Grit increases strongly in early childhood and is related to parental background

Abstract

Grit has been identified as a very important non-cognitive skill that is positively related to educational achievements and labor market success. Recently, it has also been found to be malleable through interventions in primary schools. Yet, little is still known about its development in early childhood and the influence of family background. We present an experiment with 429 children, aged 3–6 years. We measure the level of grit as children’s perseverance in a real effort task and their willingness to challenge themselves successfully with another, more difficult task. Based on a principal component analysis, we find that grit increases strongly with age. Parents’ assessment of their child’s grit is correlated with the actual behavior of their child. Education of parents plays a role for perseverance. Yet, children’s level of patience is unrelated to their level of grit.

The emergence of procrastination in early childhood: Relations with executive control and future-oriented cognition.

“…The main focus of the current study was to investigate the emergence and development of procrastination in preschool. All age groups were rated as having at least some tendency to procrastinate, replicating Sutter and colleagues’ (2018) initial findings that 3- to 6-year-olds showed evidence of procrastination behavior. Unlike Sutter and colleagues (2018) who reported that younger children procrastinated at higher rates compared to older children, we found that the tendency to procrastinate was rated as more characteristic of older than younger children.…”

“…To our knowledge, only one study has investigated preschool-aged children’s procrastination behavior. Sutter and colleagues (2018) offered 241 three- to 6-year-old children a choice between completing a bead-sorting task today or postponing the task until tomorrow. Sutter and colleagues (2018) did not report an a priori power analysis but a post hoc power analysis using G∗Power 3.1 (Faul et al, 2007) suggested that they had sufficient power to detect medium- to large-sized effects ( d = .5).…”

“…Sutter and colleagues (2018) offered 241 three- to 6-year-old children a choice between completing a bead-sorting task today or postponing the task until tomorrow. Sutter and colleagues (2018) did not report an a priori power analysis but a post hoc power analysis using G∗Power 3.1 (Faul et al, 2007) suggested that they had sufficient power to detect medium- to large-sized effects ( d = .5). One-third of children ( n = 83) chose to postpone the task, and younger children procrastinated more frequently than older children (44% of younger children procrastinated compared to 27% of older children).…”

“…Finally, to obtain a more naturalistic picture of procrastination during the preschool period, we asked parents to provide a recent example of their children’s procrastination behavior from everyday life. We expected that according to parent reports: (a) preschool children would show evidence of procrastination behavior, (b) younger children would procrastinate more often than older children in line with Sutter et al’s (2018) findings, (c) EF would be negatively correlated with procrastination based on research showing that procrastinators show less self-regulation (Rabin et al, 2011), and (d) episodic foresight, planning, and delay of gratification (abilities that rely on self-projection) would be negatively correlated with children’s procrastination. Finally, we predicted that younger and older preschool children might differ in the domains in which they procrastinate due to an increase in activities outside the home and responsibilities that emerge between 3 and 6 years.…”

“…Little is known about the development of procrastination, the tendency to postpone undesirable but necessary tasks, during early childhood. Only one study has measured procrastination behavior in preschool children using a single behavioral task (Sutter et al, 2018). Thus, the present study investigated the emergence and development of everyday procrastination behavior in preschool children and to explore its relations with executive function and future thinking using an adapted version of Lay’s (1986) General Procrastination Scale for use with parents of preschool children.…”