A paper by the author in &quot;Journal of Personality and Social Psychology&quot;: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sas.upenn.edu&#x2F;~duckwort&#x2F;images&#x2F;Grit%20JPSP.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sas.upenn.edu&#x2F;~duckwort&#x2F;images&#x2F;Grit%20JPSP.pdf</a><p>There is some misinterpretation of what Duckworth is claiming. Her paper doesn&#x27;t examine whether success is due to intrinsic or extrinsic aspects - whether luck is more important than grit - nor does it <i>really</i> examine the causes of success.<p>Her conclusion is &quot;successful people have grit&quot;. Not that unsuccessful people don&#x27;t have grit. Not that all people with grit are successful. Not that grit is the sole determining factor in success. Just that of the intrinsic attributes of successful people she examined, grit was common to all of them.<p>i.e. Some successful people are intelligent, but many aren&#x27;t. Some successful people have an innate talent for the thing they are doing (however we define that), but many don&#x27;t. All of them have grit.<p>Grit, here, is defined as &quot;perseverance and passion for long-term goals&quot;. It borders on the obvious that people who are successful have perseverance and passion. But it also borders on the obvious that merely having perseverance and passion isn&#x27;t enough to guarantee success.