Grit is defined as perseverance and commitment to long-term goals. It is a character attribute associated with University of Pennsylvania professor Angela Duckworth who wrote about her research in a best-selling book and promoted it on a widely watched Ted Talks video. Initially, lauded as a breakthrough discovery of the "key character ingredient" to success and performance, it soon came under wide criticism and has been exposed, like other character interventions, as suspect as a character construct, and where attempts have been made to implement it in school programs, shows no more than a weak effect, if any. Moreover, the original data was misinterpreted by Duckworth. Additionally, the construct of grit ability ignores the positive socio-economic pre-requisites necessary to deploy it.