The Implications of Grit and Mindset Research for Behavioral Economics:A New Perspective on Labor Productivity Improvement

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce grit and mindset research, two streams of research in psychology, and discuss their implications for labor productivity improvement and their application to behavioral economics. In grit research, grit is defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals,” while mindset research explores our two contrasting mindsets: the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. Both grit and mindset research indicate that abilities acquired by our efforts are much more important than we expected, and mindset is strongly associated with the process of acquiring new abilities. These fields of research suggest the low level of labor productivity in Japan might come from a cognitive bias toward a fixed mindset, which emphasizes innate talent rather than acquired abilities.