The Continuing Role of Hardiness and Grit on Performance and Retention in West Point Cadets

摘要

The personality variables of hardiness and grit are conceptualized as helpful to people in dealing effectively with challenging stressful circumstances. In a relevant study (Maddi, Matthews, Kelly, Villarreal, & White, 2012) at the United States Military Academy at West Point, cadets were measured for hardiness and grit before they began their training. At the end of the first year of the strenuous training, hardiness was related positively to performance and retention. Although also positively related to retention, grit showed no relationship with performance. By performance and retention measures over the entire 4 years of strenuous training of these cadets, the present study follows up on the first study. The results show that hardiness was a more reliable measure of performance measures and retention than was grit. This suggests the value of using hardiness in the selection and training of USMA Cadets.