The Parental Grit Scale: Conceptualizing and Measuring Parental Grit

• In Event: The Contextual Specification of Grit: A Critical Reflection on Domain-General Grit and Proposals for Domain-Specific Grit

Abstract

Since the conceptualization of domain-general grit, this construct has drawn a lot of scientific attention. Recently, the construct of grit has been expanded to include domain-specificity, with grit examined within the contexts of school and sports. This study aims to further expand the domain specificity of grit by examining it withing the context of parenting. As such, we will develop and validate the Parental Grit Scale (PGS).

Building on the triarchic model of grit (Datu et al., 2017), we conceptualize parental grit as parents’ inclination to demonstrate perseverance, sustained passion, and adaptability of goal-specific pathways in pursuing long-term parenting or childrearing goals. It encompasses three dimensions, namely: a) perseverance of effort, which refers to persisting in pursuing parenting goals despite encountering setbacks or challenges; b) sustained passion, which pertains to consistent desire and intrinsic drive to accomplish parenting goals; and c) adaptability of goal-specific pathways, which encompasses the capacity to calibrate or flexibly adjust pathways or unrealistic aspects of parenting or childrearing goals. Further, we draw on existing literature on the benefits associated with theoretically relevant personality factors in hypothesizing the potential links of parental grit and its dimensions to relevant criterion measures such as parental self-efficacy, parental health, and children’s well-being.

Using a two-wave (W) design, data will be collected from a target sample of 1000 parents in the United States through the platform Prolific. Data collection for W1 and W2 will be completed by September 2023 and January 2024, respectively. The conceptualization and validation of the PGS will proceed in three phases: a) item pool creation and revision based on evaluation of five grit experts; b) assessment of revised items for factorial structure, internal consistency, measurement invariance across genders and socioeconomic status, and convergent validity using W1-data; c) examining criterion and incremental validity of the PGS using both W1 and W2 data by testing whether parental grit contributes to predicting parental self-efficacy, parental health, the quality of parental support, and children's well-being, beyond the influence of general grit and conscientiousness.

We expect that a) the PGS has a three-dimension structure with perseverance of effort, sustained passion, and adaptivity of goal-specific pathways; b) the PGS exhibits at least factorial invariance across genders and socioeconomic statuses; c) parental grit positively predicts parental self-efficacy, parental health, need-supportive parental involvement, and children’s well-being; and d) parental grit contributes to predicting parental self-efficacy, parental health, need-supportive parental involvement, and children’s well-being beyond general grit and conscientiousness.

The PGS can provide an estimate of individual differences in parents’ perseverance in challenging parenting situations, passion in parenting goal pursuit, and adaptivity to the changing needs of their offspring. Generating preliminary evidence on the criterion-related and predictive validity of this scale has key implications for understanding how parental grit tracks parental behaviors and children’s well-being. In general, this research can address the dearth of studies on the domain-specificity of grit by exploring how grit operates in the context of parenting.

Authors

• Ziwen Teuber, University of Luxembourg

• Jesus Alfonso Daep Datu, The University of Hong Kong

• Elouise Botes, University of Luxembourg

• Samuel Greiff, University of Luxembourg