Research psychologist Angela Duckworth studies how qualities such as grit and self-control help determine student success. She defines grit as passion and perseverance for long-term goals with no particular concern for rewards or recognition. She developed this interest before she was a professor, while teaching middle and high school math, wondering what the role of effort is in a person’s success. She would eventually establish the Grit Scale as a way to study what cannot be otherwise measured.
Duckworth was born in 1970 to Chinese immigrant parents and, in addition to her studies for research psychology, is a decorated academic. She earned her bachelor of arts in neurobiology at Harvard College in 1992, graduated from the University of Oxford in 1996 with a master of science in neuroscience, and earned a doctor of philosophy in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. Before becoming a teacher, Duckworth was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
Duckworth told National Geographic that the most exciting part of her work is instilling a scientific way of thinking into the crusade to understand student effort.
“Some people think you can’t put a number on character, or that these things are ineffable or even spiritual. You can try to measure these things, though not perfectly. Science depends on measurements,” she said.
Duckworth has found grit to be a common factor among the high-achievers she has studied. She spent years scrutinizing grit's short- and long-term effects on people’s performances in school, at work, and in personal relationships. Her research suggests that when it comes to high achievement, grit may be as essential as intelligence, a significant finding since for so long intelligence was considered the key to success. In 2016, she published her research in her first book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” which went on to spend 21 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list.
Duckworth is currently an in-demand speaker on human behavior and is the Founder and CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance the science and practice of character development. She is also the co-host of the podcast No Stupid Questions on the Freakonomics network.