Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth After 35 Years: Uncovering Antecedents for the Development of Math-Science Expertise

This review provides an account of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) after 35 years of longitudinal research. Findings from recent 20-year follow-ups from three cohorts, plus 5- or 10-year findings from all five SMPY cohorts (totaling more than 5,000 participants), are presented. SMPY has devoted particular attention to uncovering personal antecedents necessary for the development of exceptional math-science careers and to developing educational interventions to facilitate learning among intellectually precocious youth. Along with mathematical gifts, high levels of spatial ability, investigative interests, and theoretical values form a particularly promising aptitude complex indicative of potential for developing scientific expertise and of sustained commitment to scientific pursuits. Special educational opportunities, however, can markedly enhance the development of talent. Moreover, extraordinary scientific accomplishments require extraordinary commitment both in and outside of school. The theory of work adjustment (TWA) is useful in conceptualizing talent identification and development and bridging interconnections among educational, counseling, and industrial psychology. The lens of TWA can clarify how some sex differences emerge in educational settings and the world of work. For example, in the SMPY cohorts, although more mathematically precocious males than females entered math-science careers, this does not necessarily imply a loss of talent because the women secured similar proportions of advanced degrees and high-level careers in areas more correspondent with the multidimensionality of their ability-preference pattern (e.g., administration, law, medicine, and the social sciences). By their mid-30s, the men and women appeared to be happy with their life choices and viewed themselves as equally successful (and objective measures support these subjective impressions). Given the ever-increasing importance of quantitative and scientific reasoning skills in modern cultures, when mathematically gifted individuals choose to pursue careers outside engineering and the physical sciences, it should be seen as a contribution to society, not a loss of talent.

[1]  Beryl Lieff Benderly,et al.  Rising Above "The Gathering Storm" , 2007 .

[2]  David Lubinski,et al.  Spatial Ability: A Neglected Dimension In Talent Searches For Intellectually Precocious Youth , 2007 .

[3]  J. Stanley,et al.  Insights From SMPY's Greatest Former Child Prodigies: Drs. Terence (“Terry”) Tao and Lenhard (“Lenny”) Ng Reflect on Their Talent Development , 2006 .

[4]  R. Lippa,et al.  The gender reality hypothesis. , 2006, The American psychologist.

[5]  I. Deary,et al.  Sex differences in cognitive abilities test scores: a UK national picture. , 2006, The British journal of educational psychology.

[6]  Robert Plomin,et al.  Sex differences in variance of intelligence across childhood. , 2006 .

[7]  David Lubinski,et al.  Tracking Exceptional Human Capital Over Two Decades , 2006, Psychological science.

[8]  James M. Jones,et al.  Increasing the number of psychologists of color: public policy issues for affirmative diversity. , 2006, The American psychologist.

[9]  John C. Huber,et al.  Inventive productivity and the statistics of exceedances , 1999, Scientometrics.

[10]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Julian C. Stanley Jr. (1918-2005). , 2006 .

[11]  David Lubinski,et al.  Creativity and Occupational Accomplishments Among Intellectually Precocious Youths: An Age 13 to Age 33 Longitudinal Study. , 2005 .

[12]  G. Brown.  Taking sex differences seriously , 2005 .

[13]  F. Gagné,et al.  From Noncompetence to Exceptional Talent: Exploring the Range of Academic Achievement Within and Between Grade Levels , 2005 .

[14]  Jane Zimmer Daniels,et al.  Gender Differences and Performance in Science , 2005, Science.

[15]  Stephen J Ceci,et al.  The rhetoric and reality of gap closing: when the "have-nots" gain but the "haves" gain even more . , 2005, The American psychologist.

[16]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Blending Promise with Passion: Best Practices for Counseling Intellectually Talented Youth. , 2005 .

[17]  R. Dawis,et al.  The Minnesota Theory of Work Adjustment. , 2005 .

[18]  L. Spångberg.  The world is flat. , 2005, Oral surgery, oral medicine, oral pathology, oral radiology, and endodontics.

[19]  S. Assouline,et al.  A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students. The Templeton National Report on Acceleration. Volume 2. , 2004 .

[20]  S. Rhoads.  Taking Sex Differences Seriously , 2004 .

[21]  Helping students learn only what they don't already know. , 2000 .

[22]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Advanced Placement’s Role in Developing Exceptional Human Capital , 2004 .

[23]  D. Lubinski.  Introduction to the special section on cognitive abilities: 100 years after Spearman's (1904) "'General intelligence,' objectively determined and measured". , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  I. Deary,et al.  Population sex differences in IQ at age 11: the Scottish mental survey 1932 , 2003 .

[25]  L. Gottfredson.  The Challenge and Promise of Cognitive Career Assessment , 2003 .

[26]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Mathematically facile adolescents with math-science aspirations: New perspectives on their educational and vocational development. , 2002 .

[27]  Kingsley R. Browne.  Biology at Work: Rethinking Sexual Equality , 2002 .

[28]  Ellen B. Mandinach,et al.  Remaking the Concept of Aptitude: Extending the Legacy of Richard E. Snow , 2001 .

[29]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Importance of Assessing Spatial Ability in Intellectually Talented Young Adolescents: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study. , 2001 .

[30]  David Lubinski,et al.  Men and Women at Promise for Scientific Excellence: Similarity Not Dissimilarity , 2001, Psychological science.

[31]  R. Dawis.  1999 Leona Tyler Award: Rene V. Dawis , 2001 .

[32]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Validity of Assessing Educational-Vocational Preference Dimensions Among Intellectually Talented 13-Year-Olds , 2001 .

[33]  Douglas Fuchs,et al.  Is Reading Important in Reading-Readiness Programs? A Randomized Field Trial with Teachers as Program Implementers. , 2001 .

[34]  D. Lubinski.  Interests: A Critical Domain of Psychological Diversity. , 2001 .

[35]  S. Messick,et al.  Assessment in Higher Education : Issues of Access, Quality, Student Development and Public Policy , 2001 .

[36]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Top 1 in 10,000: a 10-year follow-up of the profoundly gifted. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[37]  David Lubinski,et al.  Sex Differences in Mathematical Reasoning Ability at Age 13: Their Status 20 Years Later , 2000, Psychological science.

[38]  Diane F. Halpern,et al.  Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities. Third Edition. , 2000 .

[39]  D. Lubinski,et al.  States of excellence. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[40]  D Lubinski,et al.  Scientific and social significance of assessing individual differences: "sinking shafts at a few critical points". , 2000, Annual review of psychology.

[41]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Assessing vocational preferences among gifted adolescents adds incremental validity to abilities: A discriminant analysis of educational outcomes over a 10-year interval. , 1999 .

[42]  E. Eisner.  The Uses and Limits of Performance Assessment , 1999 .

[43]  Arnold R. Spokane,et al.  Vocational Interests: Meaning, Measurement, and Counseling Use , 1999 .

[44]  John M. Swales,et al.  Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge , 1999 .

[45]  Lynn S. Fuchs,et al.  Mathematics Performance Assessment in the Classroom: Effects on Teacher Planning and Student Problem Solving , 1999 .

[46]  D. Kimura.  Sex and cognition , 1999 .

[47]  M. Day,et al.  The road to excellence [human resource management] , 1999 .

[48]  D. Geary.  Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences , 1998 .

[49]  Carol L. Gohm,et al.  Underachievement Among Spatially Gifted Students , 1998 .

[50]  Michael C. Pyryt.  Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies , 1998 .

[51]  Susan X. Day,et al.  Universality of Vocational Interest Structure among Racial and Ethnic Minorities. , 1998 .

[52]  R. Lippa.  Gender-related individual differences and the structure of vocational interests: the importance of the people-things dimension. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[53]  John C. Huber.  Invention and Inventivity as a Special Kind of Creativity, with Implications for General Creativity. , 1998 .

[54]  C. Murray.  Income Inequality and IQ , 1998 .

[55]  R. Abbott,et al.  Developmental Changes in Mathematically Precocious Young Children: Longitudinal and Gender Effects , 1997 .

[56]  Ira Horowitz,et al.  The Increasing Competitive Balance in Major League Baseball , 1997 .

[57]  Eric D. Heggestad,et al.  Intelligence, personality, and interests: evidence for overlapping traits. , 1997, Psychological bulletin.

[58]  M. Howe.  IQ in Question: The Truth about Intelligence , 1997 .

[59]  Lloyd G. Humphreys,et al.  Incorporating General Intelligence into Epidemiology and the Social Sciences. , 1997 .

[60]  David Lubinski,et al.  A 20-year stability analysis of the study of values for intellectually gifted individuals from adolescence to adulthood. , 1996 .

[61]  A. Jensen,et al.  The g factor , 1996, Nature.

[62]  J. Stanley,et al.  INEQUITY IN EQUITY: How "Equity" Can Lead to Inequity for High-Potential Students , 1996 .

[63]  D. Lubinski.  Applied individual differences research and its quantitative methods. , 1996 .

[64]  S. Scarr.  How people make their own environments: Implications for parents and policy makers. , 1996 .

[65]  Virginia W. Berninger,et al.  Structure of abilities in math-precocious young children: Gender similarities and differences. , 1996 .

[66]  John L. Holland,et al.  Exploring careers with a typology: What we have learned and some new directions. , 1996 .

[67]  P. Ackerman.  A theory of adult intellectual development: Process, personality, interests, and knowledge , 1996 .

[68]  J. Stanley,et al.  Intellectual talent : psychometric and social issues , 1996 .

[69]  D. Lubinski,et al.  The impact of SMPY's educational programs from the perspective of the participant. , 1996 .

[70]  Acceleration among the Terman males: Correlates in midlife and after. , 1996 .

[71]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Multipotentiality among the intellectually gifted: "It was never there and already it's vanishing." , 1996 .

[72]  L. Hedges,et al.  Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals. , 1995, Science.

[73]  H. Eysenck.  Genius: The Natural History of Creativity , 1995 .

[74]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Stability of vocational interests among the intellectually gifted from adolescence to adulthood: a 15-year longitudinal study. , 1995, The Journal of applied psychology.

[75]  A. Feingold.  The additive effects of differences in central tendency and variability are important in comparisons between groups. , 1995 .

[76]  B Alexander,et al.  The road to excellence. , 1995, RDH.

[77]  J. Arnett,et al.  The Limits of Family Influence: Genes, Experience, and Behavior , 1995 .

[78]  Dean Keith Simonton,et al.  Greatness: Who Makes History and Why , 1994 .

[79]  Richard E. Snow,et al.  A Person-Situation Interaction Theory of Intelligence in Outline , 1994 .

[80]  Robert G. Wood,et al.  Pay Differences among the Highly Paid: The Male-Female Earnings Gap in Lawyers' Salaries , 1993, Journal of Labor Economics.

[81]  L G Humphreys,et al.  Utility of predicting group membership and the role of spatial visualization in becoming an engineer, physical scientist, or artist. , 1993, The Journal of applied psychology.

[82]  J. Carroll.  Human Cognitive Abilities-a sur-vey of factor-analytic studies , 1993 .

[83]  L. Tyler.  Counseling psychology: Why? , 1992 .

[84]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Gender Differences in Abilities and Preferences Among the Gifted: Implications for the Math-Science Pipeline , 1992 .

[85]  Camilla Persson Benbow,et al.  Academic achievement in mathematics and science of students between ages 13 and 23: Are there differences among students in the top one percent of mathematical ability? , 1992 .

[86]  R. Dawis.  The Individual Differences Tradition in Counseling Psychology. , 1992 .

[87]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Aptitudes, skills and proficiencies. , 1992 .

[88]  J. Shurkin.  Terman's Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up , 1992 .

[89]  Diane F. Halpern,et al.  Sex differences in cognitive abilities, 2nd ed. , 1992 .

[90]  F. Rivera-batiz,et al.  Quantitative Literacy and the Likelihood of Employment among Young Adults in the United States , 1992 .

[91]  Camilla Persson Benbow,et al.  Ten-year longitudinal follow-up of ability-matched accelerated and unaccelerated gifted students , 1991 .

[92]  C. Benbow,et al.  A 10-YEAR LONGITUDINAL FOLLOW-UP OF PARTICIPANTS IN A FAST-PACED MATHEMATICS COURSE , 1991 .

[93]  R. Dawis.  Vocational interests, values, and preferences. , 1991 .

[94]  A. Jensen.  Spearman's g and the Problem of Educational Equality , 1991 .

[95]  D. Shye.  Gender differences in Israeli physicians' career patterns, productivity and family structure. , 1991, Social science & medicine.

[96]  Linda E. Brody,et al.  Effects of High School Coursework and Time on SAT Scores. , 1990 .

[97]  L. Humphreys,et al.  A broadly based analysis of mathematical giftedness , 1990 .

[98]  L. Humphreys,et al.  Assessing spurious "moderator effects": Illustrated substantively with the hypothesized ("synergistic") relation between spatial and mathematical ability. , 1990, Psychological bulletin.

[99]  J. T. Austin,et al.  Occupational attainment as a function of abilities and interests: a longitudinal analysis using project TALENT data. , 1990, The Journal of applied psychology.

[100]  R. Snow,et al.  Implications of cognitive psychology for educational measurement. , 1989 .

[101]  V. Fuchs,et al.  Women's Quest for Economic Equality. , 1989 .

[102]  C. Benbow.  Some of the pathological assumptions in the sciences of gender , 1988, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[103]  Douglas N. Jackson,et al.  Scientific Excellence: Origins and Assessment , 1987 .

[104]  Lauren A. Sosniak,et al.  Developing Talent in Young People , 1985 .

[105]  Gura Bhargava.  Professional identification: a study of female students at a medical college in India. , 1985, Social science & medicine.

[106]  R. Dawis,et al.  A psychological theory of work adjustment : an individual-differences model and its applications , 1984 .

[107]  T. F. Donlon.  The College Board technical handbook for the scholastic aptitude test and achievement tests , 1984 .

[108]  S. Scarr,et al.  How people make their own environments: a theory of genotype greater than environment effects. , 1983, Child development.

[109]  J. Stanley,et al.  Academic precocity, aspects of its development , 1983 .

[110]  Harrison G. Gough,et al.  The adjective check list manual , 1983 .

[111]  Dale J. Prediger.  Dimensions Underlying Holland's Hexagon: Missing Link between Interests and Occupations?. , 1982 .

[112]  J. Jenkins.  Can we have a fruitful cognitive psychology? , 1980, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation.

[113]  Julian C. Stanley,et al.  Educating the gifted : acceleration and enrichment : revised and expanded proceedings of the Ninth Annual Hyman Blumberg Symposium on Research in Early Childhood Education , 1979 .

[114]  Robert B. Davis,et al.  The Gifted and the Creative: A Fifty-Year Perspective , 1977 .

[115]  R. A. Raimi.  Mathematical Talent: Discovery, Description and Development , 1976 .

[116]  L. Aiken,et al.  Intellectual Talent: Research and Development , 1976 .

[117]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  A quasi-experimental approach to assessing treatment effects in the nonequivalent control group design. , 1975 .

[118]  J. Stanley,et al.  Mathematical Talent: Discovery, Description, and Development (MT:D3) , 1975 .

[119]  Benton J. Underwood,et al.  Individual differences as a crucible in theory construction. , 1975 .

[120]  J. Bohn,et al.  Adjustment to work , 1973 .

[121]  J. Stanley,et al.  Extreme Measures for the Exceptionally Gifted in Mathematics and Science , 1972 .

[122]  David P. Campbell,et al.  Handbook for the Strong Vocational Interest Blank , 1971 .

[123]  C. A. Vale,et al.  Individual differences and general laws in psychology: A reconciliation. , 1969 .

[124]  I. Macfarlane Smith,et al.  Spatial ability : its educational and social significance , 1965 .

[125]  J. W. Getzels,et al.  Creativity and Intelligence: Explorations with Gifted Students. , 1962 .

[126]  John D. Nisbet,et al.  Studies in individual differences: the search for intelligence , 1964 .

[127]  J. W. Getzels,et al.  Creativity and Intelligence: Explorations with Gifted Students. , 1962 .

[128]  [Vocational counseling]. , 1959, Nederlands tijdschrift voor de psychologie en haar grensgebieden.

[129]  L. Cronbach.  The two disciplines of scientific psychology. , 1957 .

[130]  Donald G. Paterson.  The conservation of human talent. , 1957 .

[131]  A. Roe.  The psychology of occupations. , 1957 .

[132]  L. Terman.  The discovery and encouragement of exceptional talent , 1954 .

[133]  A. Anastasi.  Individual differences. , 2020, Annual review of psychology.

[134]  L. Thurstone.  Psychological implications of factor analysis. , 1948, The American psychologist.

[135]  L. Tyler.  The psychology of human differences. , 1947 .

[136]  S L Pressey.  Acceleration: Disgrace or Challenge? , 1946, Science.

[137]  TH E llIEDI,et al.  INDIVIDUALITY , 1945 .

[138]  Stephen M. Corey,et al.  Vocational interests of men and women. , 1944 .

[139]  W. Dearborn.  Genetic Studies of Genius , 1926 .

[140]  C. Seashore.  THE GIFTED STUDENT AND RESEARCH. , 1922, Science.

[141]  F. Galton.  Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences , 1914, Nature.