Thursday, January 25, 2007

Grits






I found the note below in my e-mail queue this morning:









Dear Kimberly,

Beginning in April 2006, we collected online data from you and over 600 other participants. The study you completed helped us learn more about grit, defined as passion and perseverance for long term goals. Gritty individuals have consistent interests over time and pursue goals even in the face of failure. Individuals who score lower on the grit scale are less persistent and more likely to move frequently from interest to interest. Though individual questionnaire scores will not be reported, these results, obtained from the entire sample, may be of interest to you as a participant.

As expected, gritty individuals were more conscientious. Grit was also associated with an agreeable disposition and extraversion. Grittier people were more satisfied with their lives. Grit was highest among participants aged 65 and older and lowest among participants aged 25-34. Ratings of grit by self-report closely matched those of friends and family members. That is, our conception of our own level of grit seems largely aligned with the conceptions of our intimates.

Unfortunately, we are not able to answer individual queries about this study at this time. However, we do appreciate your participation-thank you!

Angela Lee Duckworth, PhD
Positive Psychology Center
3701 Market St. Suite 209
Philadelphia, PA 19104

215/898-1339 (office)
215/573-2188 (fax)
duckwort@psych.upenn.edu (email)
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/


***

I have a vague recollection of reading some pop-psych article on happiness a while ago, online, and clicking through to some survey. I'm slightly disappointed that the researchers won't provide my own personal score on their scale of grittiness. But mostly I'm curious about a couple of things. If grit was highest among older participants, isn't that likely because older folks have had more time to be persistent over time, or have learned that it takes time to achieve long term goals, or that people in general grow more concerned with what they make of their lives as they grow older and therefore may work harder as they age to guarantee acheivement? And nothing in the summary about correlations of gender with grit?

Stay tuned. I may just work up enough grit to look into these and other grit-related questions.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Public Libraries: Good for Brains, Good for Business

That’s what a new study by the Urban Institute says.


I needed no convincing, but I can always use an excuse to post a pix of my favorite public library: Seattle’s Central Library, here.


From the Philanthropy News Digest summary:

“The study relates specific ways local governments, agencies, and libraries are working together to benefit individuals, agencies, and the community at large in four areas: early literacy services, employment and career resources, small business resources and programs, and a physical presence that contributes to stability, safety, and quality of life, while attracting foot traffic, providing long-term tenancy, and complementing neighboring retail and cultural destinations. Capitalizing on these strengths, libraries can fuel not only current but also emerging economic activity.”

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Chronicles of Coups


Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish chronicler of coups and revolutions, has died.

The BBC photo makes him look like a toiler, which I don't doubt - he wrote about dozens of upheavals. But I much prefer the photo in the facing page of my Vintage International paperback copy of Shah of Shahs. It makes him look like the Prince of Darkness, a mischievous and malevolent glint to his eye, an effect heightened by his big arched eyebrows, and completed by the crooked grin that just bares his teeth. I suspect it might be a more honest photo - someone so exposed to so much violence and turmoil often propelled by evil must take some kind of satisfaction from seeking it out again and again. Or perhaps it was just escaping a death sentence not once, but four times, that gave him a gallows humor. Then again, this one, pulled from the Wikipedia commons, has a touch of the charming, erudite intellectual about it and seems genuine enough.

The only work of his I've read is Shah of Shahs, assigned last year for school. I think he underestimated the role that memory of Mossadegh and the 1953 coup played in the consciousness of Iran in 1979 - Kapuscinski dismissed Mossadegh as ineffectual and inconsequential. But he seemed masterful at illuminating the mass psychology of living under two back-to-back interpretations of brutality, first the Shah and his Savak, and then the Ayatollahs and their Komitehs. It's usually so easy to think of behaving as a unfree person impossible from where I sit, but not after reading Kapuscinski. It's time to pick up more of his work.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Futbol Facts


I e-mailed my first draft of my master's project off on Tuesday, and had enough time in the afternoon to stop in to catch what I thought would be an easy Barca victory over a less accomplished team. After Barca was up 2-0 early on, the boys clearly thought it would be easy, too, and started to play that way. Until they found themselves facing a little guy named Wellington and a 2-2 tie shortly thereafter. What I thought would have been a boring game in an almost-deserted bar turned into quite a thrilling 3-2 win and made up for my having missed too many matches lately. Victory is always sweeter when it's hard-earned.

First half drink: bloody mary
Optional: meat pie
Second half drink: guinness (usually only when needing reinforcement during a close match, like Tuesday's against Alaves)
51% of reason for supporting Barca: mas que un club
49% of reason: There's not a bully or grandstander in the bunch. Plus Ronaldinho has the grace to never forget to say thanks to God for helping him look good. And then, as I have previously observed, Frank Rykaard always looks gorgeous in a suit.
Hero of the day: Saviola
Possibly edging out Gio as my fave: Guily.

May Cooler (and Smarter and More Courageous) Heads Prevail


Days after the U.S. dispatched a second set of battle ships to the Middle East, the BBC reports on efforts underway in Congress to force President Bush to seek its approval should he pursue an attack on Iran. If the resolution did manage to pass both the House and Senate it would hardly guarantee a more clear-eyed policy. Remembering my favorite bogus Power Point presentation a la Colin Powell in early 2003, I would never underestimate the ability of something of far less substance to effect events of great material impact. But I find the possibility of a resolution a little heartening in any case.

Elsewhere, FP's blog notes the obvious potential parallel of current U.S. rumblings in the direction of Iran with the Gulf of Tonkin farce that got the U.S. mired in Vietnam. The only thing I really take issue with in the FP bit is Mike Boyer's suggestion that a Tonkin-esque instigation to justify an attack against Iran seems far-fetched. If the original trumped up Gulf of Tonkin incident and the aforementioned Power Point tell us anything, it's that all those seemingly far-fetched wacko notions are disproportionately effective at starting these sorts of things.

Finally, I was surprised back in October that the American press did not make more noise about Daniel Ellsberg's (pictured with Mrs. E, above) call in Harpers for insider Bush admin wonks to do earlier for Iran what he tried to do for Vietnam by leaking the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg encouraged wonks like himself to reveal the administration's secret plans (perhaps now less and less secret on a day-by-day basis) to attack Iran. You'd think the Times and the Wa. Post, the financial beneficiaries of Ellsberg's risk (not to mention beneficiaries of that little old Supreme Court case involving prior restraint) would love to get their hands on such documents. It would at least sell papers, if not protect the national interests that might be served by preventing another nasty and immoral war.

P.S. Meanwhile, as the U.S. bemoans Iran’s nuclear ambitions, likely years from fruition, bigger and brawnier China surprises the world by getting its ballistic satellite-destroying missles off in space right now.