Bringing Grit into Sociological Discussions: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Socioeconomic Status, Sense of Control, and Grit

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Abstract

This paper presents a cross-cultural examination of the psychological notion of ‘grit’ and explores its potential for contributing to understanding social stratification across cultures. Grit, comprising of perseverance and passion towards long-term goals, has received growing attention from academia and the general public as a strong predictor of academic achievement. Yet, psychological researchers have been less interested in potential antecedences of developing grit and largely centered in a single nation (e.g., the United States), failing to consider structural and cultural contexts that may be closely associated with grit. Suggesting that grit could work as a “behavioral engine” transforming subjective beliefs about agency (e.g., personal sense of control) to agentic practices that potentially produce better life outcomes, I analyze data from South Korea and the U.S. and find that people with higher socioeconomic statuses tend to hold stronger beliefs about one’s agency, and those who are strong believers in one’s control over life outcomes, in turn, are more likely to report higher levels of grit. This finding adds sociological context to the concept of grit, including the mediating role of the sense of control in the relationship between socioeconomic status and grit, a relationship found in two different countries with distinct cultural orientations. This positive association between one’s socioeconomic status and grit is further buttressed by the direct positive association between education and the perseverance dimension of grit in the United States. In contrast, Americans with a higher socioeconomic status are less likely to show the consistency of interest than their counterparts with a lower socioeconomic status. Interestingly, none of these direct relationships between socioeconomic status and grit was not found in the Korean sample, supporting the importance of cultural contexts in the relationship between social stratification and individual psychology.

Author

• Hye Won Kwon, Higher School of Economics