"I wish you bad luck"

Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts once gave a commencement address (in this particular case, at his son's boarding school in New Hampshire) where he actually more or less told the graduating class, "I wish you bad luck."  I remember reading about it at the time, and I ended up writing a blog post about it, as I thought it was so powerful (see "The only easy day was yesterday").  Chief Justice Roberts is not an evil man, nor is he a mean one.  He was merely trying to make a point - by experiencing failure, at least occasionally, each and every one of us, if we remain persistent and if we remain resilient, will learn, improve, and emerge stronger in the long run. 

It's scientifically proven actually!  Just take a look at a study from Northwestern University by Yang Wang, Benjamin Jones, and Dashung Wang.  These investigators examined first-time applicants for the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) R01 grant funding mechanism between the years 1990 and 2005.  They divided those scientists receiving a similar high score based on whether or not they were awarded the grant - in other words, those who just missed being awarded the grant versus those who just succeeded in being awarded one.  Their analysis revealed 561 scientists who just succeeded ("narrow wins") and 623 who just missed ("near misses").  These scientists, as a group, were indistinguishable from one another, with the notable exception that the "narrow win" scientists had received an average $1.3 million, five year R01 grant.    

The measure of future scientific success (the outcome variable of interest, if you will) was the number of publications, as well as the impact of those publications (in terms of being published in a more prestigious journal, the number of citations those publications received, and whether the publication resulted in a new scientific advance).  Note that while future success in NIH grant funding was not directly assessed, successfully publishing one's research is critically dependent on having the necessary grant funds to conduct that research.  There were two important findings of this analysis.  First, 10% of the scientists in the "near miss" group ended up dropping out from conducting further research.  In other words, failing to secure the NIH grant was a "weeding out" process.  The second finding, however, suggested that those scientists in the "near miss" group who stayed persistent and re-applied for grant funding, in general, were more successful than those scientists in the "narrow win" group!

Several years ago (1968 in fact), Robert Merton, a sociologist at Columbia University, coined the term, "Matthew Effect" to explain why the most talent scientists typically had access to better resources and opportunities and were more successful as a result.  In other words, "the rich kept getting richer" and "the poor kept getting poorer."  The term comes from a famous Bible verse (Matthew 25:29) that states, "For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away."  As it turns out, there is a lot of evidence to support the existence of the "Matthew Effect" in a number of different settings and contexts.

The results of the present study by Wang, Jones, and Wang, suggest otherwise!  Rather, these results support the philosopher Friedrich Nietzche's classic admonition, "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger."  The key point that I think is lost somewhat in translation is the fact that 10% of the scientists dropped out and quit trying.  Persistence, patience, and resilience is necessary for success in academic research - these traits are what the psychologist Angela Duckworth calls grit.  I would argue that grit is important for success in more than just research.  I even would go as far to say that perhaps grit is just as important as talent in this regard.