Is grit relevant to well-being and strengths? Evidence across the globe for separating perseverance of effort and consistency of interests.

Objective: Researchers conceptualize grit as the combination of two facets: perseverance of effort and consistency of interests toward long-term goals. We tested the reliability of grit facet scores across the globe and examined how differently each grit facet related to well-being and personality strengths.

Method: An international sample of 7,617 participants from six of the seven continents (excluding Antarctica) completed an online survey.

Results: Confirmatory factor analyses and omega reliability coefficients indicated that the 12 items from the original Grit Scale were multidimensional and reliably measured perseverance of effort and consistency of interests. Concurrent validity analyses showed that perseverance of effort was moderately to strongly related to subjective well-being, beliefs about well-being, and personality strengths, whereas consistency of interests had weak or negative correlations with these outcomes. The stronger relations with perseverance of effort were replicated across seven regions of the world. The presence of overall grit was supported in individualistic countries, but not collectivistic countries (i.e., those in Latin America and Asia).

Conclusions: We discuss the multidimensionality of grit, including a conceptual understanding of overall grit and how it may differ across cultures. We suggest well-being and strengths researchers study grit facets separately due to their differential validity.