Creativity and Occupational Accomplishments Among Intellectually Precocious Youths: An Age 13 to Age 33 Longitudinal Study

This study tracks intellectually precocious youths (top 1%) over 20 years. Phase 1 (N = 1,243 boys, 732 girls) examines the significance of age 13 ability differences within the top 1% for predicting doctorates, income, patents, and tenure at U.S. universities ranked within the top 50. Phase 2 (N =...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of educational psychology Vol. 97; no. 3; pp. 484 - 492
Main Authors Wai, Jonathan, Lubinski, David, Benbow, Camilla P
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published American Psychological Association 01.08.2005
Subjects
Academic Achievement
Academically Gifted
Creativity
Intelligence Tests
Longitudinal Studies
Scholastic Aptitude Test
Youth
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Summary:This study tracks intellectually precocious youths (top 1%) over 20 years. Phase 1 (N = 1,243 boys, 732 girls) examines the significance of age 13 ability differences within the top 1% for predicting doctorates, income, patents, and tenure at U.S. universities ranked within the top 50. Phase 2 (N = 323 men, 188 women) evaluates the robustness of discriminant functions developed earlier, based on age-13 ability and preference assessments and calibrated with age-23 educational criteria but extended here to predict occupational group membership at age 33. Positive findings on above-level assessment with the Scholastic Aptitude Test and conventional preference inventories in educational settings generalize to occupational settings. Precocious manifestations of abilities foreshadow the emergence of exceptional achievement and creativity in the world of work; when paired with preferences, they also predict the qualitative nature of these accomplishments.
ISSN:0022-0663
DOI:10.1037/0022-0663.97.3.484