Videos
The Western Front
Niall Ferguson draws on his book “The Pity of War” and personal family history to describe the horrors of trench warfare in WWI.
October 22, 2026
Sure, you can use willpower or grit to break bad habits and build new ones. But maybe the key to success is simpler: change your situation. Psychologist Angela Duckworth explains to EconTalk’s Russ Roberts why the people and places around us shape our behavior more than we realize—and why we’re hard-wired to resist that idea. Listen as they discuss the three-box framework for understanding human behavior, why creating friction to avoid temptation is itself an act of agency, and how the cultures we choose to join end up shaping who we become.
Listen to the episode here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Angela studies non-IQ competencies, including self-control and grit, which predict success both academically and professionally. Her research populations have included West Point cadets, National Spelling Bee finalists, novice teachers, salespeople, and students. Prior to her career in research, Angela founded a non-profit summer school for underserved children which won the Better Government Award for the state of Massachusetts and was profiled as a Harvard Kennedy School case study. Duckworth has also been a McKinsey management consultant and, for five years, a math teacher in the public schools of San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York City. In 2013, Angela was selected as a MacArthur Fellow. She is the author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (2016) and Situated: Finding the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best.
RELATED SOURCES
- Angela Duckworth's Website
- Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best by Angela Duckworth on Amazon.com
- Angela Duckworth's EconTalk Episodes
- James Gross at Stanford University Psychophysiology Laboratory
- "This is Water" Speech by David Foster Wallace
- "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley at the Poetry Foundation
- "If" by Rudyard Kipling at the Poetry Foundation
- One Sec App
- Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Incentives Are for Losers (with Adam Mastroianni)