The development of grit and growth mindset in Chinese children

Tingdan Zhang; Daeun Park; Lyle H Ungar; Eli Tsukayama; Liang Luo; Angela L Duckworth

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105450

The development of grit and growth mindset in Chinese children

J Exp Child Psychol. 2022 Sep:221:105450. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105450. Epub 2022 May 18.

Authors

Tingdan Zhang¹, Daeun Park², Lyle H Ungar³, Eli Tsukayama⁴, Liang Luo⁵, Angela L Duckworth⁶

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
² Department of Psychology, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul 03063, South Korea.
³ Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
⁴ Division of Business Administration, University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu, Kapolei, HI 96707, USA.
⁵ Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. Electronic address: luoliang@bnu.edu.cn.
⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; Department of Operations, Information and Decisions, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

PMID: 35596980
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105450

Abstract

In a recent longitudinal study of U.S. adolescents, grit predicted rank-order increases in growth mindset and, to a lesser degree, growth mindset predicted rank-order increases in grit. The current investigation replicated and extended these findings in a younger non-Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (non-WEIRD) population. Two large samples totaling more than 5000 elementary school children in China completed self-report questionnaires assessing grit and growth mindset five times over 2 years. As in Park et al. (2020, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 198, 1048892020), we found reciprocal relations between grit and growth mindset. Grit systematically predicted rank-order increases in growth mindset at each subsequent 6-month interval. Growth mindset also predicted small rank-order increases in grit over the same period. These findings suggest that, over time, behavior may exert as much an influence on beliefs as the reverse-a dynamic possibly observable as early as in elementary school and not just in WEIRD cultures.

Keywords: Children; Early adolescence; Grit; Growth mindset; Longitudinal; Replication.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Child
China
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Schools*