海角大神

"Never give in!" Winston Churchill to schoolboys at his alma mater.

Persistence may have helped the Allies win World War II, but psychologists suggest that聽wouldn't have been much use on the SAT.

A study published in the聽Journal of Research in Personality threatens to聽put a damper on America's grit mania, with research that suggests that聽 is just as important as the willingness to put up a fight.聽

"Right now, there鈥檚 an effort to push everyone to be more gritty," lead researcher Gale Lucas told USC News, but "it鈥檚 important to know聽聽rather than blindly push through."

America's love of gritty determination is championed by researchers like Angela Duckworth, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the country's grit guru, who has found that聽聽predict success聽"over and beyond measures of talent."聽

Her pro-grit findings were popularized in best-sellers like "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character," in which聽journalist Paul Tough聽which argued that kids need what economists call "noncognitive" skills, like curiosity and honesty, as much as they need any book learning.聽

But beware too much of a good thing, say researchers聽from the University of Southern California and Northeastern University.

They asked college students to assess their own grittiness 鈥撀爐heir resilience in the face of obstacles 鈥撀燽efore taking a series of tests: word, math, and computer games that, unbeknownst to the test-takers, were rigged against them.

On the verbal and math tasks, participants were : a real-life incentive to race through and find as many doable questions as possible, skipping those that seemed too daunting 鈥� much like the SAT. (Unlike the SAT, however, some of the experiment's questions were聽actually impossible.)

Yet people who gave themselves high grit ratings tended to take their time, seemingly determined to crack even the hardest questions rather than move on to the easy money.聽

Noble? Maybe. But it didn't help them in the short-term: most grit-sters solved fewer problems.

Grit is important, emphasized Professor Lucas, but smart grit聽鈥� knowing when to change course聽鈥撀爄s the really crucial ingredient.

It's a lesson for educators, students taking high-stakes tests, and a very different demographic: soldiers.

If anyone is known to disdain "quitting," it's the armed forces. But Lucas thinks soldiers should learn not just how to dig in, but how to switch tracks when a strategy isn't working. The military must hope so, too: some of the funding for her study came from the Air Force and the Army.聽

Although the science is new, the hunch that dogged persistence has its limits has been around for quite a while.聽

As comedian W. C. Fields, Mr.聽Churchill's contemporary, is rumored to have said: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a blamed fool about it."聽