Growth mindset and perseverance in later life shaped by health and socioeconomic circumstances

Older people’s opportunities and attitudes towards learning, personal growth, and perseverance are closely linked to their health and socioeconomic circumstances, according to new research using data from the ELSA. The findings suggest these psychological resources should be understood in the context of people’s wider life experiences.

Researchers from UCL and Lancaster University examined how characteristics related to ‘growth mindset’ and ‘grit’ vary among older adults in England.

Growth mindset describes a belief in the potential to learn, change and develop, while grit refers to perseverance and sustained effort towards longer-term goals. Although both have been widely studied in younger people, much less is known about how they are expressed in later life.

Using data from more than 7,000 ELSA participants, the researchers created proxy indicators of growth mindset and grit based on information collected about learning, personality, beliefs and positive feelings such as determination, hope and interest. They then examined how these differed according to factors including age, education, employment, wealth, health and memory.

The findings showed that these characteristics were strongly linked to people’s social, economic, and health circumstances. Higher wealth, being in paid employment, and better memory performance were generally associated with more favourable profiles. People with a limiting long-term illness were more likely to have lower scores across several measures, while living alone was also associated with lower scores for some aspects of growth mindset and grit.

Age was associated with different aspects in different ways. Older participants were less likely to take part in formal education and showed some differences in growth-oriented beliefs, but personality-based aspects of growth mindset varied much less with age. Some aspects of perseverance and positive motivation also appeared to be relatively well maintained among older age groups.

Professor Paola Zaninotto, lead author of the study and Deputy Director of ELSA, said:

“Our findings suggest that growth mindset and grit did not look the same across the different domains we examined. Formal learning was relatively uncommon in later life, while personality, beliefs and affect showed much greater variation. This suggests that we need to be careful about defining a growth mindset in older age primarily through learning or new educational qualifications.

“People may express growth-oriented and persevering tendencies in different ways, and these may become particularly important in areas of life that are less visible through formal learning. Looking across different domains gives us a much richer picture of how people adapt, develop and pursue goals as they grow older.”

The researchers stress that the ELSA measures were not specifically designed as validated measures of growth mindset and grit. Instead, the study used existing questions to identify related tendencies across several different areas. The analysis was also cross-sectional, meaning it cannot establish whether socioeconomic circumstances and health affect these psychological characteristics, or whether the relationships operate in the other direction.

The findings suggest that growth-oriented attitudes and perseverance in later life need to be considered alongside the social and structural circumstances in which people age. They also highlight the value of looking beyond formal education when considering opportunities for learning and personal development among older people.

Zaninotto, P., Knowles, B., Fledderjohann, J., Ashcroft, A. and Steptoe, A. (2026) ‘Growth mindset and grit as psychological resources in later life: age, socioeconomic status, and health patterning in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing’, The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 81(10), gbag134. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbag134