Health and Social Support Determinants of Grit

Purpose:  The purpose of this study is to investigate how health—both physical and mental health—and social support affect one’s grit. Grit is a significant issue in that it contributes to future individual success in workforce development.

Introduction: Non-cognitive skills are known to be influenced by the environment, especially in regards to health and social support. The most influential trait is conscientiousness, which is comprised mostly of grit, an understudied characteristic.  Many studies have linked health and social support with the development and strength of non-cognitive skills. However these correlations have not been fully understood when singling out a particular skill. This paper aims to investigate the effects of health and social support on grit.

Methods/Results:Regression analysis was completed on 520 low-income, job seeking adults. Using validated scales for each variable, a series of multiple regression results indicate that social support (β=0 .36, ρ<0 .001) and health—physical (β =0 .00, ρ<0 .001), emotional (β=0.01, p<0 .001), and general (β= 0.01, ρ<0 .001)—have statistically significant independently and combined effects on grit.

Implications: There is strong evidence that social support and health measures have a significant impact on one’s grit which is important for understanding how one’s grit is shaped and can be supported. This finding is important for workforce development practitioners to understand, particularly focusing on health promotion in job readiness training, when working with job seeking clients who are having difficulty in demonstrating the necessary tenacity to continue on the path to achieve employment goals.