| Summary: | Grit, or the ability to persevere toward a long-term goal despite adversity, has been linked to academic success. Grit may also potentially buffer against the negative effects of depressive symptoms in an academic domain. The current study explores the relationship between depression, grit, and GPA, while also accounting for defensive responding, which has been proposed as a confound of grit but not empirically assessed in this context. We examined how social desirability affects the relationship between grit and GPA and hypothesized that social desirability would moderate the effect of grit between depressive symptoms and GPA. We found support for all hypothesized direct relationships. However, the interaction between depression, grit, social desirability, and GPA was non-significant. Results suggested modest construct validity of grit with it predicting GPA at low levels of social desirability but demonstrated no buffering effect against depression on GPA, highlighting the complexity of the relationship between these variables.
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