Do Migrants Exhibit More Grit? A Research Note.Demography · 2024Article
- Reliability and validity of simple Chinese version of grit scale for elementary school students.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal.NPJ science of learning · 2023Article
- One versus two biological parents with mental disorders: Relationship to educational attainment in the next generation.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
- Genetic contributions of noncognitive skills to academic development.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Similarity in functional connectome architecture predicts teenage grit.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2023Article
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Grit-perseverance and passion for long-term goals-has been shown to be a significant predictor of academic success, even after controlling for other personality factors. Here, for the first time, we use a U.K.-representative sample and a genetically sensitive design to unpack the etiology of Grit and its prediction of academic achievement in comparison to well-established personality traits. For 4,642 16-year-olds (2,321 twin pairs), we used the Grit-S scale (perseverance of effort and consistency of interest), along with the Big Five personality traits, to predict grades on the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams, which are administered U.K.-wide at the end of compulsory education. Twin analyses of Grit perseverance yielded a heritability estimate of 37% (20% for consistency of interest) and no evidence for shared environmental influence. Personality, primarily conscientiousness, predicts about 6% of the variance in GCSE grades, but Grit adds little to this prediction. Moreover, multivariate twin analyses showed that roughly two-thirds of the GCSE prediction is mediated genetically. Grit perseverance of effort and Big Five conscientiousness are to a large extent the same trait both phenotypically (r = 0.53) and genetically (genetic correlation = 0.86). We conclude that the etiology of Grit is highly similar to other personality traits, not only in showing substantial genetic influence but also in showing no influence of shared environmental factors. Personality significantly predicts academic achievement, but Grit adds little phenotypically or genetically to the prediction of academic achievement beyond traditional personality factors, especially conscientiousness. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.