“Inches make champions.” ~Football coach Vince Lombardi In his 2024 Dartmouth University commencement address, tennis superstar Roger Federer illustrated how great achievements need not require great innate superiority. By developing just the slightest edge over one’s competitors, gratifying results may ensue. After acknowledging that he won nearly 80 percent of his 1526 tennis matches, he asked his audience, “What percentage of the POINTS do you think I won in those matches?” His answer: “Only 54%.” Natural talent matters. “I’m not going to stand here and tell you it doesn’t,” reflected Federer. But, he added, “it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit.” In another commencement address, NFL quarterback Tom Brady offered kindred advice: “If you want to be great at something, you’re going to have to put all your commitment and effort and discipline into doing just that.” That recipe—natural talent x disciplined grit --> slight advantage --> great achievement—is confirmed in research on human achievements. Let’s deconstruct the evidence. First, native talent forms the raw material beneath great achievements. Superstars (from Mozart and Einstein to Caitlin Clark) come gifted with exceptional potential. Children who score astronomically high on IQ or SAT tests (recall the Terman geniuses and the Johns Hopkins Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth) later become greatly overrepresented among inventors, scientists, and high earners (Mark Zuckerberg and Lady Gaga among them). In an era when grade inflation has diminished the predictive power of high school grades, some elite universities are, therefore, again using aptitude scores to assist their talent identification. Digital Vision./Getty Images Yet far more is needed. For cooking exceptional achievement, the recipe, as Federer appreciates, is talent times tenacity. Although Thomas Edison’s assertion that “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” overstates the point, willpower has outperformed intelligence scores in predicting school attendance, performance, and graduation honors. “Discipline outdoes talent,” concluded researchers Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman. With exceptional talent but ordinary motivation, most of the Terman whiz kids, though living happy lives, did not attain eminence or become professionals. In sports and music, tenacity refines natural talent. By their early twenties, top violinists have fiddled double the practice hours of the average violin teacher. Much the same is true for top-flight ballet dancers, chess masters, and, as Federer reminds us, tennis players. Superstar attainments arise when exceptional natural talent is married to extraordinary perseverance. Federer illustrates that if one has enough talent x tenacity to gain even a small edge, the result may accumulate to something special. (Mathematically, tennis players who win 54 percent of points can be expected to exceed Federer’s result, wining near 91 percent of matches.) Life experience offers many examples of small advantages feeding great accomplishment: Contemplate the mathematics of monthly compounding. Twenty-year-old Tom invests a $10,000 inheritance at 8 percent interest. When he retires at age 70, he can withdraw $538,781. Meanwhile, Tom’s clever twin sister Angela examines the options and invests her $10,000 at a smidgen greater rate—9 percent—and will withdraw much more: $885,182. In evolution, a trait that gives only a slight survival advantage can, over many generations, lead to a species’ dominance. An infinitesimal starting difference between two weather systems can produce, days later, two utterly different outcomes (known familiarly as “the butterfly effect”). C. S. Lewis glimpsed the phenomenon in everyday life: “Little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.” In the 2024 U.S. Open golf tournament, Bryan DeChambeau’s 274 strokes bested Rory McIlroy by a single stroke, giving DeChambeau a $4.3 million prize, nearly double McIlroy’s $2.32 million runner-up prize. And if little advantages matter, then tenacity can push the envelope: A gritty student who studies a difficult subject an extra 20 minutes a day will likely excel beyond an equally capable classmate—increasing future opportunities at better schools and jobs. Effortfully attracting one new customer a week can, over time, create a thriving business. If each day you set aside the amount of a $4 latte for stock market investing, in 30 years (if the S&P 500’s last 30-year return rate repeats) you’ll have about $248,000. Federer’s experience highlights how mighty oaks grow from little acorns—small advantages bred by tenacity enables talent to bloom. By harnessing the synergy between talent and tenacity, Federer achieved sustained excellence while winning just 54 percent of his points. We, too, by developing our natural talents with relentless perseverance, can similarly gain a slight edge that, over time, can compound to significant accomplishments. From sports to academia to finance, persistent gritty effort sets exceptional achievers apart from their equally talented compatriots. (David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind.) ... View more

Since 1991, through its school-based surveys of 4.9 million high school students, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has monitored the health and well-being of America’s youth. Its Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System monitors trends in adolescent risky behaviors, sexuality, mental health, drug and alcohol use, exercise, and diet. The 2019 survey, released in late August of 2020, includes these findings of possible interest to teachers, counselors, parents, and others who support or nurture America’s youth: Sexual identity. Two percent of boys and 3 percent of girls report being gay or lesbian. But more report being bisexual or unsure. This is especially so for girls: Nearly 20 percent identify as neither straight nor gay, which accords with other studies that find women’s sexual identity less fixed than men’s. Sexual identity and victimization. It’s often presumed that gay and lesbian teens are vulnerable to becoming victims of antisocial acts, and the CDC survey confirms that presumption. Gay and lesbian youth are twice as likely as straight youth to report feeling unsafe, being bullied, and experiencing violence directed against them. They also are 3.6 times more likely to report experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 4.5 times more likely to have “seriously considered attempting suicide” in the past 12 months. Sexual activity. The long-term decline in teen sexual intercourse has continued. Psychologist Jean Twenge, also following this trend, has attributed it to the smartphone generation’s diminishing face-to-face relationships. Of those sexually active, 23 percent reported using oral contraceptives and 54 percent reported using condoms during their last sexual intercourse, with 9 percent using both (or some other accompanying birth control device). Suicidal thoughts and attempts. High school students’ contemplating or attempting suicide has increased since 2009. Moreover, both depression and suicide attempts are twice as likely among teen girls compared with teen boys. The rising depression rates coincide with another government national youth survey that reported a marked increase in teen rates of major depressive disorder since 2010. In this 2018 survey, too, the percent of teens feeling “sad or hopeless” had increased from 26 to 37 percent since 2009. Might the concurrent rise of smartphones and social media be contributing to these increasing rates? For my quick synopsis of the pertinent evidence see here. Drug and alcohol use. Since 2009, teens’ marijuana use has been stable—though with an uptick from 20 to 22 percent since 2017, coincident with widespread legalization in the United States. Daily cigarette smoking has dramatically declined, to the point of becoming gauche: But vaping has replaced cigarette use, with one-third reporting having vaped at least once in the past month, and 1 in 10 doing so most days. (In a separate survey of college age people, both  nicotine and marijuana vaping increased from 2017 to 2019.) However, a brand new government report indicates that, thanks to health warnings, youth vaping dropped by 30 percent in 2020. Other tidbits from the CDC survey: TV. In the age of internet and social media, teen TV watching has plummeted—from the 43 percent who watched three or more hours per day in 1999 to 20 percent in 2019. Video games and computer use. Flip-flopping with TV watching was the corresponding increase in 3+ daily hours of video game playing and other computer use, from 22 percent in 2003 to 46 percent in 2019. Obesity. Youth having obesity (defined by body mass index) increased from 11 percent in 1999 to 16 percent in 2019. School safety. The percent of students carrying a weapon (gun, knife, or club) to school decreased from 12 percent in 1993 to 3 percent in 2019. Those reporting being in a physical fight in the last year also decreased—from 43 percent in 1991 to 22 percent in 2019. To view and capture simple graphs on these and other health indicators—and perhaps to create a quiz that challenges your students to guess the answers—visit here. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com.) ... View more