EconTalk
EconTalk
Russ Roberts
How Your Situation Shapes You (with Angela Duckworth)
1 hour 10 minutes Posted Oct 26, 2026 at 10:30 am.
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Show notes
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.