Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:31:15.819Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

25 - Eminent Creators

Early Experiences and Adult Achievement

from Part V - Special Populations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

Sandra W. Russ
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University, Ohio
Jessica D. Hoffmann
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Get access

Summary

This chapter treats the life-span development of creative genius. The treatment is divided into three main sections. First, developmental experiences in childhood and adolescence are examined, with special focus on family background and education or training. Second, adulthood career trajectories are discussed, including such issues as output quantity and quality in creative products. Third, discussion turns to career termination, with special emphasis on the differential life expectancies of creators attaining eminence in different domains. The chapter concludes by addressing the question of whether creative development in the highly eminent is comparable to that seen in more everyday forms of creativity. Although some similarities are apparent, congruence cannot be assumed without considerably more research on both extremes of the phenomenon.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barlow, H., & Morgenstern, S. (1950). A dictionary of vocal themes. New York: Crown.Google Scholar
Berry, C. (1981). The Nobel scientists and the origins of scientific achievement. British Journal of Sociology, 32, 381391. doi:10.2307/589284Google Scholar
Bliss, W. D. (1970). Birth order of creative writers. Journal of Individual Psychology, 26, 200202.Google Scholar
Boring, M. D., & Boring, E. G. (1948). Masters and pupils among the American psychologists. American Journal of Psychology, 61, 527534. doi:10.2307/1418317Google Scholar
Borowiecki, K. J. (2014). Artistic creativity and extreme events: The heterogeneous impact of war on composers’ production. Poetics, 47, 83105. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2014.10.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bramwell, B. S. (1948). Galton’s “Hereditary Genius” and the three following generations since 1869. Eugenics Review, 39, 146153.Google Scholar
Candolle, A. de, (1873). Histoire des sciences et des savants depuis deux siècles. Genève: Georg.Google Scholar
Carson, S., Peterson, J. B., & Higgins, D. M. (2005). Reliability, validity, and factor structure of the Creative Achievement Questionnaire. Creativity Research Journal, 17, 3750. doi:10.1207/s15326934crj1701_4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassandro, V. J. (1998). Explaining premature mortality across fields of creative endeavor. Journal of Personality, 66, 805833. doi:10.1111/1467-6494.00033CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cassandro, V. J., & Simonton, D. K. (2010). Versatility, openness to experience, and topical diversity in creative products: An exploratory historiometric analysis of scientists, philosophers, and writers. Journal of Creative Behavior, 44, 118. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2010.tb01322.xGoogle Scholar
Clark, R. D., & Rice, G. A. (1982). Family constellations and eminence: The birth orders of Nobel Prize winners. Journal of Psychology, 110, 281287. doi:10.1080/00223980.1982.9915350Google Scholar
Damian, R. I., & Simonton, D. K. (2014). Diversifying experiences in the development of genius and their impact on creative cognition. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 375393). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Dennis, W. (1955, April). Variations in productivity among creative workers. Scientific Monthly, 80, 277278.Google Scholar
Dennis, W. (1966). Creative productivity between the ages of 20 and 80 years. Journal of Gerontology, 21, 18. doi:10.1093/geronj/21.1.1Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, J. M. (1978). Parental loss and genius. American Psychologist, 33, 211223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ericsson, K. A. (2014). Creative genius: A view from the expert-performance approach. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 321349). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363406. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.100.3.363Google Scholar
Feist, G. J. (1993). A structural model of scientific eminence. Psychological Science, 4, 366371. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00583.xGoogle Scholar
Feist, G. J. (2006). The development of scientific talent in Westinghouse Finalists and members of the National Academy of Sciences. Journal of Adult Development, 13, 2335. doi:10.1007/s10804–006-9002-3Google Scholar
Friis-Olivarius, M., & Christensen, B. T. (2019). Not quite equal odds: Openness to experience moderates the relation between quantity and quality of ideas in divergent production. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 15. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00355Google Scholar
Furnham, A., & Bonnett, C. (1992). British research productivity in psychology 1980–1989: Does the Lotka-Price law apply to university departments as it does to individuals? Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 13331341. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(92)90176-pGoogle Scholar
Galenson, D. W. (2005). Old masters and young geniuses: The two life cycles of artistic creativity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Galton, F. (1869). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Galton, F. (1874). English men of science: Their nature and nurture. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Galton, F. (1883). Inquiries into human faculty and its development. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. New York: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Hass, R. W., & Weisberg, R. W. (2009). Career development in two seminal American songwriters: A test of the equal odds rule. Creativity Research Journal, 21, 183190. doi:10.1080/10400410902855275Google Scholar
Hellmanzik, C. (2014). Prominent modern artists: Determinants of creativity. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 564585). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Johnson, W., & Bouchard, T. J. Jr (2014). Genetics of intellectual and personality traits associated with creative genius: Could geniuses be Cosmobian Dragon Kings? In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 269296). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Jones, B. F., Reedy, E. J., & Weinberg, B. A. (2014). Age and scientific genius. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 422450). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Kaufman, J. C. (2000–2001). Genius, lunatics and poets: Mental illness in prize-winning authors. Imagination, Cognition & Personality, 20, 305314. doi:10.1080/713842357Google Scholar
Kaufman, J. C. (2003). The cost of the muse: Poets die young. Death Studies, 27, 813822.Google Scholar
Kaufman, J. C. (2005). The door that leads into madness: Eastern European poets and mental illness. Creativity Research Journal, 17, 99103. doi:10.1207/s15326934crj1701_8Google Scholar
Kaufman, J. C., & Gentile, C. A. (2002). The will, the wit, the judgement: The importance of an early start in productive and successful creative writing. High Ability Studies, 13, 115123. doi:10.1080/1359813022000048770Google Scholar
Kaufman, J. C., & Sexton, J. D. (2006). Why doesn’t the writing cure help poets? Review of General Psychology, 10, 268282. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.10.3.268CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, S. B., & Kaufman, J. C. (2007). Ten years to expertise, many more to greatness: An investigation of modern writers. Journal of Creative Behavior, 41, 114124. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2007.tb01284.xGoogle Scholar
Kell, H. J., & Lubinski, D. (2014). The study of mathematically precocious youth at maturity: Insights into elements of genius. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 397421). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2008a). Longitudinal hit ratios of classical composers: Reconciling “Darwinian” and expertise acquisition perspectives on lifespan creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2, 221235. doi:10.1037/a0012860Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2008b). One-hit wonders in classical music: Evidence and (partial) explanations for an early career peak. Creativity Research Journal, 20, 179195. doi:10.1080/10400410802059952Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2014). Musical creativity over the lifespan. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 451472). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Lehman, H. C. (1953). Age and achievement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Leung, A. K., Maddux, W. W., Galinsky, A. D., & Chiu, C. (2008). Multicultural experience enhances creativity: The when and how. American Psychologist, 63, 169181. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.63.3.169Google Scholar
Liu, L., Wang, Y., Sinatra, R., Giles, C. L., Song, C., & Wang, D. (2018). Hot streaks in artistic, cultural, and scientific careers. Nature, 559, 396399. doi:10.1038/s41586–018-0315-8Google Scholar
Lotka, A. J. (1926). The frequency distribution of scientific productivity. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 16, 317323. doi:10.1016/s0016–0032(26)91166-6Google Scholar
Ludwig, A. M. (1992). Creative achievement and psychopathology: Comparison among professions. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 46, 330356. doi:10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.1992.46.3.330Google Scholar
Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z., & Oswald, F. L. (2014). Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis. Psychological Science, 25, 16081618. doi:10.1177/0956797614535810Google Scholar
McCann, S. J. H. (2001). The precocity–longevity hypothesis: Earlier peaks in career achievement predict shorter lives. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 14291439. doi:10.1177/01461672012711004Google Scholar
McCrae, R. R., & Greenberg, D. M. (2014). Openness to experience. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 222243). Oxford: Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCurdy, H. G. (1960). The childhood pattern of genius. Horizon, 2, 3338.Google Scholar
McKay, A. S., & Kaufman, J. C. (2014). Literary geniuses: Their life, work, and death. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 473487). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Newman, J., & Taylor, A. (1994). Family training for political leadership: Birth order of United States state governors and Australian prime ministers. Political Psychology, 15, 435442. doi:10.2307/3791565CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbett, R. E. (1968). Birth order and participation in dangerous sports. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 351353. doi:10.1037/h0025573CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Overskeid, G., Grønnerød, C., & Simonton, D. K. (2012). The personality of a nonperson: Gauging the inner Skinner. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 187197. doi:10.1177/1745691611434212Google Scholar
Price, D. (1986). Little science, big science … and beyond. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ramey, C. H., & Weisberg, R. W. (2004). The “poetical activity” of Emily Dickinson: A further test of the hypothesis that affective disorders foster creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 16, 173185. doi:10.1080/10400419.2004.9651451Google Scholar
Ritter, S. M., Damian, R. I., Simonton, D. K., van Baaren, R. B., Strick, M., Derks, J., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2012). Diversifying experiences enhance cognitive flexibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 961964. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.009Google Scholar
Roe, A. (1953). The making of a scientist. New York: Dodd, Mead.Google Scholar
Saad, C. S., Damian, R. I., Benet-Martinez, V., Moons, W. G., & Robins, R. W. (2013). Multiculturalism and creativity: Effects of cultural context, bicultural identity, and cognitive fluency. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4, 369375. doi:10.1177/1948550612456560Google Scholar
Schaefer, C. E., & Anastasi, A. (1968). A biographical inventory for identifying creativity in adolescent boys. Journal of Applied Psychology, 58, 4248. doi:10.1037/h0025328Google Scholar
Schubert, D. S. P., Wagner, M. E., & Schubert, H. J. P. (1977). Family constellation and creativity: Firstborn predominance among classical music composers. Journal of Psychology, 95, 147149. doi:10.1080/00223980.1977.9915871Google Scholar
Segal, S. M., Busse, T. V., & Mansfield, R. S. (1980). The relationship of scientific creativity in the biological sciences to predoctoral accomplishments and experiences. American Educational Research Journal, 17, 491502. doi:10.3102/00028312017004491Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1975). Age and literary creativity: A cross-cultural and transhistorical survey. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 6, 259277.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1976). Biographical determinants of achieved eminence: A multivariate approach to the Cox data. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 218226. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.33.2.218CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1977). Creative productivity, age, and stress: A biographical time-series analysis of 10 classical composers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 791804. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.11.791Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1980). Techno-scientific activity and war: A yearly time-series analysis, 1500–1903 A.D. Scientometrics, 2, 251255. doi:10.1007/bf02016346Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1983). Intergenerational transfer of individual differences in hereditary monarchs: Genetic, role-modeling, cohort, or sociocultural effects? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 354364. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.44.2.354Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1984a). Artistic creativity and interpersonal relationships across and within generations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 12731286. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.46.6.1273Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1984b). Creative productivity and age: A mathematical model based on a two-step cognitive process. Developmental Review, 4, 77111. doi:10.1016/0273-2297(84)90020-0Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1984c). Genius, creativity, and leadership: Historiometric inquiries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1988). Age and outstanding achievement: What do we know after a century of research? Psychological Bulletin, 104, 251267. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.104.2.251CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simonton, D. K. (1989). Age and creative productivity: Nonlinear estimation of an information-processing model. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 29, 2337. doi:10.2190/u81m-7lwl-xxn4–10t8Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1991). Career landmarks in science: Individual differences and interdisciplinary contrasts. Developmental Psychology, 27, 119130. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.27.1.119Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1992a). Leaders of American psychology, 1879–1967: Career development, creative output, and professional achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 517. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.62.1.5Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1992b). The social context of career success and course for 2,026 scientists and inventors. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 452463. doi:10.1177/0146167292184009Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1997). Creative productivity: A predictive and explanatory model of career trajectories and landmarks. Psychological Review, 104, 6689. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.104.1.66Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2000a). Creative development as acquired expertise: Theoretical issues and an empirical test. Developmental Review, 20, 283318. doi:10.1006/drev.1999.0504Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2000b). Creativity: Cognitive, developmental, personal, and social aspects. American Psychologist, 55, 151158. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.151CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simonton, D. K. (2002). Great psychologists and their times: Scientific insights into psychology’s history. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2003). Scientific creativity as constrained stochastic behavior: The integration of product, process, and person perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 475494. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.4.475Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2004). Creativity in science: Chance, logic, genius, and zeitgeist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2007a). Cinema composers: Career trajectories for creative productivity in film music. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 1, 160169. doi:10.1037/1931-3896.1.3.160Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2007b). Creative life cycles in literature: Poets versus novelists or conceptualists versus experimentalists? Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 1, 133139. doi:10.1037/1931-3896.1.3.133Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2008). Gender differences in birth order and family size among 186 eminent psychologists. Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology, 1, 1522. doi:10.1891/1939-7054.1.1.15CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2009). Varieties of (scientific) creativity: A hierarchical model of disposition, development, and achievement. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 441452. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01152.xGoogle Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2010). Creativity as blind-variation and selective-retention: Combinatorial models of exceptional creativity. Physics of Life Reviews, 7, 156179. doi:10.1016/j.plrev.2010.02.002Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2011). Creativity and discovery as blind variation: Campbell’s (1960) BVSR model after the half-century mark. Review of General Psychology, 15, 158174. doi:10.1037/a0022912Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2012). Creative productivity and aging: An age decrement – or not? In Whitbourne, S. K. & Sliwinski, M. (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of adult development and aging (pp. 477496). New York: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2014a). Creative performance, expertise acquisition, individual-differences, and developmental antecedents: An integrative research agenda. Intelligence, 45, 6673. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2013.04.007Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2014b). More method in the mad-genius controversy: A historiometric study of 204 historic creators. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8, 5361. doi:10.1037/a0035367Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2016a). Are pure mathematicians the lyric poets of the sciences? In Casazza, P., Krantz, S. G., & Ruden, R. D. (Eds.), I, mathematician II: Further introspections on the mathematical life (pp. 165174). Bedford, MA: The Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2016b). Early and late bloomers among classical composers: Were the greatest geniuses also prodigies? In McPherson, G. (Ed.), Musical prodigies: Interpretations from psychology, music education, musicology and ethnomusicology (pp. 185197). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2017a). Big-C versus little-c creativity: Definitions, implications, and inherent educational contradictions. In Beghetto, R. & Sriraman, B. (Eds.), Creative contradictions in education (pp. 319). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2017b). Creative geniuses, polymaths, child prodigies, and autistic savants: The ambivalent function of interests and obsessions. In O’Keefe, P. A. & Harackiewicz, J. M. (Eds.), The science of interests (pp. 175185). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2018). Defining creativity: Don’t we also need to define what is not creative? Journal of Creative Behavior, 52, 8090. doi:10.1002/jocb.137Google Scholar
Sinatra, R., Wang, D., Deville, P., Song, C., & Barabási, A. L. (2016, Nov. 4). Quantifying the evolution of individual scientific impact. Science, 354, aaf5239. doi:10.1126/science.aaf5239Google Scholar
Slater, E., & Meyer, A. (1959). Contributions to a pathography of the musician: 1. Robert Schumann. Confinia Psychiatrica, 2, 6594.Google ScholarPubMed
Stewart, L. H. (1977). Birth order and political leadership. In Hermann, M. G. (Ed.), The psychological examination of political leaders (pp. 205236). New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Stroebe, W. (2010). The graying of academia: Will it reduce scientific productivity? American Psychologist, 65, 660673. doi:10.1037/a0021086Google Scholar
Sulloway, F. J. (2010). Why siblings are like Darwin’s finches: Birth order, sibling competition, and adaptive divergence within the family. In Buss, D. M. & Hawley, P. H. (Eds.), The evolution of personality and individual differences (pp. 86119). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sulloway, F. J. (2014). Openness to scientific innovation. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 546563). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Sulloway, F. J., & Zweigenhaft, R. L. (2010). Birth order and risk taking in athletics: A meta-analysis and study of major league baseball players. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 402416. doi:10.1177/1088868310361241Google Scholar
Teigen, K. H. (1984). A note on the origin of the term “nature and nurture”: Not Shakespeare and Galton, but Mulcaster. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 20, 363364. doi:10.1002/1520-6696(198410)20:4<363::aid-jhbs2300200406>3.0.co;2-4Google Scholar
Terry, W. S. (1989). Birth order and prominence in the history of psychology. Psychological Record, 39, 333337. doi:10.1007/bf03395885Google Scholar
Vohs, K., Redden, J., & Rahinel, R. (2013). Physical order produces healthy choices, generosity, conventionality, whereas disorder produces creativity. Psychological Science, 24, 18601867. doi:10.1177/0956797613480186Google Scholar
White, R. K. (1931). The versatility of genius. Journal of Social Psychology, 2, 460489. doi:10.1080/00224545.1931.9918987Google Scholar
Winner, E. (2014). Child prodigies and adult genius: A weak link. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 297320). Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, H. (1977). Scientific elite. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×