Reverse engineering genius: historiometric studies of superlative talent

Abstract

Although genius has been defined in the dictionary as requiring an IQ above 140, this definition depends on an arbitrary methodological decision made by Lewis Terman for his longitudinal study of more than 1500 intellectually gifted children, a study that occupies four of the five volumes of Genetic Studies of Genius. Yet, only the second volume, by Catharine Cox, studied bona fide geniuses, by applying historiometric methods to 301 highly eminent creators and leaders. After defining historiometric research, I examine the difference between historical genius and intellectual giftedness with respect to heterogeneous intellects, personality differences, and early development and show that the actual relation between IQ and genius is small and heavily contingent on domain-specific assessment, the operation of traits like persistence and openness to experience, and the impact of diversifying experiences, including both developmental adversity and subclinical psychopathology. Hence, the dictionary definition of "genius" has minimal, if any, justification. If, using historiometric methods, one works backward from recognized geniuses, such as those studied by Cox, one might not obtain the kind of sample that Terman obtained for his longitudinal study. The two methods produce two distinct subgroups of the larger population.

The Development of Expertise in the Visual Arts

“…Enhancements of both local and global attentional processing in relation to drawing expertise appear contradictory because a common assumption is that the two modes of processing exist in trade-off with one another. However, recent evidence suggests that artists' enhanced performance in local and global processing tasks represents attentional flexibility rather than an attentional bias (Chamberlain & Wagemans, 2015, 2016b. It has been proposed that artists systematically switch between proximal and distal modes of perception while creating artworks which may account for their ability to attend to holistic view-invariant properties as well as surface level detail (Lou, 2015).…”

Achieving scientific excellence: An exploratory study of the role of emotional and motivational factors

“…Terman's study also refuted the belief that talent and giftedness were some kind of mental and social disorder and that gifted individuals were socially inept. Despite being one of the most influential studies to psychological research of talent and eminence, Terman's main study is based on a gifted group that had come from ideal family backgrounds with stable and stimulating environments, and yet it failed to predict adult success (Simonton, 2016). Personality differences and diversifying experiences along with domain-specific assessment seem to play a bigger role than just IQ in identifying talent and eminence (Simonton, 2016).…”

“…Despite being one of the most influential studies to psychological research of talent and eminence, Terman's main study is based on a gifted group that had come from ideal family backgrounds with stable and stimulating environments, and yet it failed to predict adult success (Simonton, 2016). Personality differences and diversifying experiences along with domain-specific assessment seem to play a bigger role than just IQ in identifying talent and eminence (Simonton, 2016). Roe (1953) studied the impact of environmental influences in professional choices and career success as well as personality and social skills of scientists and artists.…”

“…Heller, 2007;Lubinski, Benbow, Shea, Eftekhari-Sanjani, & Halvorson, 2001;Shavinina, 2009a) that investigated the determinants of scientific talent concluded that it requires the right mix of cognitive ability, educational opportunities, and other noncognitive attributes such as motivation, sustained commitment, and specific preferences. While the role of intelligence and superior cognitive abilities seems to matter at early ages, its determinant value in adulthood is still debatable (Simonton, 2016). Recent reports (e.g.…”

“…Recently, Simonton (2014, p. 67) stated that "the phenomenon of exceptional achievement is much too complicated to permit simplistic, one-sided explanations. " Multiple and vague definitions as well as diverse criteria are used to identify excellent performers, especially in adulthood (Lounsbury et al, 2012;Shanteau, Weiss, Thomas, & Pounds, 2002), and not always considering the specific and differential requirements of a disciplinary field (Simonton, 1991(Simonton, , 2016. Performance criteria have been used to measure scientific excellence, including counting citations or number of publications, and these seem to be indeed predictive of career success.…”