Renowned psychologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Angela Duckworth joined the M-A Psychology Club to talk about the psychology of grit, passion, and success on Tuesday at lunch over Zoom. She has been interested in researching and studying grit since her first year as a graduate student at Oxford University, and has also studied situational agency for the past 10 years. Other success of hers includes giving a TED Talk, being a co-founder of the non-profit Character Lab that aims to boost scientific insights for children, and writing the book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance in 2016.
To open, she briefly explained the importance of grit, sharing data charts to prove that perseverance is more important than cognitive and physical abilities.
“Your talent does not put a ceiling on what you can do if you have passion and perseverance,” she said.
Grit, Duckworth explained, isn’t tied to willpower, but instead refers to confidence, knowing what to work on next, and being interested in your pursuit. “Grit enables you to stick it out, fix what you begin,” she said.
Duckworth then moved on to talking about situational agency, which she calls “act two” of her career. Situational agency refers to the way an individual’s environment influences their motivations and actions. Duckworth explained personal agency is determined by four different traits: space, peers, mentors, and culture.
Duckworth first explained space, which is how things in closer proximity to an individual have more psychological power over them. “Physical distance creates psychological distance,” she said. Through her own research, she has collected data from many school districts to find a positive correlation between high GPA and physical distance from one’s phone during homework.
She then defined the benefit of peers, explaining how learning and entrepreneurship is more successful in collaboration than when done alone. “Chimpanzees and orangutans are almost as smart as humans at lots of different things, like quantities and so forth causal reasoning, but they can’t learn from each other. Right now, you’re learning from me. You’re using the collective brain,” she said, explaining what sets apart human intelligence from apes.
“An example is this club. You could learn about psychology on your own, but it’s much better to learn here together,” Duckworth said.
The third central element Duckworth presented was the importance of mentors. “If there was one wish I had for you as you move onto the next chapter in your life, it is that you have a mentor to help you down the path,” she said. “You don’t get very far without your teachers and mentors.”
The last element Duckworth discussed was culture. “Go to college where you feel supported, join clubs where you feel supported,” she said. She added that people move cities and cultures through different eras of their lives to find the one that supports them the best.
The floor opened for a quick Q&A session toward the end of lunch. One student asked how to balance trying new things without overcommitting. “Do less and do more,” Duckworth replied.
She emphasized that your transcripts aren’t worth stressing about, and instead encouraged students to focus on “sampling” and trying new things. “You need to try things you don’t think you’re going to like, that’s how great things happen and how you learn more about yourself,” she said.
As the bell rang and the meeting wrapped up, students grabbed candy provided by the club and shuffled out the door.
“My favorite part was how she mentioned that in order for us to overcome whatever we want to overcome, we have to help each other and have mentors,” senior Juritzi Rodriguez said.
Club Co-President senior Sofia Vuchic helped organize the event. “I’ve actually read part of Dr. Duckworth’s book, and it inspired me to reach out to her,” she said. “We want our club members to know more about how to situationally prepare themselves for success. I also hope they can learn about different career paths you can have in psychology.”
The club hopes to host more guest speakers in the future. “We want to reach out to some people at Stanford with PhDs. They’re more in neuroscience, but they have experience in both fields,” Vuchic said.
The Psychology Club meets every Tuesday in G-10.
