Summary

At the beginning of the chapter, Duckworth discusses the meaning of hope in the context of grit. It means not only the expectation that tomorrow will be better, but also the resolution that one can make it better. She uses her own experience to pass a difficult neurobiology class in college as an example of having hope in a gritty way.

Duckworth then looks at the groundbreaking research of her graduate school advisor, Martin Seligman, along with Steve Maier, who studied learned helpless, first in dogs. He found that those dogs who could control whether or not they were shocked tried to leap to safety, while those who had no control in the experimental condition over whether or not they were shocked did nothing. He referred to the idea of learned hopelessness, or suffering you believe you cannot control, and additional...