The Bridge - Grit and God

Grit is often used synonymously with perseverance, but some Messiah student researchers say there’s an important delineation.

“It’s more than perseverance,” said psychology major Abigail Riegert ’19. “Grit is focusing on a long-term goal, and that goal affects your choices now.”

With Associate Professor of Psychology Valerie Lemmon and Associate Professor of Biopsychology Jennifer Thomson, the team also included Lilly Kashishian ’19 and Abigail Poh ’20, who surveyed students enrolled in psychology classes. From the questionnaire given to the students, the team researched if adverse childhood experience affects one’s grit and attachment style (or relationship) to God.

 “What our research hypothesis states,” said Riegert, “is that if someone has an adverse childhood experience—abuse, assault, divorce, etc.—then it would influence one’s attachment style to God … as well as their level of grit.”

What were their findings? Adverse childhood experience has no influence over attachment style to God or one’s grit level. But, attachment style and grit level do relate to each other.

“When someone has a higher grit level, then they will likely have the secure attachment style to God or vice versa,” she said. “This trends with the other styles and lowering levels of grit found in the students.”

After sifting through the data, was Riegert ever tempted to take the questionnaire herself?

“As researchers, we don’t take the survey because it introduces a bias,” she said, “but reading through the surveys, I wonder what my scores would be.”

— Anna Seip