Abstract:

With the boom of positive psychology, more and more people are focusing on positive psychological qualities, such as grit (i.e., consistency of interest and perseverance of effort). However, significant individual differences were observed in terms of this personality trait. It is necessary for us to investigate the reasons why some students are grittier than others. In this regard, more and more research has recognized the importance of environmental factors. According to Bronfenbrenner’s social ecological framework, parents and friends are two environmental subjects that have a significant impact on individuals. However, which proximal environment subject affects grit more is unknown.To fill this research gap, we examined the prediction of peer support and parent support on undergraduate’s grit. A total of 498 Chinese undergraduates (60.2% female, 39.8% male) aged from 18 to 25 participated in this study. They were asked to fill in a battery of self-report questionnaires investigating the association between age, last semester's GPA, parental support, peer support (predictor variable) and grit (outcome variable). Parental support, peer support and grit were respectively measured by Parental Support Scale,Peer Support Evaluation Form and Short Grit Scale. The three scales demonstrated excellent internal reliability. Correlational analysis showed that parental support and peer support were significantly associated with grit. Multiple regression analysis reveals that parental support was the most significant factor. Specifically, parental support and peer support explained unique variances of grit after controlling for students' GPA and age, but peer support did not predict grit after controlling for parental support. These findings have important implications for researchers and educators and can shed light on the ways in which grit could be cultivated among college students.

Keywords:

Grit, Parental support, Peer support, Positive psychological qualities.