personality trait of grit

The Relationship Between Grit and Happiness

The poll focused on grit, which is defined as the proclivity to set long-term goals and diligently follow through with hard work and zeal. The introduction demonstrates that those who are courageous are more likely than those who are not to respond to motivational quotes and excel in various industries. Individuals with grit are equal to or inferior to their counterparts who lack talent. This study sought to depict the relationship between various methods to happiness, which may be referred to as motivational inclinations to by those with grit, as well as its features. Gritty personalities are relatively stable in their goals across time. Different motivational traits show what different characters endure to get what they want or need. Just like personality traits, what motivates a person is stable across time and is evident through their desires rather than their needs. To some, happiness is purely hedonistic as they derive pleasure from doing things that benefit them while for others, joy comes from helping others or being involved in challenging quests. In a different investigation, Borghans and Duckworth formalized a model that predicts individual differences in grit as a result of differences in motivation. This study investigates the association between grit and the different forms of happiness.

The Different Approaches to Happiness

Happiness is multifaceted and constitutes pleasure, meaning, and engagement. A person can pursue these approaches together or each independently depending on their motivation. According to Paterson, the most obvious path to happiness is the pleasure. Therefore, in their project with Seligman, they maximized moments of comfort and reduced instances of displeasure. According to them, happiness appeared to be more hedonistic.

The Study Design and Findings

This investigation focused on two online samples of adults to test the hypothesis that grittier personalities do not seek hedonistic pleasure, but rather happiness through meaning and engagement. The expectation was that brave individuals would incline more in finding joy in a sense. The investigation occurred with two studies. The first explored how three approaches to happiness are associated with grit. The study used adults who visited the website www.authentichappiness.com between January 2008 and December 2010.

Participants who volunteered were filling a questionnaire that was available on the website. They stated their gender and age and continued to respond to further questions drafted. Only the first set of responses was used for those who answered more than once. The questionnaires contained self-report measures that people answered. In this study, the finding was that the three components of happiness were related to both facets of grit, effort, and interest. It also showed that people who chose engagement were more likely to exert more effort in their quest.

The second part of the study included participants recruited from Amazon.com via the Mechanical Turk System. This sample was more representative than the first sample. Participants volunteered after reading an advert posted on the website. Participants were also registered members of MTurk thus it was easy to control the age limit. They were each paid one dollar for their participation. They completed online versions of the grit scale and orientation to happiness scale. In this study, it was found that components of happiness were correlated. However, participants in the second study scored lower on the measured constructs compared to those in the first survey. Both studies supported the hypothesis that the less gritty individuals seek hedonistic pleasure while the latter finds happiness in engagement and meaning.

Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research

Although the study had excellent and consistent results, the method of recruiting participants online was wanting. The reason is most people who visit online hide behind a mask that is hard to tear. The first study had no possible way to regulate their participants. It is possible that the answers given were manufactured on the spot thus this step could have biased the outcome of the study. Moreover, there was not any guarantee that all participants were adults as some could have lied about their age while filling in the questionnaire. With easy access to the Internet, even children could have answered the survey as there was no way to tell if it was an adult participating.

It is also hard to say that this study represented a considerable portion of Americans as only a few people respond to questionnaires on the Internet. Ignoring the second set of responses for those who reacted twice could have caused inaccurate results. There ought to have been a system that was used to level the two or more sets of answers to come up with one. It was also essential to include kids in the experiment as they are more truthful in such cases compared to adults.

Evidently, the conclusions extracted from the research represented the study results. The use of grit scales and happiness orientation scales played a considerable role in ensuring the accuracy of the conclusions. However, the study results were limited as the choice of participants did not follow a randomized manner. The consistency of the findings from the two studies shows the possible validity of the deductions made. This research needs to be complemented with another one to strengthen its conclusions. Also, a more informed manner to create the scales ought to be discovered to ensure that all probabilities are considered.

Implications and Future Applications

The conclusion of the survey can be useful, especially in the medical fields. It can be used in explaining different psychological reactions of individuals in different circumstances. Professionals in therapy can understand the complexity of their patients through the results of this investigation. Moreover, a therapist would be able to help patients recover by auctioning the stated approaches of happiness depending on the personality.

For a better investigation, it is important to include other facets of happiness that are vital and could have affected and altered the findings of this study. These aspects include relationships with family and friends which could flip the coin when it comes to gritty personalities. A questionnaire inculcating these issues ought to be developed and different interviews conducted to expand the findings of how the level of grit in someone’s character affects their view of happiness.

There have been various studies which have shown that even highly educated people seek happiness in meaning and engagement. This study did not consider the different educational and professional backgrounds of the participant; an aspect which could have flipped the coin in the findings. To assert that genuinely gritty people are more inclined to a particular orientation of happiness, it is vital for an investigation focusing independently on each facet of grit to be conducted.

References

Von Culin, K., Tsukayama, E., & Duckworth, A. (2017). Unpacking grit: Motivational correlates of perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Retrieved 16 November 2017