Happiness takes effort: Exploring the relationship among academic grit, executive functions and well-being

Executive functions are the cognitive skills that help people attain their goals, while grit describes persistent efforts to attain success. However, little research has hitherto examined the relationships among grit, executive functions, and well-being. This empirical study helps fill that gap. Three self-report psychological instruments were administered to 214 university students, and simple direct regression applied to the collected data to analyze the effects of the three variables. The results indicated that grit had positive relationships with both executive functions and well-being. The implications of these findings, and the limitations of the study's methods, are also discussed. •Executive functions are positively associated with grit.•Grit is positively associated with well-being.•Grit's focus and resilience components correlate positively with all well-being variables.