Angela Duckworth - Grit

Angela Duckworth is an American psychologist. She earned a BA in  Neurobiology from Harvard in 1992, graduated from Oxford with a M.Sc. in neuroscience on a Marshall scholarship in 1996, and earned a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania where she is now a professor in 2006. She has also worked as a McKinsey Management Consultant, a high school math teacher, and won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 for her work with grit. After reading her many accolades, you may think: "Damn, she must be really smart". While you wouldn't be wrong, there are some implications in the statement that Duckworth herself may find contention.

Duckworth defines grit as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals".  It emphasizes consistent effort over a long period of time rather than innate ability - talent and IQ. The definition obviously draws from theories of motivation and resilience. However, while the difference between these constructs may seem minute, Duckworth's grit has had real world applications. She first applied her theory of grit to admissions at West Point. Admissions personal were struggling to develop a reliable measure that would indicate a candidate would make it through the Beast Barracks - an intense 7 week training program that turns "civilians into cadets". Last year, 32 cadets out of 1308 dropped out of West Point during the Beast Barracks. While 3% may seem low, these are candidates who have already been accepted into the university, and dropped out before half a semester. West Point's admission team looked into the issue, but were unable to determine a variable that could be used at the beginning of the admissions process to reliably predict who among the candidates would be able to advance past the Beast. IQ, standardized tests, athletic measures, leadership, motivation, etc did not work, but grit did.

Duckworth developed her construct of grit after working as a high school math teacher. She recalled that often the kids who scored highest on her exams were not the ones who seemed to understand the material right away. This interested her, so she investigated the matter. She found that the kids who performed the best on her exams spent much more time studying the material than the other kids. She decided to explore this more in graduate school. There she found that the study of achievement is abundant in psychology. Similar to her experience as a teacher, she found that high achievers are remarkably dedicated to their practice.  Her advisor in grad school, renowned psychologist, Martin Seligman, pushed her to develop an actual theory of grit and achievement. In her estimation, achievement is the result of skill and effort, and skill is the result of talent and effort. Accordingly, effort counts twice.

Most of Duckworth's motivation is intrinsic. Like her theory suggests, passion is often the catalyst for dedication, leading to achievement. However, unlike most creatives, Duckworth seems to have found her calling later in life. She already had an extensive career prior to obtaining her Ph.D. It seems like she stumbled upon something that deeply interested her, enough so that she wanted to study it for the rest of her life, i.e. intrinsic motivation.
I'd argue that Duckworth is a pro C creative with the potential for big C. While her theory draws from previous theories, it has had specific and unique applications, more of which can be found in the future.
Sources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-ONEAcBeTk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Duckworth
Grit - Angela Duckworth