It has been shown that both perseverance as well as peer effects affect performance. In our experiment, we investigate the interplay between these two factors. Participants work on a wordplay task where we quantify perseverance as the decision to continue working hard in the face of challenges. We find that persevering on the task is significantly correlated with the psychological questionnaire measure of grit (Duckworth et al., 2007). In an additional treatment, we provide participants with information about a peer’s contemporaneous perseverance on the task. This significantly increases participants’ perseverance on the task independently of their perseverance as measured in the questionnaire, suggesting that it does not only depend on individuals’ inherent traits, but can also be increased by peers.

事实表明，毅力和同伴效应都会影响性能。在我们的实验中，我们调查了这两个因素之间的相互作用。参与者从事文字游戏任务，我们将毅力量化为在面对挑战时继续努力的决定。我们发现，坚持不懈地与毅力的心理问卷测量显着相关（Duckworth等，2007）。作为一种额外的处理方式，我们为参与者提供有关同伴对任务的同时毅力的信息。这显着增加了参与者对任务的毅力，而与他们在问卷中的毅力无关，这表明它不仅取决于个人的固有特征，而且可以被同龄人提高。