Abstract

Three studies examine a novel pathway by which the perseverance component of the personality trait grit might predict college students’ behavioral persistence when solving challenging math problems. Specifically, we focus on the intervening role of what we refer to as math-specific self-perceptions of perseverance, which captures students’ perceived tendency and ability to persevere on challenging math problems. Across studies, we found that this math-specific construct was correlated with behavioral math persistence, whereas the domain-general perseverance component of grit was not. Despite there being no correlation between one’s general perceptions of perseverance and behavioral persistence on math problems, we consistently found significant indirect effects of general perceptions through math-specific perceptions of perseverance. That is, in all three studies, grittier students viewed themselves as more capable of persevering on challenging math problems, which ultimately predicted their behavioral persistence at a later time point.

摘要

三项研究检验了一种新途径，通过该途径，人格特质毅力的毅力成分可能预测大学生在解决具有挑战性的数学问题时的行为坚持。具体来说，我们专注于我们所说的特定于数学的毅力自我感知的干预作用，它捕捉到学生感知到的倾向和坚持解决具有挑战性的数学问题的能力。在所有研究中，我们发现这种特定于数学的结构与行为数学持久性相关，而毅力的领域一般毅力成分则不然。尽管一个人对毅力的一般看法与对数学问题的行为持久性之间没有相关性，但我们始终发现显着的间接通过特定于数学的毅力感知来影响一般感知。也就是说，在所有三项研究中，坚韧不拔的学生都认为自己更有能力坚持解决具有挑战性的数学问题，这最终预测了他们在以后的时间点的行为坚持。