Know when to Fold 'em: The Grit Factor

Larbi Alaoui and Christian Fons-Rosen

No 899, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates the way different sides of grit influence behavior. In addition to grit's upside in achieving economic success associated with not giving up, it might also have a downside associated with not letting go. We split grit into two new categories, tenacity and diligence, and hypothesize that tenacity can lead individuals to go beyond their own intended plan of action when making a loss. We test the predictions with an experiment that elicits each individual's plan of action which we compare to actual choice in a game of luck. Consistent with our priors, grittier individuals have a higher tendency to overplay, and tenacity alone captures the difficulty in respecting ex-ante preferences when this means accepting defeat. We then discuss the external validity of our findings.

Keywords: noncognitive skills; grit; tenacity; diligence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hpe and nep-pr~
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Know when to fold 'em: The grit factor (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:899

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