Sticking With It

Abstract

The allegedly new volitional-motivational personality construct “grit” is seen as both theoretically and empirically relevant for a host of educational and life outcomes. In a recent debate, however, it has been argued that the construct should be considered as the amalgam of its two assumed subdimensions of Perseverance of Effort (PE) and Consistency of Interest (CI). Opponents of this argument note that the distinction between the two dimensions may merely be the result of different wording (positive and negative) in associated questionnaires. We systematically investigated this notion based on a sample of N = 881 high school students. Participants responded to one of four versions of the short grit scale (Grit-S) asking about their grit in math, foreign language English, and history. The items for PE and CI were each worded either positively or negatively, with all combinations realized. Our results support a strong wording effect but still support the notion of two correlated but distinguishable subdimensions. Finally, our results highlight the importance of differentiating between subjects when investigating grit.