On December 16, 2011, we had a wonderful interview with ground-breaking
Positive Psychologist, Angela Lee Duckworth, Ph.D., known for her original,
widely heralded research on grit and self-control.
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TEDxBLUE: True Grit--Can Perseverance be Taught
Angela Lee Duckworth, Ph.D. - 10/18/09
ABOUT Dr. ANGELA LEE DUCKWORTH, Ph.D.
Dr.
Angela Lee Duckworth is an assistant professor of psychology at the
University of Pennsylvania. Angela studies non-IQ competencies, including
grit and self-control, that predict success both academically and professionally.
Her research populations have included West Point cadets, National Spelling
Bee finalists, novice teachers, salespeople, and students.
Angela received a BA in Neurobiology from Harvard in
1992 and, as a Marshall Scholar, a Masters in Neuroscience from Oxford.
Angela founded a non-profit summer school for low-income children that
won the Better Government Award for the state of Massachusetts and was
profiled as a Harvard Kennedy School case study. Angela has also been
a McKinsey management consultant and, for four years, a math teacher
in the public schools of San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York City.
She completed her PhD in psychology at the University
of Pennsylvania.
As a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania,
Angela worked with the renowned Martin E. P. Seligman. In Chapter 6
of Dr. Seligman's latest book Flourish: Visionary New Understanding
of Happiness and Well-being, he details the unusual admission of
Angela Lee Duckworth to the Department of Psychology at the University
of Pennsylvania. Of Angela, he says, "Here was just the right sort
of maverick: someone with very high intellectual credentials and a sterling
education but not housebroken enough by politics to prevent her doing
serious research on the character strengths of students who succeed
and the character deficits of students who fail."
As an assistant professor of psychology at the University
of Pennsylvania, Angela continues to study competencies other than general
intelligence that predict academic and professional achievement. Her
research centers on self-control (the ability to regulate emotions,
thoughts, and feelings in the service of valued goals) and grit (perseverance
and sustained interest in long-term goals). Angela says, "I am
particularly interested in the subjective experience of exerting self-control
and grit - and conscious strategies which facilitate adaptive behavior
in the face of temptation, frustration, and distraction."
In The
New York Times Magazine Education Issue Paul Tough writes about
a project on which Angela worked while a Penn graduate student. The
KIPP Infinity School in NYC incorporated Angela's research in order
to move the school's focus toward character development, particularly
the development of grit and self-control.
In her ongoing work to improve the concentration and
effort of children, via their using grit and self-control, Angela says
that "paradoxically and wonderfully, we should free up more time
for play, running around and just enjoying childhood."
Duckworth, A., Quinn, P., Tsukayama, E. (in press). What No Child
Left Behind leaves behind: The roles of IQ and self-control in predicting
standardized achievement test scores and report card grades. Journal
of Educational Psychology.(pdf)
Gollwitzer, A., Oettingen, G., Kirby, T. & Duckworth, A. (in press).
Mental contrasting facilitates academic performance in school children.
Motivation and Emotion.
Almlund, M., Duckworth, A., Heckman, J., & Kautz, T. (in press).
Personality psychology and economics. In E.A. Hanushek, S. Machin &
L. Wößmann (Eds.), Handbook of the economics of education. Amsterdam:
Elsevier. (pdf)
Kross, E., Duckworth, A.L., Ayduk, O., Tsukayama, E., & Mischel,
W. (in press). Differential effects of self-distanced vs. self-immersed
reflection for affect and cognition among children. Emotion.
Roberts, B., Jackson, J., Duckworth, A.L., Von Culin, K. (2011). Personality
measurement and assessment in large panel surveys. Forum
for Health Economics & Policy, 14(3).
Retrieved from http://www.bepress.com/fhep/14/3/9 (pdf)
Duckworth, A. L. & Kern, M.L. (2011). A meta-analysis of the convergent
validity of self-control measures. Journal of Research in Personality,
35(3), 259-268.(pdf)
Duckworth, A. L. (2011).
The significance of self-control.Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 2639-40.(pdf)
Duckworth, A., Grant, H., Loew, B., Oettingen, G. & Gollwitzer,
P. M. (2011). Self-regulation strategies improve self-discipline in
adolescents: benefits of mental contrasting and implementation intentions. Educational
Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 31(1),
17-26. (pdf)
Duckworth, A. L., Quinn, P. D.,
Lynam, D. R., Loeber, R., & Stouthamer-Loeber, M. (2011).
Role of test motivation in intelligence testing.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(19),
7716-20. (pdf)
Duckworth, A., Kirby, T., Tsukayama, E., Berstein, H., Ericsson, K.
(2010). Deliberate practice spells success: Why grittier competitors
triumph at the National Spelling Bee. Social Psychological and Personality
Science, 2, 174-181. (pdf)
Duckworth, A.L., Tsukayama, E. & May, H. (2010). Establishing
causality using longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling: An illustration
predicting achievement from self-control. Social Psychology and Personality
Science, 1(4), 311-317.(pdf)
Tsukayama, E., Toomey, S.L., Faith, M., & Duckworth, A.L. (2010).
Self-control protects against overweight status in the transition to
adolescence. Archives of Pediatrics
and Adolescent Medicine, 164(7), 631-635.
(pdf)
Duckworth, A.L., Tsukayama, E., & Geier, A.B.. (2010). Self-controlled
children stay leaner in the transition to adolescence. Appetite,
54(2), 304-308.(pdf)
Tsukayama, E., Duckworth, A. (2010). Domain-specific temporal discounting
and temptation. Judgment and Decision Making, 5(2), 72-82.
(pdf)
Romer, D., Duckworth, A.L., Sznitman, S., & Park, S. (2010). Can
adolescents learn self-control? Delay of gratification in the development
of control over risk taking. Prevention Science, 11(3), 319-330.(pdf)
MacCann, C., Duckworth, A.L., & Roberts, R.D. (2009) Empirical
identification of the major facets of conscientiousness. Learning
and Individual Differences, 19, 451-458. (pdf)
Duckworth, A.L, & Quinn, P.D. (2009). Development and validation
of the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S). Journal of Personality Assessment,
91, 166-174. (pdf)
Borghans, L., Duckworth, A.L., Heckman, J.J., & ter Weel, B. (2008).
The economics and psychology of personality traits. Journal of Human
Resources, 43(4), 972-1059. (pdf)
Duckworth, A.L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M.D., & Kelly, D.R. (2007).
Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101. (pdf)
Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Self-discipline
gives girls the edge: Gender in self-discipline, grades, and achievement
test scores. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(1), 198-208.
(pdf)
Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Self-discipline
outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological
Science, 16(12), 939-944. (pdf)
Duckworth, A. L., Steen, T. A., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Positive
psychology in clinical practice. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology,
1(1), 629-651. (pdf)
BEN'S
INTERVIEW WITH ANGELA LEE DUCKWORTH, Ph.D.
Dr.
Angela Lee Duckworth is an assistant professor of psychology at the
University of Pennsylvania. Angela studies non-IQ competencies, including
grit and self-control, that predict success both academically and professionally.
Her research populations have included West Point cadets, National Spelling
Bee finalists, novice teachers, salespeople, and students. 