On March 25th, psychologist Anders Ericsson and I were both supposed to attend Angela Duckworth’s class at Penn, where she would start the day b

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2024-11-09 00:30:05

On March 25th, psychologist Anders Ericsson and I were both supposed to attend Angela Duckworth’s class at Penn, where she would start the day by discussing her famous grit research.

I critiqued certain extrapolations of grit research in chapter six of Range, and the idea was that Anders and I would share thoughts on the relative importance of things like grit, deliberate practice, early specialization, and talent. And by “share,” I mean probably debate. Anders did not believe in talent and was a proponent of the idea that a head start in narrowly focused practice was the ultimate advantage; I have argued for the importance of sampling, exploring different talents, and not specializing too early. When the pandemic intensified, we had to cancel our trips to Penn.

It didn’t seem like a big deal. Anders and I had had feisty exchanges before, and I figured we had more to come. So the news of his passing last month came as a total shock. I was crestfallen, which might seem strange given that our relationship was based on public disagreement.

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