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Women and men have different strengths for achieving their goals, study finds

Many factors are needed to achieve our goals. Now researchers have looked at passion, drive and people's ability to find flow.

"This is the first study to look at these factors together," says Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson at NTNU's Department of Psychology.

The researchers have found differences between the sexes. The results indicate that the sexes each have their own strengths when it comes to success:

• Men are more passionate than women when it comes to achieving their goals. They also often have an easier time finding flow.
• Women, on the other hand, often have greater drive than men.

The work is in the journal Acta Psychologica.

Sigmundsson and Jonas S.R. Leversen, a Ph.D. research fellow in the Psychology Department, collected responses from 529 people. A total of 323 were women and 204 were men. Their average age was almost 28 years.

"We found something else that is very interesting in this study. There is a strong correlation between drive and flow," Sigmundsson said.

This may seem strange and contradictory, since men have the most flow, while women have the most drive. But then we should remember that these are average figures, which can be misleading when we look at individuals. Many in the sample therefore have both a lot of drive and the ability to find flow, regardless of gender.

"More drive gives more flow, and vice versa," Sigmundsson said.

Passion is also related to flow, but not as much as drive.

"This may indicate that drive is a more critical factor in finding flow than passion is," he said.

"The study suggests that it is important to cultivate commitment and invest in activities that we really care about. But just as important, and for many even more important, is to make a sustained effort to build habits that strengthen grit. This increases the likelihood of experiencing flow, and thus also of achieving our goals," Leversen said.

Taken together, this information gives researchers and us more insight into how passion, grit and flow affect our lives, how we feel, how we learn and how we succeed.